Adelaide Vance walked in silence, head held up in the haughtiest of manners, each step sinking just a bit deeper into the muddy grass she knew she wasn’t supposed to be walking on (the copious amount of signs made that very clear). Her feet were almost numb; the broken black shoes she wore did nothing to keep out the frigid air. Yet still she walked on, hands clutched tightly at an old lace parasol, the tears in her gloves letting in the piercing wind, and each pinprick of cold on her skin was a dagger to the heart, a reminder of what used to be. The bonnet that covered her hair slowly slid off of her head until it hung around her neck, a swinging pendulum of a thousand pounds. Her sky-blue dress was in tatters, the hidden hoops inside of it long since broken and their mechanics ruined, and it pooled around her feet, a glorious Heaven fallen to the dull Earth.
        When the first drop of rain hit her parasol, she sighed. The damned thing had been broken for a while, and she was now stuck in the rain with no covering but a dysfunctional umbrella and the patchy bonnet she drew back over her head, and she grumbled to herself as she walked.
        “Cecilia!” The shout came from somewhere over her left shoulder, nearly drowned out by the pounding of horse hooves and the rattling of wheels that weren’t tied on tight enough skidding on the cobbled ground. The alias, even after a month and a half, felt strange to Adelaide. “Cecilia Everett, do my eyes deceive me? Are you walking? Where’d your personal coach go? Your impeccably groomed horses? Oh, how about that husband of yours?” As the carriage drew nearer, she could hear the loud chortling laughter that came from its driver.
        “That is none of your business,” Adelaide replied cooly. Her sharp brown eyes never left the sky in front of her, her chin never dipped an inch. “And, my dearest Thomas,” she drawled, her voice dripping sarcasm like maple syrup, “You’d best not talk to me, if you knew what was good for you. My family goes far, far back, you know, and--”
        “If you say so, Miss Everett! You're the long lost princess of an old money family, aren't you?” he said cheerfully, speeding by her. “And you’re positive you don’t want a ride?”
        “No, Thomas,” she sighed. “ I don’t believe I do.” Once he had passed, she let her head drop. But only for one second. You can never let your enemies see your weakness, and to Adelaide Mae Vance, everyone was an enemy.

Adelaide had been walking for a long time. Now, the streets were now bare of people and carriages, and Central Park had only the stray dog or couple going on a date scattered about it. Adelaide tapped the letter against her side nervously, her empty hand gripping tightly at the skirts of her dress. Her steps were short and quick, sending a frantic beat across the cobbled ground. Her eyes searched furtively the trees and rocks that sat on either of her sides, her hair whipped freely in the wind behind her. After what seemed an eternity, she arrived at the huge rock that loomed at the corner of 66th and 5th. She settled herself down in the dewy grass and prepared herself to wait for however long it took. Jane would open the door whenever she felt like it, sometimes going days without letting anyone in or out of Headquarters. The last time she had been here, Adelaide waited for almost four hours before she was allowed to come inside.
        Fortunately, today Adelaide didn’t have to wait too long. She soon heard the familiar click and whirl of the mechanics of the door, and in the blink of an eye a section of the rock’s facade concaved inwards. Adelaide stepped through and was hit instantly with the usual chatter of Headquarters. Somewhere to her left, she could hear Ophelia arguing animatedly with Edward and William on the best size bullets for a gun. Up ahead, Robert practiced his fighting stance in front of one of the many mirrors that lined the long white walls. She made her way over to the receptionist’s desk with just a bit of elbowing through the crowd that filled the lobby.
        “Hello, Miss Vance. How may I assist you today?” Evelyn’s usual expression of fake happiness thinly veiling bored was plastered across her face.
        “Good evening Evelyn. I’d like to send up a letter to Jane, please, and could you also direct me to where Charlie might be?” She thrust out the envelope and drummed her fingers on the top of the counter.
        Evelyn took the letter and slipped it into the tube sitting under her desk that Adelaide had spent countless hours studying and attempting to replicate. The letter shot up, traveling through the tube behind Evelyn’s chair in a blur of white and red, disappearing from sight as it reached the ceiling.
        “Fantastic, and Mr. Ackert?” Adelaide prodded.
