The Truth Will Set You Free

"The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off." Gloria Steinem

She shot him dead, his blood splattering against the brick wall of the alley, and she wasn't sorry.

She looked at her watch, tilting it to catch the faint glow of the streetlight on the corner barely illuminating the alley. 11:21pm. Good work. A moment later, there were only shadows where she had stood, and the sound of her beat up firebird receded into the dense city night like a dream.

At home, she turned on the water, hot. She looked in the mirror for a long moment before undressing, and then nodded solemnly. He'd deserved to die. She just wished she could say that about everyone the Star decided she should pick off. But she shook her head dismissively, she had been a hitwoman for long enough to know that it wasn't wise to go messing around with morals. The Star said they went down, and she took them down, that was that. The Star always had good reasons. Donna stripped off her black clothes and got into the shower. She didn't think the hot water had ever felt quite so heavenly before.

Later that night, she called Lenny. She hadn't talked to him in ages and she was a little lonely.

"Hello?" Lenny's voice was so sweet and unassuming it made her grin.

"Guess who?" She said, still grinning.

"Donna? Donna!" Lenny's voice changed, taking on a slightly defensive tone. "Where have you been? You haven't called me in a week at least."

Donna sighed. If Lenny had one fault, it was trying to understand her. And that was a mistake, because Lenny, despite his best efforts, would never understand her, and that was just the way she wanted it. Donna understood herself intimately, as any truly good hitwoman does, and that was all she really wanted. It was unwise at best to bring someone else in that close to her, at worst it was homicide. She'd heard the tales. The boyfriend who knew too much, the girlfriend who tried to understand. If your enemies got wind of them...

Donna didn't finish her thought.

"Donna?" Lenny was saying, sounding more vexed than usual. "I asked you a question."

Donna ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. "Hey baby, I'm sorry. I've just had some work that needed looking after, that's all. Why don't you come on over here and we'll talk, ok?"

She didn't mean to. She really didn't. But there was something about Lenny's arms, something about being held safer and warmer than she'd ever experienced that made Donna talk.

She'd put Ella Fitzgerald on the stereo, volume turned just loud enough to bathe the room softly with the silky glow of her voice. Donna sat on the plush red sofa next to Lenny, quietly sipping her drink and staring at the wall, lost in thought. Lenny was humming along with Ella, "Every time we say goodbye, I die a little..."

Suddenly, she turned around and looked at him. He smiled, his warm brown eyes crinkling around the edges. "You got something on your mind baby?"

Donna stared at him for a long moment, weighing. Then she said slowly, "Lenny, what would you say if I told you I killed a man tonight?"

3:41am. Moonlight (or was it just a brazen streetlight?) filtered in through the small, high apartment window, falling softly on the bed and picking out a strand of Lenny's black curls, casting a milky sheen on his pale skin. His breath came evenly, his gently muscled arm lay softly over Donna's waist. She raised her head and softly, tenderly kissed his peaceful forhead. Then, silent as a moonbeam, she slipped from his arms and pulled on her clothes. The door closed behind her with a soft click, and the night shadows swallowed her spare frame hungrily. She would be back before he awoke, but first she must report to the Star. The Star always came first.

"Password?" The bum outside the brownstone apartment building asked in a muffled slur as she shook his filth encrusted hand. Donna grinned tightly in the dark, this week's password she especially liked. "The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. Gloria Steinem." She added smugly, hissing the words into the bum's greasy ear.

"Check" He mumbled, and in one swift movement, reached to unlock the door for her. In a second, she had slid past him and disappeared up the black stairs.

Donna went through two more password guards before she reached the red door on the 4^th floor. She took a deep breath and knocked.

"Come in" the melodious voice replied from inside. Donna exhaled and pushed open the door.

The Star looked fabulous as usual, and just as terrifying as always.

"So" The Star said slowly, her voice soft and congenial. "Your assignment went according to schedule I presume?"

"Yes" Donna replied, nodding.

The Star nodded back solemnly, her gray eyes never leaving Donna's. "You know you're getting to be one of my best Hits, male or female, don't you Donna?" The Star's finger went up, smoothed back a strand of short, graying hair, went down again. "Just like Judy was, rest her soul."

Donna nodded stiffly, felt the slight twinge at the mention of her sister, felt the hard anger swirl for a moment in her stomach, before being locked down again under her cool. A hitwoman was never flustered.

"You're young Donna, hilariously young, but you've got the mind, the will, the guts, and the muscle that a Hit needs to suceed. And suceed you shall." The Star paused, her eyes boring into Donna's as though they were working their way into her mind, laying all her thoughts and secrets bare. Donna felt a slight shiver creep up her spine. The Star was the only person Donna had ever met who she was convinced could read minds. That was the only way to describe the uncanny power and knowledge the Star posessed. That and the fact that the Star had eyes and ears in every part of the city.

"Donna" the Star continued afer a long moment. "I trust you. I know you have never questioned my assignments for you, even though sometimes you might have been inclined to...disagree. I have a particular assignment for you now, and I ask you this time to trust my judgement more than you ever have before. I always have good reasons." The Star paused again, her eyes watching Donna with the cold ferocity of a raptor.

Donna swallowed and said "I have always accepted your judgement. I continue to now. What do you want me to do?"

The Star smiled slowly, slowly. Donna thought she could almost hear the unused wheels grating, squealing behind the flesh of her face. Then the Star spoke, spoke like a night in the Artic, spoke like a scream at blood-dipped dawn.

"You will kill Lenny. He is your weak spot. He knows too much. If he lives, you will fail."

