Finding Lily

16- Lily

For weeks, we trained at that cabin. Daniel taught me knife skills, using one and disarming someone, and techniques for any type of sparring situation. If the attacker holds you down on the ground, if they grab you from behind, if they're holding a knife to your throat, I had a move for all of those.

In addition to fighting skills, I had grown more accustomed to living off the grid. I knew how to cook using just a fire, I learned to only use the cold shower after an intense workout so it actually felt good, and I created trails in the woods by running twice a day. Whenever I was bored, I worked out more, fought more, or ran more. It kept me busy, made me stronger, and got me ready for my true mission.

For the first time in a long time, I actually felt good. Like I had a purpose, and was actually close to achieving it.

When we started training with guns, a fear I hadn't felt in a while presented itself again. The last time I had seen a gun, it was holstered to the man who ruined my life. It was the thing that took Jane's life. I was scared to hold it.

I couldn't admit that to my father, though. I had stopping showing any sort of weakness in front of him, mostly as a silent way of saying 'fuck you' anytime he was around. Whoever he thought I was was gone. I wanted to be just as cold and distant as he had been to me for the past ten years.

I grabbed a 30-06 rifle from the gun cage and brought it to the shooting range. Daniel went through all of the parts on the rifle first, then his glock. He had me take both of them apart and put them back together. After an hour of merely taking apart guns, Daniel finally let me shoot one. I completely missed the target.

It wasn't until my fifth clip that I started hitting the paper ring consistently, and by then Daniel's patience had worn thin. I was also frustrated. I'd been a natural at every skill but this one. After a couple more rounds, improving very slightly as I went, my mind wandered. We hadn't talked about anything real since we started training. We didn't have that kind of relationship anymore. Still, there was something I wanted him to know.

"I want revenge." I told him, putting the gun down on the bench.

"What?"

"I want to kill the man that killed Jane." I thought he'd be proud of me. I thought he'd enjoy the fact that I wanted to walk in his footsteps and be just as heartless as he was.

But, he wasn't. "No, absolutely not."

"No?"

"There are better ways to get closure, trust me I would know."

"I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch and you're either going to help me or I'll find someone who will." I said stubbornly. I couldn't go back to how I was. Not after this. I needed closure. I needed someone to pay.

"You're not nearly ready." Dan said finally.

"Fine. I'll train until I am."

"Once you kill someone, you can never take it back. It'll haunt you forever." Daniel warned. "I'm serious."

"Fine. With the nightmares I've been having, I doubt it can get any worse."

"It will. You'll open up old wounds. You'll never be able to heal and have a normal life."

"I don't know why you expect me to make a better choice than you did. I have nothing left. You had me after mom died, and even I wasn't enough to stop you from turning into a murderous psychopath." The venom in my voice was hard to recognize. Still, I pressed on. "I'm doing this with or without your help."

Daniel stared at me for a while. Maybe he didn't want me to turn into a killer, like him. Maybe he still saw me as an innocent little girl, playing in the flower bed with my mother, dress twirling around and arms stretched wide. He changed when my mother died. I did too.

"Fine. Follow me." Daniel told me. We gathered up our supplies and walked back to the cabin in silence. Once there, we dropped our guns on the kitchen table and Daniel went over to his desk drawer. He pulled out some paperwork and handed it to me. "Regardless of how you want your life to go, you'll need this."

I looked at the first piece. It was a driver's license issued by the state of Maine. It had my picture, but it must have been taken years ago. My face looked the same, but my hair was brown and wavy as opposed to the dyed straight blonde hair that had been my signature look after he left. Since the incident had happened two months ago, my natural color was already creeping back in but it still wasn't even close to looking how it did back when this picture was taken.

My physical description on the license was also accurate. The curved nose, green eyes, angular cheeks. Then I saw the name and stared at it for a bit, feeling a whirlwind of emotions swirl through me. I shouldn't have been surprised. If I was really going to do this, I couldn't do it under my real name. First of all, the people that attacked me knew it, and second, I knew my old self was dying more and more each day. I wasn't Lily anymore. Lily was gone, each part of her buried with the people she had lost. First her mother, then her father, then her step-sister.

"You still sure about this?" Daniel asked me. He was giving me another way out, my last way out. I stared at him, then the license.

"Yes." I said, not a doubt left in my mind.

"Ok, Alex. Let's get started."