        “Last I heard, he was down at the weapons room. But don’t quote me on that, Miss Vance. I shan't be held responsible for another accidental shooting.”
        “Evelyn, you do realize it's a fair bit useless to say that to me? I was there when Ophelia got shot in the foot,” replied Adelaide. “But, enjoyable as it was talking to you, I’d best be on my way now.”
        The weapons room was a cluttered mess of anything from broadswords to pistols to gloves that held tiny razors hidden in microscopic slits on the tips of the fingers. Adelaide picked her way through the room to one of the many doors that opened into crafting rooms, testing rooms, or practice room.
        Charlie Ackert was bent over the table in Crafting Room #02. The pencil clutched in his slim fingers skated over the paper, dancing frantically, leaving behind visions of innovation in its wake. His foot tapped against the floor that was littered with balls of paper and broken pencils. His shirt was far too big for his wiry frame, and Adelaide, even without her heels, stood a fair four inches above him.
        “Charlie!” Adelaide called, approaching him quickly. She peered inquisitively over his shoulder. “What are you making today?”
        He shielded it quickly with his arms. “No, it’s not done yet, you can’t see. And anyways, Adelaide, wouldn’t you rather see what I’ve created for you? It’s all ready to try out. Here, come with me.” He grasped her wrist and led her back through the main weapons room and into Testing Room #06.
        “I'm not entirely sure how operational it is, but give it a go, will you? Oh, and I also cleaned up your dagger quite a bit, added some things here and there. But that's not what this is about.” He shoved what looked to be two cylindrical pebbles into her outstretched palm. On closer examination, however, Adelaide saw that they appeared to be metal fingers. She placed them on the table, touching them in fascination. The joints bent as fluidly as a river.
        “Charlie, really, you shouldn't have.”
        “Well, I did. Now, what you’re going to do is to attach the strap, see, if you press right here it comes out--”
        “No,” she interjected, “Really, Charlie, I don't want it. I know you’ve worked hard, but save it for the next person whose fingers get blown off. I've gone without them since I was 11, and really, it’d be quite a hassle to relearn everything. But don't take me the wrong way, I think it’s marvelous!” she hastened to say as she caught his put-out attitude.
        “Alright, Miss Vance. Hopefully you enjoy your dagger more.”
Adelaide hated to do this. Charlie was her closest companion, and she greatly disliked hurting his feelings. She’d been friends with the brilliant boy since his birth, and once she’d finished what was expected of her in school, she convinced him to come with her to the rock formation at 66th and 5th. She’d heard the rumors that Rose Smithe, her least favorite girl in all the 6th grade, was spreading. Adelaide didn't usually pay attention to her obnoxious classmate, but this time, the things that Rose were saying wormed their way into her mind, eating up all other thoughts that resided there. So Adelaide talked the naïve, shaky 10 year old (who was really her only friend, but the proud Vance would never admit that) into sneaking from their homes in the midst of the night, when the sky was streaked with different-toned darkness. She stole a match and a candle to light her way, and often she would thrust it at Charlie, laughing wickedly at his pleas to stop. 
        That night started her life as she knew it. They waited in front of the rock until the pink tinge of dawn started to pull itself over the horizon. Just as she started to nod asleep on Charlie's shoulder, the door in the rock opened. A short woman with not nearly enough hair stood in the doorway.
        “I’m Jane,” she had said, “and you two must be mental.”
        She brought them inside and gave them hot cocoa. She asked them what they were doing, and Adelaide replied with a brash “Not your business to know”. This, for some inexplicable reason, had made the old woman laugh. She sent them on their way when the yellow sun burst into the sky, and told them if they ever needed a place to stay, they had one in the strange rock on ?66th street?.
        Two years later, Adelaide woke up to nothing but ashes. The black dust fell from the sky like the rains of hell, coating every inch of her body until she was caked in the powder of death and destruction. Tears marked clear paths down her cheeks, and when she looked down, her right hand was missing two fingers. She had run, as fast as she could. Run without any sense of where she was going, any idea of what to do except to go. Run away from the demons that surely lurked in the shadows of her destroyed house, the ghosts that surely haunted her old bed, her old room, everything and anything that used to be hers. Her sky-blue dress was in tatters, the hoops ruined beyond anything that could have been moderately salvageable. Her only possessions were ripped and bloodied gloves, a broken parasol, and worn through shoes.
