Seven Legs (Story)

A story I wrote for my writing group - the piece had to include a ninja and a spider...

I do not like spiders. It’s funny really considering the dangerous life I lead that I should be afraid of something I could easily crush beneath my fist. I risk death on a nightly basis without flinching and yet the mere sight of eight hairy legs –
- or seven in this case. She’s damaged goods, like me.
I watch her as she tries to climb out of the bathtub, a crawling shadow against the white marble. Somehow she finds purchase on the smooth stone, inching higher and higher. I watch transfixed. Sitting beside the bath in a towel with another wrapped around my hair I feel oddly vulnerable. All I need to do is turn the tap and wash her down the plughole. But I don’t.
What stays my hand? Not pity, never that. I have taken so many lives without a sliver of remorse. And I will take one more before I am done.

The spider slips on the water-slick marble. She falls, tumbling back to where she began. I don’t help her. She has to do this alone.
Alone.

The world is a very lonely place. There is no sense of community anymore. And yet people crave it, that sense of belonging. I know I did. That’s why I joined a gang.
I’m not proud of the things I did with the Northwall Crew but I could justify them then. They were my family and we were at war, trying to hold onto our precious territory. Blood was shed for the sake of a postcode of all things, as if we could own the streets! I soon saw the futility of it all. And when I refused to obey orders they beat me to within an inch of my life.
Their loyalty was a lie. I almost died. When they realised that I had not their threats kept me quiet. They hounded me and, without the Crew’s protection, so did the other gangs. I was in hospital more often than I was out. The police couldn’t help me, not without my co-operation and I knew where that would lead. I have never felt so helpless.

The spider lands on her back, legs flailing desperately. It might be kinder to kill her, flush her down the drain, anything but watch her struggle. Life is too short to fight and suffer this way. My hand finds the tap but I don’t turn it. Not yet.
And the spider begins to climb once more.

Somewhere along the line I met Nathan of Clan Kumo. His clan took me in, protected me. They taught me the art of the ninja and I became kunoichi. The clan seemed so different to my former gang, following the rigid code of honour practised in ancient Japan. This is what I had always hungered for! And Nathan, Grand Master Nathan… I longed for him too.
The things I did for Nathan, the lives I have ended. He told me that my actions would protect the clan. I was so besotted by him that I couldn’t admit the parallels between this and my former life. The one difference I clung to was the code of honour we all followed. It bound us together and justified my every action. It made me strong.
Soon I was second only to the Grand Master. Nathan told me that he had nothing else to teach me. But there was one more lesson to come.

Dark legs twitch at the edge of the bathtub. Almost there, almost there. I move my fingers away quickly, shuddering at the thought of her touch.

Nathan told me the truth last night, when he was drunk. How the gangs I despised had paid us to execute their rivals. We were killers for hire and it was just business as far as Nathan was concerned. Personal feelings didn’t come into it. He had lied to me to ensure my co-operation. But now he wanted to tell me the truth because he didn’t want me to hear it from someone else. Because he loved me.
I couldn’t square this truth with the code practised by the clan. How could I trust him after he had lied to me, lied for years? How could I trust the clan? And he said he loved me!
I so desperately wanted him to love me.
No. If there ever had been this strict code of honour in the clans of antiquity, well, it didn’t exist for Nathan. It was just words to guarantee our compliance. But to me it was everything.

He never saw the blade coming, my tanto slipping between his ribs. I caught him in one final embrace. His lips tasted of blood and wine. Love and death are much the same; they both wound the heart.
Nathan dishonoured our clan. He sullied me with his lies. No amount of scrubbing could ever scour me clean. I draw my tanto from its sheath, marvelling at the shining steel. There is still purity in this world.

The spider finally reaches the top of the bathtub. Her movements are slow now, hesitant. And then she stops. Her legs fold beneath her with beautiful finality.
She’s gone.