Lily shifted uncomfortably in the battered seat of the train, praying no one could smell what was in her suitcase. She shivered and turned her attention out the smudged window. Belarus was nicer than she imagined; when Victor sent her here she assumed it would look more industrial and impoverished. Her cabin mate was shockingly pleasant as well and spoke near perfect English so they immediately hit it off. His welcoming smile and hearty laugh lifted her spirits and distracted her from “job”, as Victor put it.

“So, Lillian,” he grinned, “what brings you to my home of Belarus?”.

A bead of sweat formed by her right temple. “Work,” she answered simply.

“Are you staying for a while?”, he interrogated her. “It looks like you have a lot packed in that suitcase you have there”.

Lily’s heart stopped for a second and then carried on beating at a hectic rate. She forced a meek smile before explaining how indecisive she was and just decided to bring her entire wardrobe, which garnered a chuckle from the man. The rest of the ride was rather quiet so Lily utilized this time to combat her jet lag and closed her eyes praying for rest.
Her eyelids fluttered softly and slowly dragged her back into the past of many years ago.
The surgical lamps, which illuminated the body of the comatose girl, made the “set” hot and sticky. Lily stood by the camera that flashed a blinking red light with her mouth agape.
Run. She repeated over and over in her head. Her legs, which had become jelly, wouldn’t budge no matter how many times she told herself it was a bad idea.

Suddenly, she had felt a pair of hands grasp her shoulders  with brute force before shoving her into the spotlight. Lily’s stomach had become a tornado, threatening to wreak havoc on everything around her. She swallowed hard in an attempt to settle the storm inside of her.

She looked into the camera like a lost puppy who had been beaten over and over again. A stern looking man emerged from the shadows and stood behind the camera man. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a huge wad of cash that was rolled up neatly and secured with a rubberband. He smirked and held it up high above the camera and waved it in front of her. Lily’s heart dropped to her feet, he held a quarter of a million in his hands that she needed so desperately. The quarter of a million that would make her commit atrocities against the human race. The quarter of a million that would go against the Hippocratic Oath she was set to take a few months from then. The quarter of a million that would transform her into a sadistic, violent person.

Lily reached out and her shaking hand collided with the dissection tray, nearly knocking it off the cart. Her fingers touched upon each tool before finally settling on a scalpel. Lily gripped it tightly, creating an indentation on the skin of her palms; however, no matter how tightly she latched onto it, the sweat from her hands made it feel as if it would slip from her death grip like a bar of soap.

She approached the young women cautiously, afraid the woman would jump up and scream. Lily cut the filthy tank top from her skin, leaving the woman’s exposed from the waist up.  She lightly pressed the blade into the woman’s sea of velvety skin, causing blood to flow from the wound freely.

Lily’s heart pounded against her ribcage, nearly shattering it. She mustered up any courage she could and drove the scalpel deep into the woman’s chest, carving out a Y shape that spread from each shoulder down through the middle of her abdomen. Lily peeled back the woman’s skin and muscle tissue, exposing her ribcage.

Someone from behind the camera pushed a wheeled cart into the view of the camera. Lily took a step closer to it and examined its contents: three styrofoam coolers labeled “heart”, “kidneys” and “liver”, and  bone shears stained with blood. Lily’s picked up the bone shears and looked at them closely. She positioned them at the Xiphoid process and-.

The train came to a screeching halt, awakening her from her trance like state with a jolt. She laughed her initial fear off and looked for her cabin mate. She spotted him through the window making his way through a crowd of people boarding the train. Lily shrugged and settled back into her seat, assuming that he was in a rush to leave. She watched out the window as the man elbowed his way through a herd of people dragging behind him a familiar looking piece of baggage.

An audible gasp escaped her dry, scabbed lips as the realization hit her. She pushed past blurred faces of the train passengers and into the light of a lone streetlamp on the dilapidated platform. Her eyes searched up and down but her body was so terrified it refused to move a muscle.

I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead, those words plagued her feverish mind. Victor would not tolerate any excuses, she had to get the suitcase back. Lily searched her jacket pocket for her prepaid cell to contact the client to let them know she would be late, but, all she found was a few coins and some lint. She turned around only to find her train half a mile from the station with her phone on board.

Tears pricked her sunken eyes as the train crept slowly along the tracks, eventually disappearing into the sunset. Her teeth picked at the dead flesh on her lips as she attempted to gather her all of her thoughts in one place. Her eyes scanned the area once again desperately searching for her cabin mate and the stained brown suitcase, but to no avail, only discovered a faded wooden sign that read “???????” which she imagined to be the town name. She paced back and forth trying to come up with a plan before the orange orb had finished setting until a scream derailed her train of thought.

Lily instinctively reached for the 9mm glock Victor gave to her as a “present” for joining his operation. Her hands sweated bullets as her grip on her gun began to tighten. She silently stalked over to where the sound came from, hoping no one was waiting to ambush her.

Suddenly, her cabin mate darted out from the shadows behind the grimy ticket office; his face stark white and hands were a bright crimson. Disoriented, he ran head on into Lily, knocking both himself and her over onto the rotting wood. His eyes wide with terror met hers, which were filled with relief. Before he could  open his mouth Lily pressed the cold steel barrel against his temple as a non verbal warning to not utter a single word. The weight of the man was lifted off of Lily’s chest as they both stood simultaneously.

The moonlight illuminated Lily’s face revealing a vicious smile and depraved eyes. The man dropped to his knees before begging for his life to be spared. Lily’s knee collided with his eye socket, causing it to blacken and swell almost immediately. Lily yanked his greasy black hair up so their faces were only inches away.

“If you say or do anything to put me and my job in jeopardy,” Lily whispered, “I won’t hesitate to blow your f***ing brains out”.  She tossed the man back down to the ground before leaving him sobbing on the ground.
Lily ran over to where her fellow passenger had emerged to find the suitcase wide open. She knelt down beside the blood laden suitcase, examining the precious organs stored inside to make sure they’re still in sellable condition. Lily let out an exhausted sigh of relief, her cargo was safe. She rolled her suitcase back to the front of the station and gently laid it on the wood; Lily then laid herself on top of the suitcase, protecting it with all of her being. She slept until the next morning and boarded the first train headed to Gomel, where her client patiently waited for his delivery.