        Charlie would have been shocked that day when she burst through his door, had he any door for her to burst through. She found him sitting in front of where his home, his good familiar home used to be, a blank look upon his face.
        Sometimes, time leaves you. Sometimes you can be in one moment, one single moment, and it will hang frozen in the air. It can shine and glitter, like a crystalline snowdrop. It can absorb all light that touches it, a suspended moment of hatred or fear. Sometimes, though, time leaves you in peculiar ways. Sometimes you will grasp the hands of your best friend after you’ve both lost everything. And you don't know why, but somehow, you’re not sad. It’s just a moment in time, one little note in the great symphony of life. Sometimes you can realize that you have to be grateful for what you have once you’ve lost everything you’ve got. Sometimes you’re Charlie Ackert and Adelaide Mae Vance, who stand as children on the side of a cobbled road, fingers intertwined and tears intermixing, and you realize in your suspended moment of time that you’re lost. But better to be lost with a friend than lost all by yourself.
        “...and that's why I shall never even look William in the eye again,” said Charlie definitively, shaking Adelaide out of her memories.
        “Yes, of course, Charlie,” she replied vaguely. He seemed satisfied with her response.
        They had reached Testing Room #07, Adelaide’s favorite testing room. She’d tested her first design here--a small gun which exploded in her hand as soon as she tried to touch it, resulting in a severe burn and a three day rest in the Infirmary. Still, it had always been and would always be her go-to testing room.
        The dagger looked the same as it had before-the blue hilt was indented with the impressions of her three remaining fingers, the blade, black as the ashes she had risen from, was still marred on one side from a particularly brutal training spar, the word QUINCY, the name of her dead brother, was still etched on the bottom of the dagger. It was small enough to fit nicely against the inside of her thigh, easily concealed by a pooling dress. She had other daggers that she kept strapped to her ankle, or her back, but none were as person or well-loved as Quincy was.
Charlie gestured for her to take it eagerly. The feeling of holding it was comforting to her, especially as she hadn’t seen it in weeks. Charlie tapped his forefinger against the hilt three times in rapid succession, which triggered something Adelaide had never seen before--it shot out a coil of wire, layered in tiny spikes. The blade collapsed, and now Adelaide was holding a barbed-wire whip. She swung it at the legs of the table. It left a deep gash in the wood that, on a person, could kill.
        “Thank you so much, Charlie!” Adelaide cried. She carefully strapped Quincy to the inside of her thigh and thrust herself onto her best friend in a tight hug.
        “Oh, Adelaide, anything for you. Now, Jane told me that your mission was a success?”
        Adelaide wasn't bothered by the quick topic change; Charlie rarely dwelled on emotions. “Yes, I set the house aflame, everyone is none the wiser. I’m not sure who they’re framing for my husband’s death, but it's not me. Oh, how I do wish I could have kept the money, though. And the carriage..” she trailed off wistfully as Charlie sighed.
        “You’ve committed at least 12 major acts of arson at this point. You should be over the money burning.”
        "Yes, I know, but this time more people noticed, as it was a fire. Some rude driver, I believe his name is Thomas, even had the gall to mock me about it,” she complained.
        “Adelaide, really? Don't let that get to you. Now, we must go, Jane’ll throw a fit if I make you late again.” And with that, the two friends left the room, squabbling lightly through the halls to bring Adelaide to her briefing.

        Jane's office was the simplest room in all HQ. It consisted of only a desk and two chairs, one for the Director and one for whomever she was seeing. When her house burned down, Adelaide had been led to this room with Charlie, huddling together in one of the chairs for what had seemed an eternity. And since she had signed on as a full member of this operation, she had come to this room as often as a twice a week and as far apart as a full year to get her mission briefings and debriefings.
        Jane was seated behind the desk, her hands folded tightly atop its surface. "Ah, Addie," she said. Jane was the only person she allowed to call her anything other than 'Adelaide' or 'Miss Vance'. "Thank you for joining me. Charlie, my dear, you may leave." She nodded at the door, and Charlie backed out of it swiftly, leaving Adelaide alone with the woman who had raised her for almost three years after she lost everything in the fire.
