Queen's Princess

PART II: Chapter 9

I slid down the hill, heading towards Odessa's house. I narrowed my eyes, preventing sand from getting in them. When I reached the bottom of the dune, I did a little jog to prevent falling over and eating sand. Heading towards the back door, I was about to open it up, but it swung open and Odessa was standing before me. About four years had passed since we had met one another and started training to fight against Mason in The Reckoning. However, we knew it was unlikely for a Wastelander to get to The Reckoning, but Odessa and I wanted to be the first two to make history. But when I was greeted by her, it wasn't in the normal way. Her smile was a frown and she avoided my gaze.

"Hey, champ," she said quietly.

"Dez, is something the matter?"

"Come here," she said and I followed her to the edge of the Wastelands.

Beyond the edge was nothing but desert and mostly likely dead bodies of those who thought something was out there. There were three head stones that read the names of Odessa's family members. One of them being her father. She knelt onto the sand and I knelt beside her, placing my hand on her shoulder.

"I-I'm sorry, Odessa."

"Just like the time when my first sibling died, I couldn't do anything about it. But now," her hand was balled into a fist and she dug it into the sand. "I'm gonna make that bastard Mason pay for what he has done!"

She stood up and looked down at me, holding out her hand. One thing that made Odessa different from the others. She was strong, she knew she was strong, and she used it to help others. But she knew when to be gentle too, such as this moment. Her hand carefully wrapped around mine, lifting me up from the sand.

"Well, champ, ready for today's training?" she asked, a grin appearing on her face.

"You bet I am, Dez."

"I'll see you down at the junk yards," she said and tore off in that direction.

I chuckled and started to run after her. In the four years we have been training together and alone, she has shown the most progress. She has built herself up that the boys who used to terrorize me when we were younger no longer come around and try to fight. They know they'd get their asses handed back to them from Odessa. Her hair has changed slightly. I remember it being all dyed blue when we first met. Now the top of her hair is brown and she still has the side braids, but her hair grew out in the back, creating a mullet in the back. But it looked good on her. She had a piercing beneath her bottom lip, two studs under neath her left eye, and earrings. With all her time being in the sun, her skin became much darker than what it was, creating a nice tan for her. However, while she showed much physical change, I had more of a mental change and my speed for running has gotten faster. So whenever Odessa would start running off like that, I can catch up to her within a few seconds. Speaking of, I caught up to her before we even reached the edge of the housing plant she was part of.

"Nice job, Y/N. I gotta hand it to ya."

"I know your tricks now, Dez."

"Oh do ya?" she asked, running to the side a bit.

I turned my head to see that someone was heading towards us. It was my father. I moved out of the way, almost stumbling a bit.

"Be careful, Y/N!" he called.

"Sorry, dad!" I yelled over my shoulder.

I looked over to see Dez was chuckling, "Quiet, Dez."

"That was a good one."

"Keep laughing, I'll see your ass at the junk yards," I said and got in front of her, slowly widening the gap between us.

I reached the entrance of the junk yard, catching my breath as Odessa caught up to me. We both took our time to catch our breaths. I handed her a glass bottle I had in my bag.

"Thanks," she breathed out, taking a swig from the bottle.

Once we had caught our breaths and did some stretching, Odessa led me into the junk yard to do some more physical training. We had set up a spot in the way back to where we can train in peace.

"Ya know," Odessa said as we were doing some hand-to-hand combat as our warm up. "I was thinking of something."

"Oh no, that's not a good thing," I chuckled, trying to knife hand her, but she grabbed my hand and pulled me towards her.

"You're being too predictable again, Y/N," she said and elbowed me in the face, making me stumble backwards.

"Tell me what you were thinking of," I said.

"I was thinking about possibly making some weapons. Ya know, to make our fighting style different and more unique to ourselves."

"I see," I said, dodging her punch, trying to go in for a hit, but she swept underneath my feet, causing me to fall onto the ground.

"Good warm up, Y/N," she said and helped me up from the sand.

"Thanks. So, what were ya thinking about these weapons?"

"Well, I thought it would be fun to have them act as almost like a boomerang, except, they come back when I want them to."

"So you're going to strap a magnet to your arm?"

"Wasn't exactly thinking that, but that does work."

"I think that'd be cool. What weapons were ya thinking of having."

"Well a gun would be one. An axe and possibly a knife would be another."

"And they'd all come back to you with the magnet you make?"

"Yes."

"I think that'd be cool to make. Maybe we can do that in between training. My dad could help us."

"Now, we just need to find the parts."

"Good thing we're in a junk yard," I chuckled.

She snickered, "We'll look after we finish up our training. Try not to get side tracked and lose focus today, Y/N. I can tell you're already going to."

"You read me like a book."

"More like the back of my hand."

Something about that sentence, sent a shudder up my spine and made my heart race.