The notification came silently. I looked at it for a while, then took a deep sigh. She was only sending the message because it was compulsory if she wanted to get the free pass. Otherwise, a sneak attack would have worked better.

“Why her of all people?”

…

She was smart, pretty, and always knew the right words to say. She was new, so very few people knew her. But the few that did liked her. That includes my girlfriend, Elsie.

However, that little act wasn't fooling me. And she knew it. In fact, she realised this fact the day she first spoke to me. The day I accidentally called her by her real name. She didn't know who I was, but she now knew I knew who she was.

I hadn't even intended to say her real name. We were in my girlfriend's room at the hostel, making cookies. Elsie had thought it would be a great way to welcome the newcomer, since she had been assigned the duty of guiding her around the school. And for a reason Elsie didn't explain very well, I had to be there.

When I knocked on the door to Elsie's room, she (the newcomer) was the one who opened the door.

"Hi, you must be Elsie's boyfriend," she said, stretching her hand to greet me. I shook it.

'Her hand is so soft.'

"Yeah, I'm Jake. It's a pleasure meeting you, umm..." I paused since I didn't know her name.

"Anna."

'Anna?'

That's when the déjà vu hit me, like a surge of energy rushing through my brain. I just stood there, staring into her light brown eyes. Those eyes...

"Are you coming in?"

'Oh shit.'

I was still holding her hand. I let go.

"Yes, of course."

'What is going on with me?'

Elsie was in the kitchen, cooking. So I took off my coat and started helping out. The longer I stayed in the same room as Anna, the more I was ticked off by her presence. I'd seen her somewhere, or I knew her in some way.

“I gotta use the bathroom,” Elsie said as she left. I found that a bit weird, since I had heard the toilet flush as Anna was opening the door when I arrived.

As I was taking the cookies out, a sudden dizziness hit me, nearly making me drop them.

I looked at Anna for a few seconds.

She felt so familiar, yet I couldn't quite place my finger on how. A few seconds passed.

Then, the name hit me.

"Anna... Anastasia." I didn't notice I had said it out loud.

"Pardon?" Anna said, looking at me, confused.

"No, it's nothing.”

I could feel her gaze hang on me for a second too long. I resisted the urge to look at her.

“Are the eggs done?” I asked to shift attention.

She didn’t respond. Either she hadn’t heard what I said, or was thinking about something.

An awkward silence ensued. I could almost feel each passing second tick away as I desperately tried to avoid looking at her.

“How are the cookies?” she asked, taking the eggs out of the pan.

"Delicious," I said, letting out a nervous chuckle to kill the tense mood.

"If you say so, Gordon Ramsey," she said, laughing.

'Maybe she didn't hear what I said.' At least, that's what I told myself. If only I had seen the look she gave me when she heard me say her name, her real name.

But yes, she was without a doubt Anastasia Stargaze. I was sure of it.

"Elsie! The cookies are ready," she announced.

“I’m coming,”

I couldn’t help but notice the change in how she was looking at me. It was now more like studying me.

Later, as we were eating…

“So, will you guys be trick-or-treating this Halloween?” Anna asked.

“No, because someone,” she said, looking at me. “Always has plans and never spends time with me during holidays. Can you imagine we’ve never enjoyed Halloween together?” Elsie replied.

“Why not?” Anna said, looking at me. It was more of a suspicious rather than a curious glance.

“I’ve told you a million times, Elsie. The agency I work for doesn’t recognise Halloween as a real holiday. In fact, there’s not a single company I know that does.”

“Of course, there isn’t. It’s always about the agency, no time for other things in life.” Elsie looked away in dissatisfaction. She was angry. This wasn’t the first time we were talking about this.

Anna smiled.

‘Yep. She definitely heard me say her real name. I guess I’m doing it.’

After a brief silence,

“Elsie, could you get me the hoodie I had left last time I was here?”

“Go get it yourself.”

I stopped eating and looked at Elsie.

“Pardon?” I asked. Anna kept eating, pretending she wasn’t present.

“Just kidding, lemme go get it.”

I silently observed her for a while. I had felt genuine resentment coming from her in that brief moment.

She stood up as she wiped her mouth with a serviette. The moment Elsie walked out the door, I grabbed a table knife.

“You have ten seconds. Why are you really here?” I said to Anna. I wasn’t playing around. We both knew this.

After taking a bite of the egg, she put down the fork and knife, then smiled.

“You’ve changed so much.” She looked straight into my eyes. She was wearing contact lenses.

“I hadn’t even recognised you at first until you slipped up and said my fucking name.”

“What do they want? They couldn’t have sent you of all people if it wasn’t important.”

“You should be more concerned about your own safety.”

We heard Elsie coming back. I put the knife down.

‘What does she mean by my own safety?’

I didn’t talk to her again until it came time for us to leave.

‘8.40 p.m.’

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said to Anastasia as we were walking out of Elsie’s room. We continued walking as Elsie went back in to grab something.

Anastasia was here to kill someone. That explained the wig, face mask and contact lenses she was wearing. She looked like an entirely different person.

