Demigods by Robert C Ray

beautiful she was. The fact that she was designed that way did not matter at all, because every beautiful woman has the unfair advantage of simply having the right genes brought together.
    The fact that they would try to create the perfect assassin, while making her that desirable, however, he considered to be a very cruel joke to the entire male gender, but she was not at all like what he thought she would be like. Awakening early was obviously something they had not counted on, and the pain that he could see she felt was clearly a factor in how she now acted.
    From time to time when he would glance over at her, she would look back at him, and although she would always smile, Charlie could see that it was feigned. She was trying to hide her confusion and fear, and it ripped at his very soul. He wondered how they could have done such a thing to her, despite the fact that he did not know the extent of it. Being the ones that created her did not make it right in any way.
    Pulling into the lot of the cheap motel, he found a spot in front of the office, and put the car in park. He felt she deserved a nice hotel room after all that she had gone through, but he could not deny the logic of her decision to come here. It was very low visibility, without any cameras, or even the need to provide a valid driver's license. It was simply cash, and no questions.
    "I'll only be a second," he politely told her before stepping from the car to secure a room. "Everything will be ok," he assured.
    While he was away however, it was only the haunting of her tormented past that taunted her mind. Sure, it was a fictitious past, yet it felt as real as they come, and she would forever have to remember it.
    She remembered the man that had raised her, and though she could never see his face, his eyes still ripped at every muscle that continued her beating heart. They were cold, calloused eyes, with never an emotion of kindness within them, and though she had often imagined her mother's and father's eyes staring lovingly back at her, his, behind his mask, where all she truly knew.
    Now, even her hopes and dreams were shattered, as she came to terms with the fact that she never even had a mother or father who would have actually loved her. Now she had to come to terms with what she actually was, and at the core of it was not a freak of nature, but rather a freak of science and madmen.
    She remembered how he had put her on the rack as a young child, and as she screamed out in agonizing pain, he would yell at her to deal with it. The world was pain, he would tell her, and she had either to put up with it, or attempt in vane to destroy the world.
    In time she learned to ignore the pain, and not because he wanted her to, but rather because she had to, and she could also see that he enjoyed her tears. Pleasing him was never her desire, but often it had been the means to her own survival.
    "They gave you room thirteen," he said with a grin as he climbed back into the car, revealing that he believed in such a thing as an unlucky number with his tone, "but he said that it was the best room that they had."
    "It has a Jacuzzi," he added as he leaned over his right shoulder to back out. "Do you know what that is?"
    This was the first time that he felt belittled by her, as her glare made him feel small enough to fit beneath the pedal that his foot now pressed against.
    "I'm not stupid," she scolded loudly, with fervent eyes, but before he could stutter out an apology, she made him feel much better... in a way.
    "I'm sorry, Charlie," she said as she turned her head to look out the window, and postured herself in a way that would more resemble a shattered child, than it would a grown woman. "It was wrong of me to yell."
    He opened his mouth, yet nothing came out. He reached over to her as she gazed out the window, but it was like touching a manikin, for she moved not even with the slightest flinch.
    "You are beautiful to me," he attempted to console, and his actions