***

Money never a maybe but never forgot my roots
I heard that the top is lonely I wonder if it's the truth
So I'm just climbing, paid off rhyming, now I'm shining could be blinding
Ain't too much real left but right here is where you could find it
This that new... classic, ain't this what you needed?
I'm what amazing look like, you'll recognize it when you see it

Iggy Azalea- Walk The Line

***

SIX DAYS AGO:

If you told me that I'd be to defend myself, becoming a strong person with skills that shouldn't have been developed in under a year, I would have pondered it and shook my head. Maybe it was because I considered myself a strong person a year ago. Who could you call strong if they couldn't hide their emotions or keep in any pain emotionally blinding you?

I never had a social life. The most social I got was with the Trouble Tunes and Luna. But I came to Tyrone's for public lessons every day at midnight to meet with twenty-seven other people who wanted to learn for different reasons. I wasn't the youngest out of them however, which had been unexpected. That was Tyrone's youngest daughter, Carissa. She had two daughters, Carissa, who went to Luna's elementary school, and Alina, who was my age.

Alina and I got along exceptionally well for someone who didn't have friends for the last two years. Alina had plenty, and she claimed along with Tyrone that she went to a private school somewhere here I hadn't heard of. But I noticed the the small flicker of dishonesty that was evident in the conversation we had about her personal life. It could have been a mistake, but after three years of no parents, I learned to trust my instincts and not hesitate when I see or hear something. Because human being were basically walking lies.

I didn't mention my past life at all. In fact I strayed from it. I started to see Alina as a potential threat when she started to dig, so I kept my distance. If there's one thing I learned from everything, it was that people weren't what they seemed. And Alina was tribute to that.

And that was sad, that I couldn't make 'friends'. But friends stab each other in the back. The only bond you can truly seal is when you tell someone a secret that could be a threat to them if it got out. 

I stopped punching the bag ferociously when my knuckles started to bleed, holding the bag until it stopped swaying. I had exceptionally strong hands for this kind of thing, which saved my skin a bunch of times in sparring and I didn't have a need to wrap my hands even though they all insisted I should. Being the sneaky person I was, I took them off and being the observant person she was, Tyrone noticed but didn't mention it after watching.

Tyrone. 

Her name made me swallow terribly hard, the taste of blood resting at the bottom of my throat. The headlines burst into my head, imprinting themselves into my eyelids where I'd see them every time I closed my eyes.

Owner of Tyrone's Ring Brutally Stabbed in Shootout.

Tyrone Finn Loses Her Life Trying to Defend Child From Killers.

Woman Murdered in Shootout, Identities of Shooters Unknown

This morning I walked inside the building just in time to bump into Alina. After seeing her puffy eyes and tear stained cheeks, she told me the news. I knew how it felt to lose a parent to an unexpected event, so I stayed close to her until she cried herself to sleep. I needed to blow some steam, and Mark wouldn't be back until Wednesday as he went on a business trip for the travelling company he worked for, so I came to my sanctuary. The ring.

The first lesson Tyrone taught me was to never be afraid. I told her fear was a foreign concept to me, but instead she just smiled and shook her head. 

She said, "Fear isn't only an expression. It's a feeling. Just because your face doesn't show fear, doesn't mean you aren't capable of feeling it, does it? No it doesn't, that was rhetorical. Don't answer that." I shut my mouth after that comment, and stared at her impassively, but inside I was staring at her in awe. She was the first person to catch my actions before they could happen, other then my parents and Luna who could easily.

"Everyone has that one thing they fear. Maybe one, most probably more then one. It could be an object, or who He/She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named." I opened my mouth to shoot a quick comment but she intervened quickly. "If one Harry Potter reference comes out of your mouth, I'm kicking you out to the wolves. Anyways, an example is when Harry called Voldemort by his name. He was obviously in fear of Voldemort, but the first step was calling his name, which made his fear slowly dissolve. Of course, it was always there until Voldemort was dead but fear is always there."

She stopped at my smirk, and realized what she did before calmly adding, "No more references starting now."

"So whatever this is, you take the object or objects, face them and battle it out until you win. If it's a person, then stand up to them. If you can't do that for whatever reasons, then start by finding ways to make him less scarier." 

Internally, I froze. Him. Could she know? But that was impossible, I never told anyone. 

"Or a her," She quickly added, seemingly oblivious to my internal discomfort.

She died today, and with her went all the memories of our lessons. I had no one to look back at with them, other then the other twenty-four - disincluding Alina, Carissa and I - who went their separate ways earlier this evening. I learned every one of her lessons the hard way, all except for one. The first one.

This was the hard way.

This was how I would learn her lesson, the one I never faced.  I called him by his name. Mark Young.

It helped, in it's own way. I was a coward not to refer to him as his name, which held no power over the person unless you were in the Kane Chronicles. In it's own way, it helped. Because there went the fear. And I sealed the first and final lesson I needed to be taught by her. But the feeling of invincibility didn't last long.

I ran my hands through cold water in the changing room sink, ignoring the sting it brought. I dropped the First Aid Kit on the counter beside me and cleaned the bruises up before tending to them.

