Red Riding Hood

     It all began with sushi.

     How would they have known it was poisoned? How would they have known who poisoned it?

     Jack Starbright and Alex Rider had decided to spend the eve of the younger's fifteenth birthday at a sushi bar in downtown London. It was a festive evening, filled with light laughter and meaningless yet memorable conversation.

     Alex, he'd ordered the "Surprise Platter." It was loaded with all sorts of oddities from octopus sushi to shrimp ebbi, a relatively tame selection.

     Jack had stuck with what she knew, an order of simple sushi and a salad. She took her first bite with no problem, marveling at the quality of the food. The next was not so easy, she'd begun to sweat, her face had turned a horrid shade of green, and she had weakly requested the use of the bathroom.

     "Down the hall and to the right," Alex had told her, watching worriedly as she rushed to the ladies room.

     Ten minutes later and she hadn't emerged. A worried teen had knocked on the door, calling her name. No answer.

     He had opened the door, instantly noticing the lightly green-tinged hand hanging in view under one of the stalls.

     A strangled sob had escaped his lips as seconds later his disbelieving mind was comprehending the sight before him.

     Jack.

     Lying over the toilet like a dead man.

     He had frantically checked. No pulse. No heartbeat. No breathing. Nothing.

     Someone had come into the bathroom and screamed quite annoyingly loud at the sight. A green-shaded woman—obviously dead—in the hands of a boy with a face like ice. A single tear he had shed, and never more.

     "Blunt!" he had roared.

     In righteous fury, Alex had sought out Jack's murderers. He skipped school, lived on the bare necessities, ignored the calls and agents MI6 sent him. Only one thing mattered anymore.

     Revenge.

     Carnage followed his every move. He descended upon criminal after criminal, organization after organization. Finally, he had found someone who had spilled their guts.

     "Please," the man had begged. He couldn't take it anymore; he no longer had any fingernails to pull out and the vicious devil of a boy who had been interrogating him had threatened to do worse. "Please…"

     Alex had kicked him a glancing blow to the ribs. "Talk," he'd snarled.

     "Fox…" the man revealed, "he called himself Fox."

     For the first time in months, Alex's bloodstained yet blank mask cracked. "Fox you say?"

     The man nodded vigorously, tears leaking out the side of his eyes. "He had black hair. Short! And blue… blue eyes!"

     Alex had ground his teeth in anger. It was betrayal after betrayal now. Hadn't he been hurt enough?

     "Thank you," the boy had said impassively as he pulled the trigger on his handgun. The pitiful man on the ground never even knew what hit him.

     There had only been one thing he felt when he did it, ire. Wrath so strong he had doubted any metal would have stayed solid for long if he turned his gaze upon it.

     "A—Alex?" Ben Daniels had backed into a corner, eyes trained fearfully on the gun pointed at his heart. "Alex? What are you doing? What—"

     BANG! BANG!

     "Traitor."

     Alex had eventually uncovered that MI6, or more specifically one mister Alan Blunt, had ordered the assassination.

     "She was becoming a loose end," he had explained calmly, seemingly unfazed by the muzzle of the gun aimed squarely at his head. Rouge agents had never really affected the ice-block of a man.

     He never even moved when a previously concealed and appropriately blunt knife had happily buried itself between his eyes.

     Now, Alex stood here, sniper rifle aiming down into the elegant courtyard. It had been a year since the day. The day Jack had been killed. Alex had earned a name for himself as an infallible freelance assassin.

     In his early days, he had become iconic for the white cloak he wore, to conceal his identity as often as announce it wordlessly. Eventually, the cloak had become so stained scarlet with the blood of his victims that it turned deep red.

     Never once had he failed, never once had he shed a tear.

     They called him Red Riding Hood. Anyone who added "little" soon found themselves mortally wounded one way or another.

     Presently, the Prime Minister stepped into the courtyard below, greeting some foreign ambassadors with a cheery smile and a handshake.

     The boy's finger tightened on the trigger as he aligned the crosshairs with the man's head.

     A single shot rang through the bright day.

     Alex Rider was dead.