        "You got my letter, then, Jane?" asked Adelaide politely.
        "Of course," the woman replied warmly. "Though I do still wonder why you send me success of your mission a week after you've completed it."
        "Safety reasons," Adelaide was quick to reply, "you see, as a member of high society it's hard for me to escape the press immediately following murdering my husband. Oh, Jane, you know how I love to see HQ after I've been gone a while. So I send you my report, walk around with Charlie a bit, talk to Ophelia, did you hear she's getting married to Robert? And then I come to chat with you."
        "Dear, this isn't a chat. It's a mission debriefing," replied Jane dryly. "Which we must actually get on with. So," she said as she tapped the file of papers lying on the desk into a straight line, "Firstly. I'd like a detailed report of what happened."
        Adelaide nodded. "Yes, of course. Well, as you'd instructed me, I took the Cecilia Everett alias, and it was only a small matter of getting Ophi to slip a false story to the editor of the Times before I was a full-fledged and completely broke aristocrat. Truly, I expected it to take longer, but my husband was quickly interested in the long-lost relative of John Astor. He courted me for but four weeks before he proposed! Honestly, those Brits, truly barbaric sometimes. Anyway. We married soon after that, I played our relationship up in public, and I'd slip secrets into his ear about people saying things behind his back, et cetera. He was extraordinarily paranoid, and would tell the press all these false stories of people who hated him. They just devour the high-society nonsense those aristocrats spout. In the midst of the night, on Noverber 27th, I mixed him a drink with that drug Charlie made, and he passed out instantly. I then set the house aflame, waited a bit, then ran out. I can be quite the actress. Nobody even suspected that I could possibly have anything to do with his death. I only wish I hadn't have had to burn the money, too..." she trailed off.
        "Adelaide Mae. We've been over this far too many times. You don't do this to suck money from the aristocrats. Why do you do this again?" prodded Jane.
        "I do it because some people want to watch the world burn, so we burn their world before they can burn ours," recited Adelaide.
        "Yes. Well, it seems all is in order, I'll just have you send for Ophelia, please. Thank you, Adelaide. You should be getting your next mission in the next 2-4 weeks, as soon as the press gets tired of covering your case."
        "Thank you, Jane!" Adelaide smiled as she walked out the door. Ophelia was likely to be teaching Seduction and Espionage 101. Adelaide herself had nearly failed that class while in training, but Ophelia was the star pupil of a class a few years before Adelaide's own.
        Jane had raised Adelaide as her own daughter, and Adelaide had looked up to Ophelia as an older sister. Jane had cared for her, made her feel safe and comfortable. Jane had provided stability in her life, stability that Charlie, who was going through the same ordeal, sometimes just couldn't give her. Jane had taught her how to be a person again.
        Ophelia had taught her how to be a fighter. How to throw a solid left hook and how to shoot a gun while missing two fingers, yes, but also how to manipulate. To be calculative and cold, to show no emotion. To continue to pick up the gun, day after day, no matter how hard the phantom pain seized her missing fingers. To show no tears, to move on and keep moving. Ophelia had taught her how to trick everyone, and had taught her how to trick herself.

        Adelaide's shoes clacked comfortingly against the floor. Seduction and Espionage 101 was almost over, and she paced outside the classroom in wait. Ophelia's lilting voice reached her ears, proclaiming that all students were now set free from class. She moved to go in, but something stopped her.
        "...and that boy, that Vance boy," she heard Ophelia, her sister and mentor, say. "Yes, it was quite a shame we couldn't catch him. But, you know, the girl had to do. And although she isn't the wisest of people, she's certainly a firey fighter."
        Adelaide was beyond confused. Why was she talking about Quincy? Ophelia's words snapped her back into her eavesdropping.
        "...soon, I'd expect. Jane's been telling me if she should complete her next mission successfully, she'll tell her."
        A mumble from the person Ophelia was talking to, Robert; Adelaide couldn't quite catch what he said.
        "Oh, dear Lord, no!" laughed Ophelia, and her smile was visible from outside the room. That smile could fill Adelaide with joy on even her worst day, but somehow, it now seemed laced with poison, as if it were an apple too perfect not to be deadly. "No, no, Charlie Ackert? He's a fool. Jane would be insane to tell him. I'm sure she'll have Adelaide kill him, or something, as a rite of passage, you know? I remember when I had to kill Frank. Hardest day of my life, but look where it got me!"
