Fixing Me ∞ Hood

Chapter 45 - Better (Part 2)

The voice was unfamiliar, but I knew this man worked for Castigo - as he had the tattoo on his wrist, and there was no one else trying to kidnap me that I knew of.

As he started to drag me away, I started to panic. Tears came to my eyes, I screamed into the man's hand and I pulled against him with all my strength - wearing down my energy quickly. Then something clicked inside my head and I started to remember things, from my therapy session just then and from my training from Protettore.

Dr Mimi had said that to get over this, I needed to fight against the things that were holding me back, both physically and theoretically. And I am a Protettore, I've been trained to fight and get out of situations like this. I've been taught to deal with situations like this, so deal with it I will. Although I don't have much strength, because I haven't been eating for over a month, I can still use all the strength that I have left.

Taking a deep breath to calm myself as he dragged me away, I put my feet down firmly, stopping us temporarily. Those few seconds were all I needed. With all my strength, I stomped down on the bone in the middle of his foot, using my heel, causing the man to yelp and slightly loosen his hold on me. It was enough for me then to elbow the man in the ribs, earning a crack from his bones, making him lose his breath.

I turned around in his arms, pulling my arm up and then basically karate chopping the curve between his neck and shoulder. I know that there is a group of nerves there, and when hit in the right spot with the right strength, you could temporarily paralyse a person.

The man fell to the ground, groaning but not able to move. I put my hands on my knees and bent down to the man, an evil smirk painted across my lips.

"You're messing with the wrong girl, asshole." I sneered. "Give that message to Jimmy."

Standing back up, I kicked the guy in the balls, letting out some anger and then swiftly stepped over him and continued walking like nothing had happened.

I swear, after weeks of not talking, that is the best thing to say. I stood up tall now, with my shoulders back and head held high. I felt good.

~

I'd been walking around the shops aimlessly for around ten minutes now, just looking at what shops were here and going into a few. I had been getting a few weird looks from older people because of how underdressed I was, but nothing could bring me down. After weeks and weeks of being depressed, I finally felt good.

Drinking the last bit of my raspberry Slurpee, I threw it in the bin and looked up to see what store I was in front of.

"Perfect." I whispered to myself and grinned.

I was in front of a hairdresser, and in a matter of seconds, I strode confidently into the store, a cloud of cold air hitting me from the air conditioning. A little bell rang as I opened the door, and a young woman in her early to mid twenties came to the front counter seconds later.

"Hi, how can I help you?" She smiled sweetly.

"Um, I was just wondering whether you have a free opening, like, now?" I asked quietly.

Her smile broadened. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"Not really," I frowned. "But I live close to here."

She chuckled lightly. "Come through hun, we always have openings."

"Thank you." I smiled politely.

I followed the young woman as she led me past the front desk and around to one of the chairs in front of the mirror.

"Alessandro will be with you in a minute." The woman said.

I smiled and said thank you again as she walked off, tending to another customer. I kind of got excited because Alessandro is a typical Italian name for a guy, and for some reason, Italian hairdressers are always very nice and very good at their job.