Disclaimers: We all know it, but we do it anyways. I do not own anything outside of a desk, computer chair, fuzzy cat named Hiroki, a computer, and the clothes in my closet. xD

Kachie says:

So it's a sleepless night. Figures, I have to be up early for my first day of work and I cannot sleep lolz. So I figured I'd at least get STARTED on chapter 6.

Now this one will be a little different. Going to mix a little "presence" with the past, but you'll see how. Hope you all enjoy it, I wanted to change up the mood slightly.

Chapter 6

Nadie paused, thinking hard on her past. Ellis had asked her, out of pure curiosity, why she became a bounty hunter. She herself still really didn't know, something primal within her threw her in a rage after her former teacher told her what she did on that fateful day. It was the turning point that would send Nadie spiraling down a road that could not be turned back on.

It started on a quiet day, while they drove to some unknown destination. After Winay Marka they had traveled for the pure reason to do so. Sight seeing, meeting people, doing odd end jobs to keep the gas tank from going dry, and their bellies from shrinking in starvation.

It wasn't like they had gotten bored, they enjoyed every moment of it. They got to meet many people, and they didn't have a care in the world. They still ran into Ricardo, Lirio, yes even Jody became more of a closer friend to the desert vixens.

But on this quiet day, Ellis grew curious. She never pestered Nadie much about her past. She knew very little, but apparently on this day she wanted to ask. Nadie of course fell silent. She wasn't sure she should tell Ellis such a tale. It wasn't a pleasent one. Sure, everything turned out well in the end, but the process of it...

It was a long story, and after much thinking she finally decided to tell Ellis what she wished to know. But in order to do, she had to start from the beginning. There was no easy way to explain it. No "I just wanted to" or "I picked up a gun one day and it was done", no random chance, it was all boiling down to specifics, and without those... Well there was no reason to tell the story.

Nadie looked over from her chair in their hotel room. Ellis was sound asleep. She got to the point of Lita explaining the fat man's part in her parents' murders, then decided to save the rest for the morning... Ellis seemed to feel bad for asking now, and Nadie decided she needed to let this soak in, for the rest of her story was only going to be a further tumble down a dark road.

Nadie then looked out of her window as she leaned her head against her open palm. Her face looked solum as she went to stare out the window. She wondered if Ellis was really ready to hear the rest of her story. She was rather afraid to finish it, truth be told. She then looked back at Ellis as she let her arm fall to the arm rest. She somehow knew Ellis wouldn't judge her for anything, but disappointment could still surface.

"How the hell do you know about my parents?" Nadie demanded as she shot to her feet, completely ignoring the jabbing and searing pain in her side. Her blood was boiling, she felt dizzy, her body tingled as adrenaline pumped through her veins in full force. She wanted answers, no needed them. She had needed them for years, and the man that almost killed her, was ironically responsible for the death of her parents. Or partly.

"Nadie, calm down.... You'll hurt yourself." Lita said as she closed her eyes. She could hear the anger, and the anguish behind that sweet voice. She knew Nadie to be a kind hearted kid, despite her trying to live in a chaotic world. A world Lita invited her to. Lita could feel the anger seeping out of Nadie's being.

"Like I care right now, you answer me!" Nadie continued yelling. Her teeth gritted hard, her fists clenched. That night came rushing back to her mind's eye in a flash. A much younger Nadie, oblivious to the world, hiding in a closet, scared out of her little mind, hearing her mother screaming, her father yelling, and gunfire filling her home.

Tears threatened Nadie's normally determined eyes. She was much more emotional then she would let on, and sometimes it escaped her. "Please, Nadie, for your sake sit down and take a deep breathe... I will explain everything." Lita sighed as she looked up at a fuming teenaged girl. Perhaps more scorned then herself. Nadie knew little of the world, yet you could say knew more then most at the same time.

