A Job
Wednesday never asked questions. That was the rule. She didn’t ask why a job was assigned to her. Didn’t ask who the target was beyond the necessary details. She certainly didn’t ask why someone wanted another person dead. She took the job, completed the job, and moved on. No hesitation, no emotion, no attachment.
It was always the same: get in, kill, get out. And tonight would be no different.
The town was quiet, wrapped in the kind of late-night stillness that belonged only to insomniacs and the desperate. There was something about the way cities breathed at night—not in the loud, sprawling way they did during the day, when streets were clogged with bodies and voices, but in the quiet, lurking hum of something alive. Even in stillness, there was movement. Distant sirens. Flickering neon signs. The restless scurry of something small and unseen in the alleys.
Wednesday moved through it all like a ghost, her body attuned to every shift in sound and shadow. The world had a rhythm, and she had learned to slip between its notes.
Silent as a breath, she approached the run-down apartment complex, the sharp scent of rain clinging to the air. A single window on the third floor was still lit, casting a pale square of light against the darkness. Third floor. Unit 3B.
That was her target.
Wednesday never researched her marks—too much knowledge made things messy. The kind of commission Wednesday preferred: no details, no backstory, just a description, an address, and a price. A simple job. No security. No alarms. Just an old apartment, cheap and small, tucked away in a part of the city where people didn’t ask questions.
She adjusted the strap of her jacket and slipped into the alley beside the building. The fire escape loomed above her, rusted, the metal groaning under her weight, but she knew exactly how to move, where to step, where to become the darkness. She climbed with practiced efficiency, slipping from shadow to shadow like she had a hundred times before.
She flexed her fingers once before reaching for the window. It was unlocked. Amateur mistake. With the care of someone who had done this too many times to count, she eased it open and slipped inside without a sound, her boots landing softly on worn hardwood floors.
The first thing she noticed was the smell.
Warmth.
Vanilla body spray. The lingering scent of instant ramen. Fabric softener clinging to the heap of blankets on the unmade bed. A laptop sat open on the desk, casting a dim glow over cluttered notes, an abandoned coffee cup, and a half-eaten granola bar.
This was not what she expected. Wednesday didn’t usually pay attention to her surroundings. A target was a target—nothing more. But something about this place felt lived in.
This was a person’s space.
She hesitated. This wasn’t the kind of space that belonged to someone who had made dangerous enemies. She had killed criminals in high-rise penthouses, corrupt executives in soulless offices, desperate men in the back alleys of places like this. People who knew why they had been marked for death. People who deserved it. But this?
This was just… a girl’s room.
She didn’t usually linger. Didn’t observe. But she stood there, silent, scanning the room—the pile of clothes tossed over a chair, the half-filled mug of coffee, the small personal touches that made up a life.
Her target was curled up in bed, tangled in a blanket that had likely been kicked off and reclaimed several times throughout the night. A hoodie too big for her swallowed most of her frame, her hair splayed messily over the pillow. Her phone lay loosely in her hand, the glow of unread messages illuminating strands of dark hair.
She looked young. Too young for this.
Wednesday had killed men in silk suits and women in blood-red cocktail dresses. She had taken out arms dealers, corrupt executives, people who knew they had enemies and expected to die at any moment.
But this girl?
She looked like she had fallen asleep halfway through some late-night doomscrolling session, entirely unaware that death had slipped through her window.
Not the daughter of a crime lord. Not a corporate heir. Not someone with a long list of enemies or debts to pay.
The girl stirred. A slow, sleepy shift. A breath. A small frown, like something in her dreams had unsettled her. Then—her eyes opened.
Wednesday didn’t move.
She had seen this moment before—the sleepy confusion, the half-dazed brain trying to piece together reality. The very second a person’s body recognized what their mind had yet to process: something was wrong ; they were not alone. Then came the fear.
She watched as it set in—the sharp inhale, the fingers twitching against the blanket, the sudden tension in limbs that hadn’t yet caught up with panic. Any second now. A scream. A scramble. A desperate attempt at survival.
Except—
“…Holy shit.”
The girl’s voice was hoarse from sleep, soft with disbelief. She didn’t move. Didn’t lunge away or try to bolt for the door. She was still processing, blinking sleepily up at Wednesday, brain clearly struggling to catch up to what her eyes were seeing.
And then—to Wednesday’s complete bewilderment—the girl’s gaze flickered, almost imperceptibly, down her body.
Then back up.
The girl swallowed. “You’re—uh. You’re…” She floundered.
Wednesday narrowed her eyes. Here it comes. The scream. The panic. The fight for survival.
Then—
“You’re hot.”
Wednesday blinked. That was… not the reaction she expected.