How to Raise an Assassin

CHAPTER 23: I SKIP SCHOOL

Most kids my age hated school. Some loved it for the knowledge or the escape from the family.

I was in the middle.

Heading back to school on Mondays was always a drag after a weekend of "projects." Usually I was dead with fatigue from staying up late to finish them. But school was the only normal thing I did that didn't make me feel like a total outcast.

And yet, at school, I had zero friends and was still a pariah. Things started to look up after meeting Ash. Some kids even said hi to me when I walked into school on Monday. A girl named Ashley reminded me about the offer to join the soccer team to replace the injured Lucy. They had practice after school that day and she asked me to come try out. I never considered myself a soccer player, but you'd be surprised how transferable the skills of an assassin were. I remember in one training session, my father had us try to take out a target with our hands tied behind our backs. Our feet really came in handy. Soccer was just murdering a ball into a net with one's feet.

I accepted the invitation just before the school bell called us into homeroom. Attendance was taken, last minute homework was completed hurriedly, and gossip was exchanged for the seven short minutes we had before the school day began.

As our homeroom teacher went through the list of names, he reached Ash's name, "Dayton..." When no one answered, he looked up and scanned the room before muttering something about him being absent and marking him as such. I was starting to hate Ash even more. The boy probably went and changed schools just because he finally saw what he already knew I was.

The gossip was worse. Flickers of accusations spread across the room. "Perhaps Zay had him killed." "I bet Zay had him kidnapped and sold into a Siberian labor camp." "Maybe she ate him. I heard her family are a bunch of cannibals."

Yeah, that's the type of rumors that went around in my school. Not who has a crush on who, but who wanted to crush human meat between their teeth. Rich private academy for the win.

Normally I would let the rumors just slide. Who cares what a bunch of snot-nosed seventh graders thought. Their opinions were worth as much as expired milk. No one wanted them.

But I didn't want this rumor to stick. For one, I would never harm Ash willingly. And for them to make such accusations...it just had to stop.

"I didn't do anything," I said a bit loudly.

The noise level in the class died down a bit, while the teacher continued with roll call. "Ashly Evington..."

"Here."

"I didn't hurt him so stop spreading those lies about me."

Now the class was pretty quiet, and the teacher heard it too. "No one is accusing you of hurting anyone Zaslay."

He was about to return to rollcall when I interrupted. "You all think you're strong because you can band together and isolate me. You think that makes you safe. If my family and I were really what you say we are, do you think your daddies and mommies can protect you? Do you think your money can shield you from a knife, a sword, or a gun? Do you think your home security alarms will ring when someone who truly wants you gone surges into your bedroom? Do you think your rumors will coat you in a film of alertness that will save your lives?"

"Zaslay," the teacher gulped. "That's enough. Quiet please while I finish the attendance."

"And you," I pointed at the teacher. It didn't matter who the teacher was. They were a part of the rumors too. They saw me isolated and without friends. Not a single one came to help me. A teacher's job wasn't only to educate, but to make sure their students felt safe and valued. "You saw all of this happening. Teachers aren't stupid. They know when bullying or isolation attempts are going on. But you couldn't care because "they don't pay you enough" to do so. How much money does it cost to validate a person's worth?"