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TW!: mentions of physical punishment from teacher to student
"Hey, these snake bites are fire! Can't stop eating 'em. It's like crack," Kyler walked over to them, and Emmy slowly straightened up from her stretching.
"Bro, they're pure protein. You're only supposed to eat one or two," Kenny informed him.
"Oh, for real?"
"Yeah," Emmy looked at him in concern and backed away. "You might want to stay in the bathroom for the next hour or two."
"Man, I gotta charge my phone up too," Kyler complained before looking behind her shoulder. "Yo, look who's here."
Emmy turned around, and her face dropped. She turned to Tory, who had the same look on her face. They both then walked over to her, stopping her in her path. "What are you doing here? I thought you quit."
Devon scoffed. "You beat me on the mat, but I only lose if I give up."
"Miss Lee, why don't you go check in with the receptionist," Silver and Kim came up from behind them. "She'll set you up with a pass in case you want to train after hours."
"Oh," Devon turned to Emmy. "I definitely will."
And she walked away. Emmy almost wanted to scoff in disbelief, but she couldn't blame Devon.
"I have to hand it to you," she turned to Silver. "Miss Lee reached out after class yesterday, asked if she could join the flagship dojo. Apparently, she wants to learn more from you. I'm very proud of you."
"But she failed the test," Tory pointed out. "She ran away."
"The test was not for her. It was for you," Kim's eyes went to Emmy. "I wanted to see how much strength you had in your heart to accomplish what you need to do."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Emmy asked.
"Something greater than you could ever imagine," Silver cryptically said.
Emmy turned to Tory, who turned to look back at her. The latter could see the confusion on her best friend's face, but it was mixed with something else.
Fear.
✸
"I don't know how much more I can take of this."
Emmy rubbed her hands together nervously, feeling them get sweaty and clammy. "Silver is literally breathing down my neck and Tory is slowly getting pushed out of their vision, and I'm gonna be all alone. And yesterday at the mall, they dunked my brother's head into a dirty toilet and I couldn't even do anything about it because I'm scared of what's gonna happen. Please tell me I don't have to do this for much longer."
Kreese stared at the red and purple marks that littered her knuckles and were peeking out from under her hoodie sleeve. He could take a pretty good guess at what they were doing to motivate her to keep going.
