Hybrid

Chapter 13: The Big Question

"You okay, Jason?" Alice stood over me, sweating and covered in bruises. 

I panted, "Score...?" I coughed, refusing to move again. 

"Forty to thirty-eight. Unless we're counting the first two times I bodied you--"

"We aren't--"

 "Okay... Okay..." She smiled, "You're...." She doubled over, leaning on her knees. "... You're doing a lot better than I expected." She smiled, her breathing slowly returning to normal.

"Think I'll win tomorrow?" I closed my eyes and it just made it worse, making me focus on everything that was already in pain. 

"You definitely have a good shot." She sighed and sat down beside me, "Where'd you learn to fight? Because I've been training here for the past year, so the fact you can keep up at all is making me kind of jealous."

"Would you believe me if I said 'God-given talent?'"

 I opened one of my eyes to peek at her while she was shaking her head, her glowing, shaking, armor covered hand hovering over the bruises on her arm. "C'mon, tell me."

I sighed; at least if I'm talking, I'm not being beaten into a pulp. "... Amy and I took karate for eight years from when I was seven until I quit two years ago."

"You and Amy? Amy can fight?"

"Yeah, she doesn't really talk about it, but I don't think I've ever won a sparring match against her." 

"Why'd you quit?" 

I glanced at her, her gaze on me, confusion in her eyes. "She... I don't know if she'd be okay with me telling you..." 

"You quit because of her?" 

"No, it was... Ugh, no, most of our free time together had been in karate, so if I had stayed we would have barely seen each other." 

"So, she quit first?" 

"Can we talk about something else?"

She sighed, laying beside me, looking at the ceiling. "Okay. I'm... I'm an orphan."

"Alice, I didn't mean you have to--"

"I want to." For a moment there was silence in the big empty room, the sound of our combined breathing the only audible thing until she spoke again. "I had been on life support for a year before I died and came back with my powers. Unlike most angels, we weren't filthy rich. Farm family, kept our noses out of this business most of the time. Every now and then, when the angels needed a few extra hands, my mom or dad would take the chance to make a few extra bucks; not full-time fighters, just farmers." She took in a deep breath, exhaling slowly, "That had to change when I had my accident. While I was on life support, my parents started doing business as double agents for the demons to pay for my medical bills. One day they got caught and were killed."

I took a moment to word my sentence correctly, thinking about how badly this would end for me if I shoved my foot in my mouth again, though there really was only one way I could think to say it. "... Why not let you die? Wouldn't that have--?"

"They didn't want my human life to end because of them. My father had been out on a mission and someone broke into the house... not a bad person... They were just hungry." She sighed, "I scared them and they swung a knife at me... I fell down the stairs. They called an ambulance and escaped while I slipped into a coma from a 'serious head injury'. My parents thought if they could just wait it out, I'd wake up. That didn't work, clearly, but yeah. After a while, my insurance said 'hey, uh, she's out of money.' and pulled my plug." She chuckled, "But, yeah. That's how I ended up here."