The first few days after she had left had been intense. She was miserable because she felt farther away from the intended mission than she had anticipated and the constant feeling that she was being watched didn't leave her either. She waited patiently for the shoe to drop but it never did. It was freezing cold and her body was sore from all the pain. Whenever a man walked by where she was sitting, she would surreptitiously look up to see if it was her intended target, or worse… Ladislas.
She also needed money to replace all the things she had gotten stolen and although it was dangerous for her to be conspicuous, she managed to get enough money together to replace most of what she had lost.
For most of the time she wasn't begging, she exuded isolation. People would look at her and knew that if they messed with her, it would mean trouble. That didn't stop most of them from trying to steal from her. Desperation would bring out the worst in people, something that she had witnessed several times. Her experience in hand-to-hand combat came in handy, but she restrained herself when she was against groups of people. She had to lose a fight but also minimize the injuries she received. Unfortunately, she had seen an increase in groupings of two or more homeless who shared the same goal; to steal whatever they could get their hands on.
They worked together and shared the profits. The worst was when they robbed women and their children. It angered her and she wanted to rip their throats out when she witnessed it. But she knew she would become a target if she spoke up. It would only result in her being beaten up and mugged as well, but chivalry wasn't exactly dead for her.
She had thought life on the street had killed what little humanity was still left in her, but apparently, a dusty fragment of it still remained embedded in her soul. She knew for a fact that she couldn't allow it to grow. The day it grew, she would die. She had to harden herself to watch children or women come to harm, sometimes take matters into her own hands if the mission asked for it. There were no limits to what her superior could ask for her. It was better for her not to have a soul, just like she had done through the years.
She absentmindedly rubbed her stomach. She was starving again and the fact that she had given her one meal that day to a young child only increased the pain. She had gone hungry for so long that she didn't enjoy the feel, only grew numb to it. But one warm meal on one night had made her feel she was not cut out for this life. She couldn't be cold and callous, although she would have been a lot better off physically if she could. She had to solely focus on feeding herself and looking out for an opportunity to make a break in the mission.
She tried to give off that impression of loneliness when she was in a shelter with no friends around. She wanted people to think she was deranged. The fact that she didn't speak helped cement that image of her. It made her more mysterious and made people she didn't know wonder what else was wrong with her. It spread the word around and it would someday reach the people she needed to know about her existence.
Those outside who encountered her knew her to be soft but that was okay. They were all nomads within the city limits, constantly moving from shelter to shelter and she didn't have any travel companions. So when she did run into one of the people who accompanied her during her first days on the street, she felt rare joy. I would sleep next to the old lady that night. A good woman in a rotten situation. She was already in the shelter and had promised to come and get her if it started to get crowded so she wouldn't lose her spot.
"Get a job, you goddamn leech!" someone barked in front of her.
Her head shot up and she watched as a man kicked her cup and the money she had received scattered all over the sidewalk. He sneered at her and walked on.
'I am doing my fucking job, you dick head. It would be a lot better if you didn't make me more miserable than I already am!'
She really didn't understand why some people would go this far to humiliate homeless people in such a way. It was their choice to ignore one when they passed, but to actually treat her like garbage was something that never made any sense to her.
Her logical brain told her it was human nature. These people thought they had hard lives and when they saw someone doing worse than them, they felt superiority. But the fact someone had to sit on the street and ask for alms was beyond them. That made them bitter. Most people would turn away, pretending not to see what the true condition of the world was, while others who had a bad day would yell and erupt into fury. Kicking someone while they were down gave a twisted pleasure to people.
She swallowed her anger and started scrambling around to quickly pick up the coins and bills. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of wavy black hair, when a man knelt done beside her. Her heart thundered in her chest and she almost choked when her breath got caught in her throat.
For a second, she panicked thinking he had found her.