Revolvers, AK-47s, and AR-15s all lined the walls at Asia's sides. Being in the presence of guns didn't make her stomach queasy with fear, quite the opposite. She'd been around firearms as long as she could remember. Her father had an armory similar to the one she currently sought shelter in. Only his was a lot smaller. In her house, the room at the end of the hallway had a padlock on the door.

    It was the morning of her thirteenth birthday when her Dad ordered her to drop her waffle-laden fork and follow him. She did as she was told, pushed her chair back from the table leaving her mom and brother in the kitchen. Asia's toes tingled with excitement as she bounced on her heels waiting for her dad to unlock the door. The room her Dad told her never to go near. The room her brother was allowed to have a key too but not her.

     "Pick one." Her Dad nodded to the glass cabinets stacked with weaponry.

    He stood in the doorway wearing his blue DPD t-shirt with the words Trainer written on the breast pocket in white.

     Asia wasn't surprised that her Dad had guns. He was the chief of police for Dowling. She just didn't expect him to have an arsenal. She glanced back at him wanting to ask him why. Why did he have so many guns in a town where nothing happened? But the way he pensively read the time on his nautical watch she knew he wasn't in the mood for questions. He had somewhere else to be. 

He always had somewhere else to be.

      Asia chewed on her bottom lip hovering her hands over the double barrel shotgun. "That gun has too much kick for a little girl like you." Her Dad said moving away from the door. He snapped this key ring back on his belt loop.

     Asia twisted her toe on the wood floor, "You said pick one. Not which one."

     "This gun—" Her Dad reached around her and she smelled the talc in the deodorant he applied that morning. He grabbed the shotgun off the hook, placed the butt in the pocket of his shoulder and aimed the barrel at the deer head docked on the wall. "Will land you on your ass."

     Asia scowled at her Dad, then wondered how a man with alopecia could have a full-beard like a black bear cub fell asleep on his face. She stepped on the plaid rug traversing to the other side of the room. "What about this one?" She picked up a black pistol, gripped the handle like the policeman she saw on TV and pointed at the deer head as her dad did earlier.

      Her Dad careful sat the shotgun back on the hooks, "What are you going to do if you run out of bullets?" She turned to her and folded his arms, his shirt-sleeves stretched from his expanding muscles. "Are you going to have your mom back you a belt out of magazines?"

    "Then what do you want me to pick?" She slapped the gun back on the shelf. "Tell me which one so you can be satisfied."

     "Attitude like your mama." Her Dad shook his head as he pulled his wallet of the back pocket of his navy Dockers.

    "Mom doesn't have an attitude." Asia followed him to the glass cabinet sitting catty-cornered in the room.

      Her dad swiped a blank white card through a reader and a green light flashed. He opened the doors. "This should be your weapon of choice."

    "A sword?" Asia twisted her face. She wanted to feel the power of a gun in her hand, firing bullets with a force to stop any man. She blinked as the sun flooding in the room hitting the metal.

     The corner of her Dad's mouth turned up, "Not a sword. Daggers, throwing knives and spikes. A machete." He picked up a combat knife and handed it to her. "You're lean and fast. Use your strengths, not someone else's."

   Asia slid the cold metal side of the knife across her hand then slid the blade across her fingertip. Blood pooled from her finger with a light sting. "Sharp," she said before sucking the plump flesh of her fingertip.

    Her Dad smiled, "Déjà vu."

     Asia pulled herself out of the memory. She peered at the two slashes going across the tip of her pointing finger, "Déjà vu" she muttered to herself.

      Thunderous pounding erupted on the door. Asia jumped like a cat that was thrown in a bathtub. She chewed on her lip fastening the strap to the sheath around her forearm and pushed the black throwing spikes firmly in the pockets.

     The pounding stopped. "Asia! Open the door!" The doorknob rattled then the door swung open.

    Asia slipped her fingers in the ringlets on the combat knife's handle and squeezed in a small space in the corner cloaked with darkness.

    A male form stepped in the room decked in a combat uniform. Asia's heart thudded and the shallow breaths she was taking weren't helping.

     He looked around the room trying to find in her the dark. "Make this easy on yourself —" He swiped her hand along the wall trying to find the light switch as he held an AR-15 firmly in his other hand. "Come with me."

     Asia heard that voice before. It was a voice she once loved whispering sweet words in her ear. She stepped out of her hiding place. "Zack."

Zack is back.