The Badass Saved Everyone's Ass

Chapter 6: I can't speak.

Swoosh.

"Zoey, what now?" Scout asks.

Swoosh.

"You really do love sharpening knives." Dillon mutters.

Scout is here with her parents, and my Mom is here and Megan and Charles and Dillon and Kyle. Axel is here with his parents and we're all moving to Chicago because the crime rate is high and I hate Florida.

Swoosh.

Steve is even here because he's moving with us. He kind of has to.

Swoosh.

"Zoey." Mom says.

"Some stupid asshat had the audacity to tell me I'm just a girl."

Steve clears his throat.

Swoosh.

"Did you kill him?"

I grit my teeth. "No."

"So uh...you just let him get away with it? I can't see you doing that." Axel says.

Swoosh.

"I broke his nose." Swoosh. "And...maybe his wrist."

"You're terrifying me with that knife." Charley says.

"Sorry Charles." I put my knife in my boot.

"I don't like that name." she says.

"I've been calling you that name since I could talk. I'm not changing it."

"When are we starting training?" Axel asks. He's excited and so is Scout.

"We're going to transform the basement of our nonexistent Chicago house into a training thing, but we're going to be doing a lot more than lifting weights."

"Can you show us an example?" Scout almost whines.

I suck air in through my teeth and snatch my machete off the table.

"Ways to kill someone with a knife without stabbing them or slitting their throat." I say. They nod excitedly. I send the knife flying across the living room and it lands in the wall, right in between the panels.

"We're going to learn to do that?" Axel asks.

"Yup."

Dillon retrieves my knife and hands it to me.

I put my feet on the coffee table.

"So," Mom begins. "How did you find us?"

"I tracked the numbers. It was three thousand by the time I got there. There were threats going to the Whitehouse and I saw that thing with 4,000." Everyone nods, knowing what I'm talking about. "They were planning on making you guys form an army and kill the president. The sex was to scare you. The four thousand was the amount of people they were going to get. That's why it was in District of Columbia."

"So if you found out a day too late it would have been too late." Axel says.

"Probably."

_________

"Come on, get up!"

"You're going to kill me!" Scout groans. "My whole body hurts!"

We moved to Chicago and we got a seven bedroom house. Scout, me, Dillon, Kyle, and Axel live in it. Mom and Megan and Charles got their own house, and Scout's parents got their own house and Axel's parents got their own house, and Steve got an apartment. We put mats on a part of the basement floor and a board that we can shoot and throw knives at.