Sheltered, but knew just how cruel life could be to someone. Nadie wasn't stupid, not by any means, but she shut off the world around her long ago. Nadie let out a shaky breath trying to hold her tears back as she sat back down on the couch. The pain in her side finally coming into realization, as her injury throbbed and ached.

"Tell me.. everything.." Nadie muttered, still very angry, but much more quiet. Her mind raced as her eyes fell to the floor, spotting the picture of the man who shot her on the floor. "There are four of them in all. A drug cartel's hired gunmen." Lita began. If looks could burn, the picture on the floor would have exploded into flames.

Lita could see this and sighed as she wondered if Nadie knew anything of her father's history. "Nadie, do you know what you're father did for a living?" Lita asked. Nadie looked up at Lita once more as she shrugged in silence. She remembered the corn and wheat fields. She could close her eyes and still know exactly where to go within them. Something she could never forget. The happiest days of her life were spent there.

"Carlos was a bounty hunter, just like me." Lita announced. She then pointed to Nadie's colt which rested in it's gun box on a bookshelf. "That was his gun of choice, given to him by his father, now passed down to you." she went on. Nadie's teeth gritted again. Her father was a bounty hunter? But how... why? Why didn't he tell her when she was little? Was he on the run? Hiding away, from this drug cartel?

Lita heard nothing from Nadie, but her face, and her eyes, said it all. She was trying to sort through this. She didn't understand, and apparently didn't know she came from a long line of hired bounty hunters. She stood as she went to the kitchen.

"He killed a drug cartel's head man, and after so many years they found him." she went on from out of sight. Nadie gripped her aching side as she leaned against the chair, her head rolling back as she starred at the ceiling. Why didn't you tell me, Papi...? She asked in her mind. But the dead could not talk, could not comfort her.

"How do you know my father...?" Nadie asked, though her voice was low, quiet, a bit choked. She wasn't sure she wanted to know how... But she wanted these answers for so long. Now she knew why he was dead, and some part of her was angry with him for it. Not only did he get himself killed, but his wife, her mother...

Lita returned to the living room with a hot cup of tea in her hand and she passed it on to Nadie. Hopefully to help relax her. Lita let out a short scoffed chuckle. "Because I'm your Aunt, Nadie." She replied. She examined the young girl's tormented face for any sign of reaction. Nadie let out a hollow yet ironic smile as she took the cup. "Figures.." she muttered back to Lita.

Nadie let out a long breath as she felt a cold calm fill her body as she looked back to the floor at the picture. Markus, was his name. Markus Chavez. She couldn't begin to explain the feeling that swelled within her, and as it ate and burned at her soul, she fell eerily silent. Even Lita noticed it as she quietly sipped at the tea offered her.

Late that night, after it had fallen dark, Nadie no longer was thinking rationally. She threw on a tank top, a pair of pants, and her cowboy boots. She looked back at her bed, her gun resting in it's holster on top of her poncho. She gave it a steely look before grabbing it up putting the straps over her shoulders, the gun resting on her left side as she secured it.

She then starred a moment longer at her poncho before picking it up, swinging it over her form, hiding away the gun that rested under it. She then snuck out of her room, the house silent, and dark. Lita had gone to bed, and Nadie quietly crept through the hall into the living room. She grabbed up the picture of Markus and truck keys as she made her way to the door.

As Nadie quietly closed the front door Lita poked her head into Nadie's room to make sure she was ok. She hadn't spoken all night, and had just went to bed. Or so she thought. "Nadie!" Lita yelled out not finding the girl in her bedroom as she quickly dashed for the front door herself. She wasn't thinking straight, and she knew exactly where she was going. After Markus.

"Nadie stop!" Lita called out as she swung the front door open, just in time to hear her truck roar to life. She was too late as the car reversed, tires digging hard into the dirt road as she sped out of the driveway. The car then switched gears as she sped off into the night without any signs of stopping. "You fool.." Lita said to herself as she stood in the door way watching her truck shrink into the distance.

