The Girl And The Mafia

As The Days Go By

"Stop that," With her hands pulling on my hair, causing more wincing from me; the morning dizziness still flowing through me like glue, I sat on the floor with Kaede above me. The black training clothes fit tight like a familiar second skin, gold stitching of a gun crossing an arrow above my heart stood out against the rest.

A month, a whole month of waking up before the sun and going to sleep with the crickets, not that I had seen much of the world since I was brought here. A month of training with Will, without saying a single word to him outside of the training room.

Finishing my hair, Kaede stepped away to admire her work; I no longer needed a mirror to see what she did every day, two tight braids that clung to the left side of my head, feeding into a single braid that branched out to smaller ones down my head, leaving some of my hair still brushing down my back. To the Venatores a woman's hair was meant to show a warrior, strong, but beautiful, something seen, but never grazed by a hand.

"Salon time is over," Will strolled in, Kaede's sign to leave with a quiet remark. Dressed in the same clothes I wore, Will's blue eyes skipped over mine and to the punching bags, "You know the drill."

Pushing myself up I stepped over to the bags, the sense of fear had slowly faded to nothing over the weeks. The memory of my first training session was still fresh though.

I had been tear-stained and tired, my mind was still whirling with what had happened the day before. The training was vigorous, I had retched after running two laps, something Will would only responded with handing me a rag and giving me two more laps. The days following I had bruises everywhere from fighting and had pulled virtually every muscle that touched my skin, even when I tried to run away, I could only make it to the third floor before passing out.

Though now, as I threw my weight into hitting the bag in front of me, cracking open wounds from hitting the leather with my bare hands, I felt strong, confident even, as if the weakening nights had empowered me to push further.

"You're not fighting a grandma," Will retorted, "Put your weight behind it." His encouraging words never changed much, though we had grown closer, being the amount of time we had spent training together. It never seemed to pass talking about how I used to live and being taught the ways of the Venatores.

"I am," I hit again, earning a disapproving look from him, "Not everyone weighs as much as you do, Will." Not one look of hilarity from him, just another one of his commands as he held the bag still.

"Guns." He spoke minutes later; without a second thought I left the bag swinging and ran to the other side of the room, a gun laid taken apart on the floor, quickly loading it I spun around and ran again. Will watched from the control panel on the wall as holographic people began running at me, shooting the gun as I ran around the room small specks of light flashed past me, vanishing on the wall behind me.

Moments later people disappeared and Will crossed his arms, "That's one of your worst times yet, two laps."

"I'm not hit," I crossed my arms with my gun on my shoulder, "I hit all of the targets," I motioned to where the people used to be, knowing I had dogged everything I saw coming at me.

"Look at your stomach, you're hit," He began tapping his fingers, a sign of annoyance, "Now it's three laps." I looked down to see a red dot right above my abdomen, a sign that I was shot by the holograms. Looking across the room I found the light where the holograph was coming from, holding my gun level I shot three times before hitting my target, the light sparked then disappeared with a small buzzing noise left behind.

"See, I wasn't hit," With a loud grunt Will walked over and grabbed the gun, forcibly, from me. "I'm going to need that when you start the simulation again," I had to look up to him from the height difference, something that didn't make me seem any more demanding than a small lap dog, "Because I wasn't hit."

"Four laps, now." I stood there for a moment, starring up at him as if to tell him I wasn't going to, before turning on my heel and beginning to run my laps around the entire compound, earning some calls from people who passed by.

Over the long training days I had grown used to the faces around me, having that all of us had grown up without families, there was a connection that ran deeper than blood in all of us, a sort of loyalty. On the other hand, my training was separated from others my age because of how inexperienced I was, but that never seemed to stop Will from pushing me to limits beyond mine.

From what I understood there was a 5-9 recruiting age, except for special cases where someone stands out during a raid; such as me.

The clicking of shoes behind me came closer down an empty corridor until there was another body running at the same pace as me, a smooth transition down the hall, they knew my path and my rhythm, Will.

His tall stature casted a long shadow in front of us as I kept running, our breaths keeping to the same heartbeat as we ran in virtual silence, "Don't you have a child to steal candy from?" I glanced over to him, a sweat hadn't even broken on him yet, running seemed as easy as breathing for him.

"Don't you have technology to break?" I could sense the small smirk forming on his face.

"Well that was my way of rebelling from my kidnappers," I forced out a laugh as I thought of the many times I had 'accidentally' broken some of the training equipment.

Suddenly Will had stopped and his hands were on my shoulders, holding me still as our breaths twisted together, "I have already told you a hundred times, you do not have to stay here, this is not forced onto you, you chose this," It wasn't a lie, I knew I could leave whenever I wanted, it would just mean that a child would take my place. Yet, as I stood there, in an empty hallway so far underground my ears were beginning to pop, all I could think about was looking up at Will and getting up for training tomorrow to have Kaede pull on my hair and looking up at him again, "Octavia."

"I know," I tried to move from his grip, but he held me still, keeping my gaze up as if holding a silent conversation, "It was just a joke." I forced a laugh as we continued my laps.

After I finished running Will and I ate our dinner with minimal small talk, something that only happened when one of us was nervous. On our way back to the training room a voice called out behind us, "Hey, Will is this one new?"

I turned around to see someone who sent a chill down my spine, it felt like a wire was buzzing down my nerves and searing every sense I had. The woman was slender, green eyes and light auburn hair that reflected red under the artificial lights. I remember starring at a photo, a man and a woman holding a child in a hospital, all smiling and cheerful.

I don't remember telling myself to speak, or even the last time I had said the word; but here I was calling this woman the name of someone who had been gone for so long, "Mom?"

Edited 4/2/2017