After our collective heart to heart, everything at home felt . . . natural. Bell started coming home late some nights, but she was dutifully polite about informing us so we could bring up cantina food for the three of us. While Marcella did not volunteer further info about the Lieutenant part of her cantina leak, I did learn that if she was a ‘Lieutenant’ that she was far more important than who I thought would be training me.
When she started to lean into the persona I created for her, I knew just how important all of the other trainers thought she was. I’m convinced that they thought she was death come to collect them, and only barter in favors and trade could stay her reaping another day. So they fed their trainees into the ring at her behest to demonstrate for and teach me valuable lessons.
I told Belle the next day that I had bartered for the personal Chef and Dietitian for the Miss Fontaine would prepare an extra meal in exchange or Meditation training twice a week. She agreed, but only if I agreed to help her with housekeeping in the pre-initialization bunks. Not even one of those sloppy fuckers wanted me hanging around for hours, so by sheer coincidence, she spent less time cleaning up after people when my eyes promised to murder everyone eyeballing my girlfriend. One of the guys almost convinced me to come back at midnight to disappear his ass.
Belle and I both decided that would not help me get my weapons qualifications. She also convinced me she had other ways of handling it. She revealed that said pervert had sent her unwelcome pictures of a lewd nature and his bunk mates threw him a sock party. He then suddenly had to visit his dead grandmother for a year until the next selection class. Coincidences are strange aren’t they?
We’re sitting at a late dinner from the cantina when Marcella gets a message in her System, which she apparently forwards to Belle. I am feeling so left out, but also so included? The feeling of Family makes my eyes start leaking.
“You okay hon?”
“Yeah Bell. I just thought how I wish I had the system, but also, the petty bulshit of Marcella sharing a message with you makes this feel like I have a family again. And what do you know, I have emotions and shit that make me cry.”
“Fine fine, I got good news and amusing as hell bad news.” My found sister says. “Jim and Denny agreed to train you up on guns and knives, not because they have proof of your stability, but because they have heard nothing about you and were reminded of my menace and their own stab-ability!”
“Oooh, that’s a terrible pun. I love it.” I take a sip of tea, because Bell is convinced she can teach me to appreciate it. “How long has it been since you flexed? Like proper exercised your ability?”
“Hmm,” she considers as she swirls her Irish coffee. “Five years at least, probably closer to eight since people saw me work.”
“What are you both talking about Kimber?”
“My dear sister is a big scary . . .” I get interrupted with a forceful monotone.
“Can it, Kid. Hard break.” I throw my hands up.
“Sorry, teach. I didn’t mean to go too far. And Belle, I don’t want to keep you in the dark, but she and I made promises.” I expect some pouty pushback, but instead she nods.
“At times like this, it’s hard to remember we work for an organized crime business. I get it, ladies. I don’t like it, but I get it. But three can play at this game: I know stuff that you don’t know.”
Her sinister payback smirk is so attractive that I grab her face and kiss her lips. I timed it so well that she forgets to hold me back. I smile as I separate.
“I always wanted a partner in crime.”
“And it’s ruined,” Marcella pushes my face away.
“It very much is not!” Belle wakes up and pulls my face back in for a kiss. I’m smiling.
“Mooom, Kimber is being gross!” Marcella yells, well and truly ruining the moment as we all laugh.
“Fuck I love you guys.” I blurt out as the fuzzy feeling in my chest and head spew out of my mouth.
“So sappy, I’m . . .”
“I love you too!” Bell shouts in my face.
“Yep, I’m out.” My mental sister exits with cake in hand.
She holds my shoulders and stares at me while surprised at her own exclamation. It’s super awkward so I pull her into my lap. This devolves into shifts in grunts and awkwardness until her legs and arms are wrapped around me like a monkey and her head is on my shoulder. I have no idea what to say or even do.
“Can we fall asleep like this on the couch with a movie on?”
“Very yes.” I stand, flexing hard to make it look effortless and cool, and walk us over to the couch. I tap her legs to signal I’m about to squash them while I lie down. She taps a few invisible buttons and the screen lights up with one of the superhero movies she likes.
She’s looking very cute as she nuzzles into my admittedly flat chest, and that smile is looking mighty kissable.
“Can we kiss sometimes before we sleep?”
