It Takes One to Raise One

Sequel to the incredibly long titled No One Takes Down Hit Girl But Hit Girl. As before, Mindy is telling this story to someone, much as Dave does during the movies. Welcome and thank you for reading and reviewing. Title courtesy of Makokam.

That evening, Bethany and Dave became fast friends over a pizza with extra everything and Sponge Bob. Oh my god do I hate that fucking show. Why little kids and teenage guys love it I'll never understand. I just stared at it in disgust and quietly ate my chicken caesar salad. We'd extracted a promise from her that she wouldn't touch the guns again until I'd taught her how to use them. Dave wasn't really happy with that decision. He'd wanted her to promise to never touch them at all. I said that given our line of work, she might need them some day and that I saw no problem with a properly trained kid shooting a gun. He just started mumbling under his breath so I told him he was still being a pussy over almost getting shot. I'm a little surprised he didn't take a shot at me.

Dave and I kept the conversation light, but worked in as many questions about her situation as we could. It wasn't good. Her mom's name had been Anna. She didn't have any other family and had no idea who her dad was. Her mom had managed to stay off the streets most of the time by being a live-in girlfriend to a collection of deadbeats who took the 'beat' part of their name pretty literally. I suppose it isn't exactly the same as prostitution but in my mind, you're still sucking dick for a place to stay. Then again, when you've been beaten down that far, maybe dignity had to take second place to survival. Bethany and her mom had put up with a lot and taken quite a few beatings over the last few years. That pretty much explained her reaction when she thought Dave had slapped me. She'd listened to too many of those arguments and wasn't going to take them anymore.

Thank god she wasn't illiterate; her mom deserved a lot of credit for keeping Bethany in Head Start classes despite their irregular living conditions. She'd only just turned six and was on track to start kindergarten next year. A little late, but not as bad as it could be. She liked a lot of the typical things that a girl her age did. Dolls, kittens, that sort of shit. The fact that she been too poor to really experience them didn't matter. She wanted to be just like the other girls her age.

The problem was, she was on a fast track to disaster. If she went back out on the street, she wouldn't last a week before some pedophile or junkie would punch her ticket. If we turned her over to the state, she'd end up in the wonderful foster care system. And, since she wasn't a baby who'd get adopted right away, she'd probably spend years shuffling between foster parents and group homes. Maybe she'd find someone good; there were some people with good intentions involved. But her mouth and her inability to put up with any shit would likely get her kicked out of anyplace nice enough to be worth staying in. So she was, in her own words, "totally and completely fucked until I can't get fucked anymore." Thank goodness she didn't really know what 'fucked' meant. Or, at least, I hoped she didn't. Oh my god. What if I have to explain that to her someday? I'm not sure I could do it.

Also, I was really going to have to talk to her about not using 'fuck' more than once in the same phrase. Well, except for 'fuck the fucking fuckers!' I like that one.

I knew what to do in the short term at least. I wasn't sending her back out into hell. No fucking way. That only left keeping her. Not like a puppy, but providing her with a home. That had its own list of problems. The safe house only had the main workout room with a mini-firing range on one side, a bathroom, a bedroom, and kind of an open kitchen area near the door. We had enough room in the workout area to make her a small bedroom, but I'd have to hide all of the guns and shit from the contractors again. Balls! Well, it was going to be her room, so she'd help, I guess.I'd better call them tomorrow. And then there was school. I hadn't spent a lot of time there but I did understand how important learning was. Daddy had drilled that into me. But, I wasn't capable of home schooling her. And I couldn't exactly register her for real school if I wasn't a legal parent or guardian. I wonder if my fake ID guy can do ones for kids too? I'd have to find out. Son of a Bitch! ID, birth certificate, something to prove I was a relative, faked shot records… this was going to be really expensive.

It was then that I realized that I wasn't actually thinking short term. You don't build a room for someone who'd only going to stay for a few weeks. Ahh fuck it. The room would still be useful even if we did figure something else out and beyond that, it was just money. Kill a few more drug dealers and I'd make it back. Shit, I needed to get back on that anyway.

The next morning, Dave left for his last real day in school. He had to go in tomorrow as well, but only for like 2 hours. I mean seriously, what a fucking waste of tax dollars! They better not pull that shit with Bethany when she's older. I shoved that thought aside with a shudder. I wasn't part of the fucking PTA yet!

Bethany and I had a leisurely morning watching some anime that I can't pronounce but had lots of violence and not too many young girls in tiny skirts. What the fuck is up with that, anyway? Japanese animators are weird. Brilliant, but weird. We went out for lunch and afterwards, Bethany dragged me to the movies. Or, more specifically, a movie. Apparently, everyone else she knew had seen it and since I had a lot of fucking money, I could stop being a pussy and take her. Her words, not mine. I offered her anything else; she didn't budge. I pointed out that it was already on DVD and that we didn't have to sit in a crappy dollar theatre. She wanted to see it properly. So, I went in kicking and screaming to see Frozen.

Holy fuck. I mean seriously, holy fuck. We left the movie singing. By 'we' I do indeed mean both of us. It was amazing. Best of all – spoiler alert – everyone isn't saved by some asshole prince who just pops in at the end of the film! It was girl power without being a song by the douchebag Spice Girls. We picked up the soundtrack and blue ray at the local mall, then went home and watched it again. Dave came home to me finally tapping into my karaoke bug singing 'Let It Go' at the top of my lungs along with the sing along edition of the film. This basically broke him for about an hour and forced me to ponder the wisdom of letting him laugh at me so often. But I was having fun so I got over it. Plus, later that night, he apologized by eating me out until I almost screamed. I say almost because, if I had screamed, we'd probably have had another gunshot from a barely awake Bethany and I really didn't want that to wreck my orgasm. So I bit my knuckle until it almost bled. But it was worth it. God I love that man's tongue.

Things were just getting interesting when I heard a scream from the main room. I bolted out of bed stark naked, grabbed my favorite Sig Sauer 9mm and opened the door just a crack. There was no assailant. No fight. There was just Bethany wailing and crying into the cushions of the couch and moaning about how she wanted her mommy. I told Dave what was happening and he tossed me my robe while he pulled on some clothes. I walked out and sat on the floor next to her, feeling completely helpless. Now what? I never even knew my mom. Sure, I was proud to have avenged her, but I'd never cried about her. Not like this. Dave was finally decent and since I was frozen just like Anna in the film, he picked up Bethany and let her sob out her heart into his shoulder. Anna… Shit. What was the chance that her mom's name would have been used in Frozen? I guess it finally worked its way through her psyche and come out in her dreams. Her mom was dead. And she really hadn't spent a lot of time mourning her. Dave was amazing. He got her to calm down and then talked to her about how he had lost his mom. And how it was OK to miss her but that life would still go on.

I didn't know how to help and finally left them to crawl into bed. After a few minutes of staring into the darkness behind my eyelids, I just broke down. Tears silently coursed down my cheeks as I thought about the mother that had given me life but I'd never gotten to meet. I kept myself as silent as the grave. Bethany finally went back to sleep and when Dave climbed back into our bed, I clung onto him and mixed my tears with Bethany's on his still damp shoulder. It was time to mourn my mother too.