Hunter green eyes stared up at the dark clouds that caked the glowing moon. The ominous mass of black gave the empty threat of rain considering the clouds had just emptied the last of their tears upon the world. The indigo sky, lit by stars, was mirrored in the puddles that lay along the dirt road. The wooden door let out an inaudible moan as it opened into the noisy bar. A girl stepped lightly over the threshold. Heavy jeans covered runner’s legs and a black v-neck brought a stranger’s slight attention to a point. Her light footsteps would not have been heard even if the bar had been by some miracle empty. She slid onto a torn stool, the top of her head only reaching the bartender’s chin. She gathered a few glances with her waist length chocolate waves windswept around her face, a smear of mud under her left eye, and wet shoes. The bar tender had only taken notice of her long enough to check her ID that read twenty-six, not that she couldn’t have passed for nineteen, not that they cared. Her face was peppered with freckles. It was the kind of face easy to forget, that you were supposed to forget. But the truth was she fit in just fine even if her mind was a world away. She remembered it as if it was yesterday. She remembered as if yesterday had been the last day she put up with the pain.
The cold steel world had questioned her sanity at running away from the Kansas sun at only seven-teen. She ran from the memory of her mother that now hid the town tramp. She ran from her father’s dead body after he found out. Was she really insane for wanting something else, for not wanting to deal with the pain? She closed her lids and willed the towering buildings to disappear, leaving her with the thoughts of sun-warmed Kansas peaches dribbling down her chin. A lack of wind brought her out of her sticky sweet day dream and opened her eyes to the front of the ally where there was a man, a bullet, and a ghost. She looked at the man knowing she should run but her instinct that had been urging her on since the edge of their Kansas peach farm failed. She stared at the darkly dressed stranger in wonder at his power, control; all her thoughts of fleeing were diminished.
Matt turned and spotted a girl standing at the opposite end of the ally, feet glued to the New York street. Her eyes contained awe at this cold-hearted escape. A sigh escaped his lips as he raised the gun to clean up this mess, but he could not point in between those hunter green eyes. In a wave of weakness, of being human, he let his gun fall limp in his hand as he held the other out to her, a mirror of his past. She reached out and placed her hand in his ignoring the splash of blood from the crumpled body on the ground. She had run right into a fresh start, a fresh start in a life that soon matched this cold steel world.

Her six year training beside the darkly dressed Matt put her on top; her pockets bulged with stolen cash now instead of swollen peaches. She liked her new job, she followed her dad’s footsteps; her job was to put bullets through brains. She was chosen for this assignment, just like any other, run, kill, and flee. She did not recognize the man’s face in the picture they gave her of her target; she didn’t need to too know who it was. The address was familiar enough, peach farm, Kansas. It was the farm where her family had once lived. The farm where now lived the town tramp and the man she married to replace a husband and father. She winced as the country twang reminded her of her past; the past she had just walked into after running from it for so long. Bright lights, big city, home sweet home was so sugar coated she had to wrestle with her gag reflex as she sipped her cocktail. She hoped her mother would forgive her. Not that she could deny wanting to see her mother’s expression. This cold steel girl wanted to see the tramp’s expression as she put the barrel of the gun to the new husband’s head; her expression when she blew his brains out. She wanted to see her mother’s expression when she killed him, just as the tramp had drove the girl’s father to a gun. She wanted her mother to feel the pain she never had. The hunter green eyes drank in the bar as pale peach lips drank their third cocktail; the kind of eyes that showed she knew how to make you forget.

Black converse crunched through withered orange leaves towards the red farm house. Thin braided leather strapped a cool steel killing device, a mirror image of what she had become, to her calf hidden under fairing bell bottoms. Her plain gray t-shirt blended in with the murky sky caused by yesterday’s rain. The sun was setting; she would be done with her assignment and gone before dark.
Little Julie tore her eyes away from the piles of steaming, home cooked food that lay before her on the hand carven table. Her hunter green eyes stared out the window. Against the steely gray October sky she saw a darkly dressed stranger stroll familiarly up the path. Julie brushed her blood red curls from her pale freckled cheeks. Her eyes flowed along the wall behind witch she knew the stranger was coming. Her gaze passed over the fridge that held her older brother’s report card next to a picture she had colored. They were from the coloring book mommy had bought her for her birthday. Julie’s eyes stared curiously as she realized the stranger who had just come through the door was pointing a gun at her father. Julie wondered why this stranger had her mother’s eyes. The strange girl raised her gun and saw a family. She saw a loving mother and devoted father. She saw their little boy telling his parents about his school day and his little sister who had been watching the stranger since she passed the window. She saw herself holding death in their face. A pale strong hand, callused from holding guns instead of peaches for the last six years, held up the gun, and killed the person who did not belong in the family.
With a last glance of the blood red curls that framed curious green eyes the trigger was pulled. Julie’s hunter green eyes stretched wide as she watched the body of the pretty girl crumple to the floor. Julie watched as the bullet the girl and the ghost became one. The chocolate curls were soon bloody red. That night in bed, Julie fingered her red waves as her green eyes stared out her window. The dark clouds failed to engulf the passionate blood red moon. Julie’s ears strained against the night trying to hear the strangled word her mother had choked out as the girl had crash into the room, “Indigo.” Hunter green eyes reflected the indigo sky but the only thing they saw was the face of a stranger.