NOW:

Six days later, I managed to get myself back on track. I brought a punching bag with the help of another one of Tyrone's students into an abandoned room in Mark's house and trained regularly without raising suspicion. Managing to squeeze in school, Mark, Luna, Trouble Tunes and training, I got through the week with no free time which gave me no chance to sleep properly. 

Of course I only slept 4 to 5 hours every night before, 6 if I was lucky, but I only had an hour or two to squeeze in sleep now which resulted in me becoming an impassive person on the exterior, and a walking zombie in the interior.

The last bell of the day signalling dismissal rung shrilly in the air causing me to get up smoothly and walk out of the classroom in a rush to avoid the Populars. I suddenly tripped but caught my balance before I could fall to the floor, remembering to stumble a little for effect. A squeaky laugh sounded from behind me, causing me to cringe at the pitch of it. I spun on my feet to face the culprit of the old stick-out-a-leg trick and managed to catch Aiden Thompson's best friend laughing his head off while managing to sound like a dying mouse. I caught Aiden shuddering at his friend's terrifying cackle and his wink toward me as he left the room. 

I followed his example and left the room as well, leaving the Popular to die in the midst of his own laughter. I was doing him a favor. I could've punched him unconscious.

I stuck my buds in once again and blasted music as I passed the other students who were all excitedly talking about graduation. Tomorrow would be the last day of school and when I graduated from this jail. I wasn't planning on attending grad since it was optional.

The song changed to Black Widow as I approached the front door, shrugging my earphones off and pocketing them. I pushed my bag straps off my arms and dug for my key, finding it just in time to hear a crash ring through the open windows upstairs.

I froze in the motion of chewing my gum and took one second to jam the key in and rush through the house and up the stairs until I found the source of the crash. The sound of yelling about worthlessness told me Mark had discovered the Trouble Tune's singing hobby, and I knew what he was going to do was going to be far worse then what usually happened. I paused to a halt in front of Mark's bedroom door and watched in frozen panic as he brought a gun down to the Jeremy's forehead.

Time didn't freeze like it was supposed to, but I caught a look of Leo's look of horror as Mark released the trigger. The smell of gunpowder wafted through the air as Jeremy dropped to the ground, his eyes wide open. Leo screamed when he saw his twin's body lying on the floor and Mark quickly turned toward him, letting the trigger release until Leo joined his twin on the floor. 

My body reacted in anger. I jumped onto Mark, clawing at his hair as he made a strangled sound, releasing the gun. He drunkenly swayed and pushed me off to the floor and reached for his gun as I swung in a punch, hitting him square in the face. He stumbled back in a daze and kicked violently. I caught his leg, ducking under him and kicked the back of his head. He cried out in pain, turning around with blood pooling around his forehead and cornered me against the wall before swinging. I dodged his shaking fist and he hit the wall beside the window, causing the glass to crack a bit at the impact. 

His fist went through the wall, and the items stacked against the wall shook a bit as he tried to get his arm out. Realizing I had about a ten second advantage, I spun around the floor beside the twins where blood pooled around both of their innocent faces. Spotting the gun on the floor, I reached for it and turned only for Mark to smack it out of my hand. I let out a curse as I realized he had gotten his arm out of the wall more quickly then I anticipated, racing out the door as he pointed the gun toward me. 

I climbed down the stairs with adrenaline fueling my every step and ducked into the kitchen behind the breakfast bar. I waited and eventually heard thundering footsteps race into the room. I held my breath and tilted my head to listen carefully as the steps suddenly stopped behind the bar.

He had found me.

I jumped up and ran just as a chair came flying to my old hiding spot. He ran toward me and I ducked and flipped off the wall to land on the breakfast counter, feeling a sense of accomplishment as I remembered my two lesson gymnastic class. He swung toward my legs, trying to knock me off my feet by diverting my balance. I delivered a kick before he could hit which set him staggering back toward the wall and punched him, knocking him to the floor. I jumped on him and gave a few hits until he had a dazed look on his hideous face. He suddenly lifted me up, holding my arms and legs and threw me against the kitchen cabinets. 

A sharp pain sent everything tilting forward, making me alert to the impact and the dizziness it had brought me. Blood pooled out of my forehead, staining my hair. He ran toward me like a bull and I did a double take to the knives that sat beside me. Taking two, I flipped over his head so I was behind him. He turned and let out an angry breath before charging once again with a kick to the head. I ducked, and his foot hit the wall behind me. Taking the opportunity, I slashed with the knives and got a few good hits, making his shirt tear in places. He suddenly backed up causing my knives to hit air and he grabbed a pan, knocking one knife out of my hand. Mark rushed out the door and I raced forward, aiming my one knife before letting go.

It hit the target.

Mark Young fell to the ground with a knife in his forehead.

***

A/N: Today I tried explaining my book to my aunt. English isn't her first language, and we were doing it over a groupchat my mum created. I told her that it was about spies and then underneath that I wrote 'pew pew'. 

Needless to say I'm an idiot.