‘Also explains the weird familiarity.’

Every Halloween season, for a week, the Union grants agents what they call a free pass; free will to kill whoever they like, with no consequences. The Union would personally cover up the incident. That’s the time they also assign big missions to agents, delicate missions. That’s what took all my other Halloweens.

‘That must be the reason why she’s here.’

“Typical Jake, always jumping to conclusions.”

She paused, almost as if to let me think. She smiled.

“I wasn’t sent here by the Union.”

I stopped walking in shock. If she wasn't sent by the Union, that meant she was here on a hired mission.

‘To kill who?’

“Elsie?” I asked. She also stopped walking.

“Nope, she’s the one who hired me.” She said, her smile brightening as the realisation struck me.

“Me,” I said.

“Finally, you’re catching on,” Anastasia replied.

Then, the notification came in.

Ting!

[You have a message sent through the Union from Elsie.

“I’m coming to kill you, be prepared.” ]

What better way of getting all the billions left to me by my grandfather in his will than by killing me? I had registered her as my next of kin after all. A mistake on my part.

I turned, only to see Elsie standing outside the doorway with a knife in hand.

‘She’s hellbent on killing me. But that also means she plans on using a free pass.’

But then again, is the fact that you must sacrifice someone you hold dearly for you to activate the free pass, not with us anymore?

That’s why she’d hired Anastasia, to avoid killing me herself. Anastasia wasn’t risking anything; she was hired.

But I could see it in Elsie’s. She was hesitant about this. She knew what would happen if she killed me. And besides the tears forming in her eyes, she slowly started walking towards me.

‘Based on how she’s acting, I’m not her first kill.’

I didn’t move. I was giving her a chance to rethink her decision. Because if it ever came down to it, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill her. Yet she still kept coming. Slow, steady steps that occasionally faltered. Her knees were clearly weakening with each passing second.

There was only one reason I wasn't panicking at that moment. The same reason Anastasia, an old-time acquaintance back in my days at the Union, didn’t dare attack me at that moment, as they had planned with Elsie. I’m guessing she had noticed it by now. How could she not?

The black, polymer, loaded seven-inch Glock safely tucked in my inner coat pocket.

‘Stupid bitch. I guess I’m using my free pass afterall.’

But as would soon come to unfold, mine wasn't the only gun on the scene.

As much as I would've like it to be different, Anastasia needed to live.

If I left Elsie alive after causing a mess and leaving some other woman's body (that officially didn't exist) inside her home, there wasn't telling how much shit I would need to put up with: My name and face on a watch-list and spread all over the Internet until the Union decided to finally do something about it. Or... at least that's how I saw it after the fact.

That's how I framed it, trying to put rationale in front of the decisions I, truth be told, made out of pure instinct.

Elsie must've found the absolute summit of her resolve, because she suddenly jumped forward, holding the knife above her head like it was a hammer. I moved out of the way and took a small jump myself towards Anastasia. Sure, I understood, even then, that my free pass would not cover them both. But Anastasia was already reaching into her own coat. Elsie landed with a grunt behind me. I crashed against Anastasia and the back of her head hit the wall with a crunch of the wood. I saw a peek of the gun inside her coat, one finger already pulling on the safety, but my weight stopped her from dragging it out.

A shriek was followed by a burning wound being carved on my back; Elsie attacked again, clumsy, but dangerous in the confined space. Fighting both her and an experienced killer like Anastasia at once was not manageable. I needed to isolate them and focus on one at a time, take away any opportunity to swarm me as a team.

So I turned around and smashed Elsie's face with my elbow. She flailed and stepped away from my view. Unlike Anastasia and I, it's clear she had never taken a hit like that in her life. Then threw a punch at Anastasia's face, but she managed to use my split-second distraction to pull herself away and kick me in the stomach. I landed on my back, and a sudden flare of pain shot out in all directions across my body. I writhed like a man possessed and my hand, in the panic, shot into my jacket. I found the table knife, its blade dug into my fingers but I didn't care —I couldn't afford to give a shit about it. Anastasia was taking aim, keeping the gun closed to her body.

I threw the knife at her. She fired at the ceiling, reeling back with several grunts of pain, leaving me no time to even know for certain if I had landed the throw. As she struggled, I crawled back up to my feet and squared up against Elsie again. Her knuckles were white from gripping the knife, but bloodied from the crimson droplets falling from her broken nose. The knife in her hand, raised towards me, didn't feel like an obstacle: She held it with force, but also with fear, her confidence gone and her back against the wall. Her eyes shifted wildly between me and Anastasia, her knees proving even less reliable than before in the herculean task of keeping her upright.

I saw a glint of something in there, shining in the sclera, dancing on the tears that were not yet shed. Like she knew what was about to happen.

But there was no going back. She made up her mind about my death —about paying an assassin to kill me— long ago. Probably thought about it for months, ever since she learned about my inheritance. During the quiet nights we held each other to sleep, during the warmest moments we had.

I didn't stop.

I couldn't stop.

I didn't want to stop...