Bran Holloway stared at the spilt level house before her from the window of her truck. She was parked along side the front lawn, drinking the last of her ginger tea in the plastic cup she brought from the east coast. Her moving truck would be here in a few hours and she was bone tired from driving from Maine to California in the last week. It had been a long week but one bore out of necessary.

There was no denying a fresh change was in order, and what better change was there then to move clear across the country to the small town of Charming. She had spent the last 15 years doing the bidding of her father's brother. Now, at 25 she had bartered free of her obligations and taken a leave from the family business.

Her father's family had been in the same business for as many generations back as anyone could remember. They had made their name from it, earned their money and built their reputations on their impressive kill record. Joining the family business was not something one could take a pass on. They were not born to be doctors or lawyers. She was not encouraged from a small child to follow her dreams. The only path she was encouraged to follow was one that was time marked and well worn by past family members. Doctor's her family was not, killers on the other hand they were.

Bran held a gun for the first time when she was five. Learn how to disassemble, clean, reassemble and load a gun by the time she was seven. She could tell you five different ways to bleed a man to death when she was nine and at twelve she was shooting with deadly accuracy.

But after racking up a kill count that made her brother's jealous she wanted out. Needed out, needed to pretend for a little while she was someone else, someone different. Whose hands weren't stained with blood, and who didn't see the faces of those she killed in her sleep every night.

Bran finished her tea and opened the truck door. She left the empty cup inside the truck and looked around the quiet street. It was early morning, as she had driven the last few hours from the shit box motel she spent the night in, so the neighbourhood was just starting to wake up. Her purple flip flops made no sound on the pavement as she got out of the truck. It was going to be a hot bitch of a day, and was sure she would be happy for the short jean cut off shorts and ripped t-shirt. Her long auburn hair was tied back into a pony tail out of her face and off the back of her neck.

Her feet cut a path over the over grown grass, and she added another item to the list to buy. A lawnmower and some weed killer. She was oddly excited to cut the grass, which she was sure no one would understand. She pulled the keys for the house out of her pocket and unlocked the first of two locks on the front door. The silver key slid into the door knob lock with ease and turned smoothly. She heard the door knob unlock and repeated the procedure with the secondary lock above the door knob. She opened the front door to her new house and walked inside, pocketing her keys as she walked.

The money she banked from the jobs she completed over the years, was enough to buy the three bedroom house in a quiet suburb of Charming and have a bit left over. Before moving in, she hired contractor's who knew silence and discretion would earn them an extra bonus at the end of the job ( and keep their head attached to their shoulders), and made several changes to the house. She replaced the hollow light doors, on both the outside and inside with heavy solid doors. She reinforced the door frames, making it difficult for someone to break into any of the rooms or the house itself by repetitively slamming themselves into the door. The windows on the house were replaced as well. Taking out the old, and replacing them with shatter proof and bullet proof windows was a no brainier for her. The biggest change was gutting the old office beside the living room and behind the kitchen. The contractor walled off the 11 by 10 room, making it only accessible by a sliding door built into the kitchen wall. The walls that surrounded the safe room had steel plates between two sections of dry wall, making the room bullet proof. Along with the safe room, she had portions of the dry wall cut out through out the house and covered with moving panels that looked just like the wall. These small spaces would be used to store her guns, ammo and knife collection and could be accessed by putting a correct amount of pressure on the panel.

She also had them rip apart the on-suite master bathroom upstairs, giving the contractor's a reason to be in the house for so long while completing the safe room and house modifications. She replaced the ageing tub shower combo with a large two shower headed glass shower and a large copper tub. Two sinks and new counter tops replaced the old and cracked ones.

Bran walked through the house, adding to list growing in her head of things to buy, buckets of paint, rollers, brushes and trays to fix the stark white of the walls. She made her way to the living room and stood staring at the new wall the contractor's built. She ran her hands down the wall, looking for any imperfections in their work that would lead someone to guess what it hid behind it. Seeing the wall's craftsmanship was up to her standards she continued on her way to the kitchen.

She ran her hands along the smooth surfaces of the counter's and looked at the condition of the 'genital used' appliances, noting that when she got another moment to it she would have to replace at least one and update the oven or the fridge. And she would have to buy a dishwasher but she knew that when she bought the house.

Bran walked over to the light switch on the wall across from the kitchen counter. She flicked the second light switch on the panel three time, once up, once down and once up again. She watched as a portion of the wall slid open, silently to reveal a steel door and a keypad. With quick sure fingers she typed in the code the security company gave her and then reentered her own personal code replacing theirs. The door didn't make a sound as it opened up and Bran looked into her safe room for the first time.

The safe room had cost her a pretty penny, but in her line of work it was money well spent. Having the tools for her trade and a built in room for protection on hand was essential. Just because she wanted to be someone else, didn't mean she grew stupid, lazy and complacent. Bran always covered her tracks well, never leaving behind anything that could connect her to her job as a hired killer. DNA of any sort was a calling card for your death later. The people she killed, they have friends and their friends were always looking to even out the score. Hell, some people she was related to would put a bullet in her head for a buck.

She had made plenty of enemies over the years of doing the bidding of her Uncle Colin. And even though she was thick as thieves with most of her family, Bran knew that not every one was happy she was off duty for the unforeseen future.

Bran didn't expect any visitor's from her old life, but some of the kills she racked up didn't either. And look where it got them. Cold, rotten and six feet under. Like the good girl scout she never was, she was nothing if not prepared for anything.

The safe room was equip with shelves, a toilet, small shower, sink, it's own water tank and two beds. It had it's own separate source for electric as well as a separate vent for ventilation leading out of the house. Nothing short of a fire could make her come out of there if she didn't want to. The room once she had it stocked would be able to keep her safe for an undetermined amount of time.

Bran didn't like to think of herself as paranoid but prepared. Because that's what she was taught to be. And that's what had kept her alive. It also caused her to replace the old blue prints that the houses original builder's had with the new version of course properly aged so that no one but the contractor's that installed the safe room knew that it was there.

She walked over to the corner of the safe room where the security camera's that were placed through out the inside and outside of the house were feeding into three large monitor's. She check the feed for any piggy backing devices and was satisfied to find all the connections in order and clean. Happy with the way the safe room looked, she made her way outside of the room and punched in her code to close the room back up. Bran watched as the steel door closed first, then the wall in the kitchen replaced itself hiding the steel door from view.

The house could use with a good cleaning and she only had a few hours at most before the moving truck would get here so Bran headed back out to the truck to retreat the cleaning supplies she had bought at a Walmart earlier that week.

The house wasn't going to get clean by itself and she better get to it.