It all started with a kiss. It wasn’t one of those sappy ass ones where there is affection and sparks flying and you just fucking know they’re the one for you. No, this was a different kind of kiss. It wasn’t a spark, but a simple touch of one’s skin against another. I would like to think somehow that simple gesture had triggered something into motion. That somehow that one kiss had signified our entire being of life—it didn’t.
The kiss meant nothing, and the feelings formed from within because it meant nothing. Every time I thought of Maggie, the way her brown hair billowed in the wind, the way her small hands clasped mine, it reminded me of the illness, the death that plagued me. It reminded me of the clock that slowly ticked inside of me.
I was dying, and there was nothing anyone could do. There was no cure, no miracle for someone like me. After all, millions of people lost their loved ones, so what would one more loss be? What would me not dying do for the world? Nothing.
Eventually, I would be replaced. The school would get a new student, the teachers would forget I ever existed, and Maggie—sweet little Maggie would move on and find someone new. My parents would have another child and life would be normal. Normal for everyone but me.
See, I wouldn’t get to live such a lavish life. No, the life I would live would make me wish that the cancer had killed me. That it had eaten away at everything that made me who I was. Why, you ask? Simply because the person I was being morphed into, the man they were making me be was anything less than death. He was ruthless, angry, and hateful. He thought for no one but himself. He was careless, his needs only being met with sex and violence.
His memories would be wiped away, yet a small girl with red cheeks and brown hair would still find her way into his dreams. He would grow to hate the little girl for not being able to remember the memories or where she came from and it would drive him insane.
He would eventually become one of the world’s most trained fighters. Genetically mutated to the government’s liking. Turned into something he never wanted—something he never should’ve been.
Now you see that his legacy or the memories of who he was would never be remembered simply because there was nothing to remember about a twelve-year-old boy who should be dead. No family, friends, or loved ones to care.
He was a killer and I am he.
CHAPTER ONE
MAGGIE—THE PAST
I hated when the other kids laughed at him. They would push and shove him, not even caring that he was sick. Sometimes, I wanted to push them back or scream at them to leave him alone. Except I knew no one would listen to me. They never did. Instead, I sat in the background waiting until the moment I could swoop in and care for him.
He was taller than the other kids were, even at the age of sixteen, and just as cute. It didn’t matter to me how his skin was almost always ghostly white or how he would much rather not be wearing jeans but something that didn’t cling to his body. To me, he was perfect.
“What’s a matter, Diesel…? Maggie not make you your breakfast this morning?” Roger, one of the biggest bullies of them all, mocked Diesel. This was a normal occurrence on the bus. Every morning the same conversation would take place. I was starting to wonder when it would stop. Diesel ignored him like always and stared out the window. I watched from the seat across from him as Roger took the seat behind him and shoved his knees into the back of the seat.
Fury grew deep within me. Diesel had told me many times that me sticking up for him just made things worse and how there was nothing worse than a girl sticking up for a boy. It was against the rules. One would say I was a rule breaker.
“Knock it off, Roger,” I murmured. Diesel’s steel blue eyes turned to mine shooting daggers at me. I could tell by that one single look, I had angered him.
“Awe, what was that you said, Maggie? I couldn’t quite hear you—then again, most of us never do.” He belittled me, laughing as his friends joined in on it.
“Just leave her alone,” Diesel exclaimed giving them the satisfaction they wanted. They wanted him to talk to stick up for me—for anything—simply because it showed he had a weakness for something.