A New Start

Chapter 9

Ever since that visit to the gate, Emma doubled her training. She went from doing 100 pushups a day to doing 500 and she made sure she did them with one hand, 250 each hand. She also began climbing the tree more in earnest and doing her best to stay flexible but fast. She also fell from the tree several times on purpose when Mama and one of the big kids wasn't there to catch her. She hit the ground hard each time but with each impact it hurt less and less until she was almost completely immune to the pain.

Using that however she also began to do chin ups using the tree branch and she would do squats as well because at this point she might as well.

What really stunned everyone wasn't the fact that she was doing this rather insane workout, especially for a four year old…and okay that was a lie they were all stunned at this, but at the fact that she managed to get her 'routine' done before lunch. Every. Day.

Then she'd eat lunch and happily talk with her siblings and Mama before going outside and running around some more, this time just playing tag and other normal games with the other kids.

After everyone else was worn out, and she was usually still ready for more given her almost endless stamina, she would punch at the air and pretend to fight off bad guys.

By the time she turned five, she had gone from 500 pushups to 1000 and was doing 500 with each hand…not just that though but she started making sure her feet were off of the ground too. So she was pretty much just pushing and lifting her entire body weight on one hand much to the others shock. Even Mama was shocked at this and a bit worried.

"Emma dear…you know you don't have to push yourself like this right?" Mama asked her one day when she had stood under the shade of the tree where Norman and Ray were sat reading a book each and half keeping an eye on Emma as she did her usual pushups.

"It's the only way I'll get stronger!" Emma said lifting her head to grin at her Mama while continuing to do pushups, and her alternating hands mid push up was new and the fact that she could do it with seemingly ease spoke greatly for her reflexes and strength.

"You don't need to get so strong while you're so little. You still have a lot of growing up to do, and you don't need to worry about bad guys hurting you while I'm here." Mama said knowing about Emma's seeming fear of bad guys attacking them, the girl had constant nightmares about it after all.

"Silly Mama." Emma said giggling a bit as she did her last push up and then laid on the grass for a minute before she bounced up, barely breathing hard or sweating yet.

Something that got Liam to mutter a 'what the fuck' under his breath again from nearby.

"I'm not worried about them hurting me. I'm worried the bad guys will hurt you and my brothers and sisters!" Emma said beaming and Mama's eyes widened a bit at that as she stared at Emma and even the other big kids stared at the girl. The nightmares she had almost every night? The ones where she woke up crying but not screaming or anything…the ones they only knew about by accident…the ones that she could only calm down from once she was sure that Norman, Ray, and Mama were all safe and sound…

Those weren't nightmares about her getting hurt by bad guys. Those were nightmares about the bad guys hurting her family.

"…" Mama stared at Emma in stunned silent shock for a moment while Emma grinned up at her.