        Adelaide burst through the door. "What the hell are you talking about?" she raged. She pushed past Robert and shoved Ophelia roughly to the wall, and in one fluid motion, rendering her immobile and holding Quincy up to her throat.
        Ophelia's eyes were wide in terror. Robert stared at her from the floor, too afraid to move. He opened his mouth to speak, but Adelaide cut him off with a glare. "Shut up, Robert. And leave. I don't want you here." He gulped, and scurried off, no doubt to inform Jane of what was happening. Adelaide didn't care. She pressed Quincy against Ophelia's neck, her hands shaking with rage. "Speak."
        Ophelia shot out her leg, pushing Adelaide down and turning to rush away, but Adelaide shot out her whip quick as lightning, pulling Ophelia towards her. Ophelia shrieked in pain, but Adelaide didn't even hear it. "I said, speak."
        "It's--look, this organization. It's not what you want it to be. Hell, it ain't even what I wanted it to be." When she got nervous or particularly impassioned, Ophelia slipped into lose slang. Adelaide reveled in the delight of causing her so much fear she couldn't even speak properly. "Jane ain't right in the head. But none of us are. You can't be right to kill someone, even just one person. Addie--"
        "Don't call me that."
        "Adelaide, you've killed over 20. You ain't right, either. Jane just doesn't like some people. Nobody knows why, no one really cares. We've all been hurt, we all want to. hurt. Jane sees that. She understands. She's the one who burnt all you had, I'm the one who, you know," she gestured mutely at the three-fingered hand Adelaide was using to pin her against the wall. "It was my first mission, and hell, I just wanted to make her happy. That's what it's all about, ain't it? Making people happy so they can make you happy. Jane saw you, saw this in you, she said, 'Ophi, I need to have this girl'. And so she did. And she tricked you, but does it matter? You're getting what you want, ain't you? You get to hurt people. And you like it."
        Adelaide stepped closer. "I don't care. I don't care I don't care I don't care. I'll never hurt the people that truly matter. I'll never hurt Charlie. Ophi, I won't even hurt you. I can't bring myself to do it. I'd rather you be dead. I'd rather I be dead. I can't kill you." She released what could have been her sister from her grasp and looked down, a tear dropping to the floor. When she looked back up, Ophelia was gone.

        Betrayal. It stung deep, deeper than any physical wound ever could, ever would. Adelaide walked in her own world, a world doused in the kerosine of tension and possibility, and lit ablaze by a single spark of betrayal. Her hands were clenched tightly at her side, five fingers holding on to the edge of her skirt, three fingers holding Quincy. She walked with purpose, with fire in her eyes and in her heart. Her steps slammed against the floor and her head was held up in pride. You can never let your enemies see your weakness, and Adelaide Mae Vance was in the heart of enemy territory.
        The door to Jane's office burst open, and Adelaide seemed to glow with fury in the doorframe.
        "I was wondering when you would arrive," said Jane, smiling. How was she smiling?
        "I didn't know monsters like you could smile."
        "Adelaide, dear--"
        "Is that even my name?" The words hung in the air, spinning in the frozen raindrop of time. The only thing that moved was Adelaide's chest, rising and falling as her heart plummeted further and further and as the fire of anger built higher. Her breath was ragged. "Or is that just another lie you told me to spin your spiderweb of deceit?"
        "Just hear me out," said Jane. She held a gun. Adelaide didn't have a gun.
        "No!" she shouted. She didn't want to hear. Jane opened her mouth and she was speaking but she wasn't making any sound. "No, no, no, no! Shut up, just be QUITE!" Adelaide lashed out with her whip. The gun clattered to the floor. Jane did not move to pick it up.
        Adelaide stepped forward.
        "I treated you as a mother. As my mother. That's not who you are." Somehow, she had picked up the gun without any resistance from Jane.
        "You won't shoot. I know you won't."
        Adelaide smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.

        Adelaide Mae Vance is a thing of rage, and when she is bent on hurting someone, they will end up bleeding.