Toni is the most skilled assassin in her division, she's quick, smart, and clean... Until the one time that she isn't, and it comes back to haunt her in the form of a target that she happened to miss. FIRST DRAFT.

Rated 18+ for themes of lesbian sex, violence, gore, and crude language. °°°° The Regius Praesidio Academy accepts only the bravest; the people who have experienced and survived through the worst. Natasja Armand is french, beautiful, smart, rich and everything the perfect girl can be. Her past? Not so perfect. Revenge for the death of her parents is what keeps her going through the harshness of the Academy. Her plan was simple enough: find the witness, locate the murderer, and kill. But when she is roomed with the hot top notcher of the school that everyone steers clear of, she's slightly distracted. Kael Maddox may be blind, but she has seen things no one was ever meant to even imagine. She can name a thousand different ways to torture someone before killing them. But she can't name what she's starting to feel for the new girl with the soft, french tinted voice she hears everyday. When the enemy's attack cause both women to run for their lives, buried truths come out and dark twists are turned darker. "Just don't fucking trust her, you hear me?"

'"If she's somehow convinced you that she doesn't control you then she's exercised the greatest control of all," she says so tiredly it makes me immediately conscious of how naive I've been. "She decides your every move."' When the adult population of the Herel Plain, a small country known equally for its film industry and repressive government, is decimated by a civil war, the state sets up an auction system to distribute the newly orphaned youth into American foster homes. The so-called "Pageant" separates Savannah from the brother she has raised and places her in the hands of a violent, brooding entrepreneur and his wife, a callous and alluring college professor, who enlist her - along with their thirteen year old daughter Laurencia and their irreverent, young assistant, Nasrine - as a dealer in the high-end American drug trade. When Nas comes to her with an unthinkable scheme to take off with the money, Savannah sees her opportunity to be reunited with her brother and give him the life they never had. To run away is all she ever wanted, but when the moment finally strikes, something about her new employer makes her want to stay. COVER ART by the wonderful @celaestial; thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart, friend!