“All of the yesses.” She kisses me and struggles with something I can’t see, but when she breaks the kiss to scootch up and put a pillow under her head for effortless smooches, I get all warm in my belly. It took seventeen months, and a scattered and confusing amount of effort on many sides, but I can finally say that I feel love for a girl that calls me girlfriend.
***
“Kimber! Stop fucking around!” Billy Garnet Shouts at me as I miss yet another target with a thrown knife.
“I can murder every one of these targets with a throwing knife!”
“Every knife can be a throwing knife you arrogant shit! BE BETTER.”
I’ll fucking show you better you unrelenting piece of shit. “You got a printer and ten minutes?”
“If it will help you stop wasting my time, I have the world!” He shows me to an office where I print off a picture of Doctor Salazar. “You have beef with the doctor?” he asks, and I know why he’s nervous.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Not really, I’ve come to terms with him. But I don’t have a picture of the pervert I will never forget, so this reminder will have to do.” I walk out to the ten meter target for knives and I put a printout of Salazar on the body target. I walk back to the line and warn the line crew. “I’m about to tap into some feral shit, so please step behind the line and out of my vision.”
“Whatever you say, chica.” The gathered men chuckle as I line up the knives in front of me while I concentrate on the frame of mind I need.
That target is a pervert. It likes to touch patients and is a terrible pervert. It’s too nebulous with it? And with no real person threatened, it doesn’t hit home.
“Nobody would come after you, pup, but I hear your girlie is a snack and the doc . . .”
As soon as someone associated my worries about perverts with Bell, I snarl and lose feeling in my extremities and only see red.
“That fucking pervert will never touch Belle.” My ruined voice breaks as I shout, displaced from my body as I watch it swipe up a table of knives, swipe up and release knives at the printed face, and swiping down at the printed crotch, I keep one for my vengeance, just in case the blades to the skull don’t penetrate I watch as my body carves the target in two. As soon as my eyes survey the most assuredly dead target, my consciousness re-connects and I stumble a little before walking back to the line, placing the remaining knife in my hand on the table.
I look at the linemen and the range officer and the shock on their faces.
“I count nine of ten knives released, want to score that for me gents?” I am still wound up as all hell, but my asshole trainer spun me up to train for this, so I know what to expect.
“No I do not. I’m going to write 90 of 100, barely hit expert. Any dissenting opinion?” They all walked away. “I’ll forward your results, kindly get off my range.”
Well, yet another training team freaked out and bullied. Only the gun guys left. I can’t freak out with that set, any loss of control with a gun is a fail, no matter how well I recover. I can’t blame them, really. I’ve been working hard on corralling my emotions, but I’ve had some sparring kids complain that I can’t control my trigger.
Now, I didn’t think so either, but Marcella has been working hard on the idea and she’s the reason we landed on a way to hold back during a hyped-up fight. We focused so hard on that that I almost failed my knife final. In the end, sister mentor convinced me to hold on to that bickering energy in a fight and flash the pervert warning when I needed brute force.
She gave me a photo and then randomized my opponents. Fight number three is the supposed pervert. I hit him so hard in the gut that my shoulder slides out of place with a pop, and the boy I’m fighting immediately vomits and falls over on top of me. They separate us and I groan as Marcella grabs my arm. She twists and jerks it, popping it back in and jabbing me with some pressurized injector. Marcella scolds me in public about the waste of resources.
“While I don’t usually approve of such brutish intimidation tactics, it’s inching us toward a full field period. The gun boys can’t be intimidated though. Physicality is next to nothing and reflex and accuracy are paramount.”
“Mushbrain, in case you haven’t seen, my reactions are both accurate and fast.”
“Fluffy tiger, you have never had to focus on multiple targets before.”
I snap my eyes to Bell, “Et tu Maribelle?”
“She paid me in baby pictures! I am so weak!” I snarl at Marcella for working her intel on my girl.
“Put those marshmallows away, fluffy,”
“I hate you.”
“Save it for the range you cotton candy terror. If you can’t use the overdrive on the emotions, how about an underdrive? Clamp them down to an ember for a minute or two?”
“I mean, it’s a solid idea, but how do I practice that?”
“Watch mild abuse?” She unhelpfully.
“If you want to spend more money on very bloody experiments, please continue.” I challenge.