The words seemed to bounce off Donna like bubbles, unreal, harmless, almost amusing. Kill Lenny? Inconceivable. Lenny had done nothing. Lenny had never done and would never do anything to catch the attention of the Star.

Donna kept staring at the Star, and everything seemed sharper than usual, hard and razor thin as though it had been cut from glass. The Star was there in the middle of it, sharp, sharp, dangerously sharp. Oh God why didn't I see how sharp she was before? Donna's mind began to race, and then spun slowly out to a thin, thin thread.

The Star was saying something. "Do you understand Donna? He's too close to you, he knows too much. He has to die."

And suddenly Donna realized, realized like running into a full speed train, just why Lenny had to die.

No flitted through her mind like a bird. No rested on the table, No spread it's black wings and scratched at her face, her hands, her guts. Lenny would die for her stupidity. Lenny would die because she had trusted him for one moment, one feeble moment.

"Donna" the voice was hard, the voice could kill all by itself. "I know what you told him tonight."

No alighted on Donna's shoulder, digging it's claws in until it drew blood. Donna froze. How how how, no, where who how, NO! flashed through her mind like lightning striking, singeing flesh and bone and nerves.

But the Star was still sitting there, the woman with the power in her mind and the muscles of a warrior and the voice that killed. She was waiting for an answer.

Down, down, through the halls of No, down through the raw screaming in her brain, came a cool, white, sleek-edged word, cold and composed and stronger than all the No's.

"Yes" Donna said, and walked out of the room. The red door swung closed behind her, dripping with it's unspoken blood.

The sidewalk was a nightmare under her boots. Every streetlight was an accusing pair of eyes. Oh God. How could she have been so stupid? To tell Lenny about her job, just tonight's assignment out of them all, just those few tiny words in an ocean of words, a world of words, and now Lenny would die for her stupidity.

But then she heard a voice.

You need no one sis.

The words echoed back to her, so real they made her stop dead in her tracks.

You never need anyone but yourself and your boss. Remember. No one else. Not even me. Always remember that.

Her older sister had said that. Judy. Dead. Dead fucking murdered dead. Murdered by their enemies, the Star's enemies, murdered at 26, her brown hair full of blood. Donna could still see the look on her face when they'd shot her...

And then there was only red in Donna's vision, only pure, undiluted rage. Oh God. Those motherfuckers were finally going to pay for Judy. She would do her boss' bidding no matter what it cost her, because the Star's enemies were her enemies, and the Star always had a good reason. The Star had loved Judy. Loved Judy. Oh God.

Her apartment stairs fell away beneath her feet, the door opened silently with her key, the carpeting of her apartment muffled her footfalls. Without even conciously thinking about it, her 9mm was in her hand. The dark of the apartment pressed against her like a living thing, touched her arms, the nape of her neck, breathing heavily in her ear. The bedroom doorknob slid silkily under her fingertips. Her mind was suddenly blank and calm. You never questioned the Star. Lenny would die and Donna would learn from her mistake and never get that stupidly close to anyone again. Never never never again.

The door opened.

She stood still for a moment, her eyes following the beam of the moonlight (streetlight?) that fell from the high window like water. Her eyes followed it to where it fell on the bed. She stood absolutely still for a moment, and then in the stillness, the stillness before a gunshot, she heard him breathing.

She bent over him, black angel of death. The gun was cold and tender in her hand. She pointed it slowly at his head. She forced herself not to think.

And then he spoke. It could have been coincedence, or divine fate, or many other things, but Lenny spoke softly out of the stillness and aimed gun and wordless night.

He said "Donna." That was all. Soft, soft seashell sound of a baby kitten. That was all.

Her hand did not shake as she lowered the gun. Her eyes did not tear. Her heart did several cartwheels and exploded loudly into July fireworks, but then lay quiet. She gathered Lenny warm and baby-soft in her arms. He made another kitten noise and then jumped awake and turned to look at her with his deep-set eyes, shaking his black hair from his face. Donna's head reeled and for a second, she bent down and rested it on Lenny's chest. Her breath caught raspy in her throat. She jerked up.

"Lenny" Donna whispered with every ounce of ferocity she had. "Get the hell out of here now. Meet me on the bridge by 52^nd and Lake street in 10 minutes. Go now. I may not make it there. If I'm not there in 10 minutes, don't wait for me. There are eyes everywhere. Get the hell out, go anywhere, go to Mexico, just don't stay here. Now GO!" Donna shoved him away from her with all her force, which sent him tumbling across the bed and onto the floor. He jumped up and stared at her, his eyes as big as frisbees. Donna stared back at him across the bed, starting to growl at him to get out, but before she could, she saw his eyes soften, and for the second time in her life, Donna felt someone brush her thoughts, and know her, know her as she knew herself.

An overpowering shudder wracked her body and she couldn't look away. Then Lenny nodded and said more powerful than courage and more warm than summer, "I love you Donna." And then he was gone, gone like a cat, disappearing into the night as though he had never been.

Donna's heart caught in her throat, and for a moment she couldn't breath. Oh Lenny, oh God Lenny. How could I ever have even thought...? But suddenly she sprang away from the bed like a panther, kicked in the door of the bedroom closet with one fluid movement, and shot the man crouching inside before he had a chance to blink, shoot, or touch his walkie talkie. Donna stared at him in almost shock. But the Star had her sources.

Donna paused only long enough to pick up the walkie talkie from the man's warm fingers and eye it with disgust. Then she turned it off, hurled it against the wall, and bolted out the door. The night turned her to shadow, her loose hair trailing ghostly behind her as she ran, her gun solid and deadly in her hand. She ran fast, faster, through the night, skirting streetlights, following Lenny, feeling feer than she had ever felt in her life before.

~Becky~