She rolls her eyes and waves her hand in dismissal. “yeah, it was a bad idea. Belle, you know her well, did she ever dampen her emotions to control herself.”
“Marcella, I wasn’t this close to Kimber in the Orphanage. Her emotions were already minimal around me.”
“Sorry hon, but I had . . .”
“Kimber, you don’t have to explain our separation at the Orphanage. We are both much different.” She coughs purposefully, “Jamie’s the only one that understood her that well then. Next in line was Mother. She liked to talk to Kimber.”
“Care for a visit?”
“No”, “Yes.” Bell and I answer differently at the same time.
I respond first, “I would have thought you’d be happy to see the grubs.”
“I’m afraid that the younger kids were a substitute for finding my person, okay? I’m afraid I won’t love them the same way. I am so terrified that you and this place has ruined me for a wider family.” My favorite person says as she cries into me. I of course respond with bravado.
“Belle, no way the grubs forget their school mother. You’re not old enough to fully realize kids, but I bet you remember every feeling the second you walk in and so do they. The only thing that may prevent that is if the boogey man walks in with you.”
“No way you terrorized these kids.” Marcella says as she arranges a car for us.
“True. I was the trained monster that had everyone’s back. Jamie convinced the grubs that the monsters worked at night because they were afraid of me. It was cute.”
“Can we not talk about Jamie?” I take a breath and reply.
“Belle, Jamie curated me for two years. I couldn’t forget her if I tried. Every entry into emotion that I have was forged by trauma or by her. I love you, doofus, but I can’t forget Jamie—that bitch.”
She digs her fingers into my scalp and I resist a moan. “It’s hard not to be jealous. You consume my thoughts and I go to therapy to help separate my need for you so I can help others.”
“Uh, Belle. That’s concerning.”
“More concerning than your feral destruction leap?” She ripostes.
“I surrender, Belle. If you’d rather go back to the ranch, Danny would take you back.”
“No, it just . . . ugh. I wonder about when you get the system okay? I got this presence from something I was doing at the orphanage. What happens if this is your talent?”
“Oh, OH!” My mentor exclaims. “That would be fantastic!”
“For orphan’s sake, focus. We are here to tap into my shit to pass me through my firearm practical. Once that is done, I will make it up to both of you separately if we can focus for a few hours.”
“A few hours huh?”
“My sister is being lewd again. I’m fifteen. No shenanigans allowed.”
Her response was to pull me along and talk to Mother about me in front of me. My mentor is so mature. I suffer through a few second had stories about me and when Bell approached the grubs they were too happy to see her to talk about anything else.
The image made me a little jealous and made Marcella want to talk about kids, which was uncomfortable for me and Mother. Serves her right for tagging along on a sisters’ day.
“How are you doing Kimber? Are they treating you well?” I chuckle at Mother’s attempts. She tried sometimes, but really didn’t understand us.
“I’m good, mum. I’ve got a good mentor, a comforting companion, and I’m receiving the best training that money can buy. The only issue is that they haven’t created metrics for as far as they’ve pushed me. Not a bad life eh?” I say, with only a smidge if flippancy.
Another hour or two has Marcella trying not to fidget, so she throws in the flag. “Alright, I have a few ideas, and this isn’t going to help with our current problem. Go collect your girl and we’ll discuss some . . . drastic measures.”
“Ugh, okay. Mother, try to pay more attention to the Sisters and how little they care.”
“They do the best,” as soon as I hear that I yell.
“Bullshit. They are elitist, selfish bitches that want to belong to something. Teach them or release them, don’t subject another generation to their apathy.”
“I see your mouth hasn’t improved.”
“Nor has your awareness. Maribelle, Jamie and I held this place together. You better hope that our efforts bleed into the algorithm for the next decade or you’re screwed.” Before she can retort, I walk out. I have no interest. From what I know of selection day, we were the only school that had hits, and it was certainly nothing that the administration did.
We walk away with Belle feeling fulfilled while sister dearest and I are just mad at the waste of time. I collect Belle in my lap for the drive and nibble her ear until she squeals. I’m enjoying her responses, but I always worry about leading her on about more . . . physical stuff. I know I am not ready, and she is older but very understanding, but I still worry? Marcella tells me I’m an idiot and not to worry about that until I feel the desire to do more, assured that Belle would understand. I still worry.