Nadie spent days searching for him. She was relentless in her pursuit of the man that helped kill her parents. Driven by primal revenge, she barely slept. She took to sleeping in the truck, sitting in the driver's seat. She had become a huntress, and Chavez was her prey. He would feel the meaning of fear as she would rip him apart with her father's gun. Ironic.

She was close on his trail. She stalked him in silence. Using the cover of the shadows, warning anyone if they tipped him off they too would feel her wrath. Her gunshot wound was completely neglected. It had stained her white tank top under her poncho with blood as she had torn it open more then once on her trek.

She felt it aching in protest but it did little to slow her down. She was only a town away from the man who shot her parents, who shot her. He would pay, she knew this. She wouldn't let him see the light of day for much longer. It wouldn't be long now.

BLAM! A gunshot whizzed past Nadie as she ducked, but continued moving. "Chavez!" She called out, her voice beyond angered. It was almost crazy. He panted as he banked around a corner, trying to get away. He was already limping from a bullet firmly planted into his lower left leg. "Crazy bitch!" He called out as she took the sharp turn aiming her gun at his other leg.

"AH!" He cried out as he felt a new bullet bury itself into his upper right leg. He fell over, dropping his gun in the process. She quietly brushed loose hair back behind her shoulder as she slowly approached the wounded man. She kicked the gun away from him with her booted foot as she pointed the gun at his head.

"You're that bounty hunter I shot!" He yelled out in anger as he rolled onto his back side looking up at her. She gave him a death glare as he gulped. "Reward for you is dead or alive. Right now I prefer dead." she replied, calmly, but a deathly tone laced her usually softer voice. He gulped hard, he knew his end was near. It was a cold hard fact. "Who the hell are you?"

She smirked at him as her blue eyes opened after having closed a moment. "Do you remember, oh.. about 8 years ago, a husband and a wife you murdered?" She asked calmly. He took a moment to recall this. He was wanted for several murders as it were. He then looked back at the girl, holding his death certificate in her hands. A Colt M1911... His eyes widened slowly. "Carlos.."

Nadie let out a short scoff like chuckle. "Close, I'm the kid you orphaned." she sneered as she looked him the eyes as she knelt down picking up his gun before getting some distance. "If you have any last words... Say them." She said with a cold vindictive tone. "End it, if you have the guts brat." Some choice of last words, she thought.

"As you wish." She muttered as she didn't even think twice on it. Now before she knew who this guy was, she might of had second thoughts. Maybe even back out, make Lita do it. Perhaps give it up in the process. But she was in too deep with her emotional rage.

BLAM!

It was all in slow motion. She pulled the trigger with a cold blank stare. The bullet sank into his skull, the last look he would ever give was utter shock as his dead body began to fall backwards at the loss of balance.

His back hit the pavement as he bled out the back of his head, laying there as nothing more then a wasted pile of human flesh. Nadie calmly holstered her gun as she looked around. Not even a twinge of regret. In fact it felt satisfying somehow. Strangely so. She should have felt sick with herself, but she couldn't even force it onto herself.

Nadie grunted as she felt someone poking at her shoulder. Her eyes slowly opened, half lidded, as the first signs of day break hit her eyes. "Nadie?" a calm, sweet voice filled her ears. She looked up to her side as Ellis stood there, looking concerned. Or as concerned as she could look. "Ellis?" She asked confusedly.

"Why are you crying?" Ellis asked as she blinked lilac eyes. Nadie realized her cheeks were a bit wet from tears that escaped her eyes in her sleep. It was a dream... of her past. The next portion of her story to Ellis.

She couldn't tell anyone just how much she regretted the path she chose to go down during that time frame. She should have been locked away like the animal she had become. But no one could stop her. Not while she was on a war path against those who wronged her.

"Just a bad dream.." Nadie muttered as she rubbed at her face with her hands. She then Ellis' tiny form crawling into her lap, curling against her, head resting on her shoulder. Nadie just sighed as she rested her head against Ellis'. She knew the little witch was trying to comfort her, but she felt a pain in her heart. How could she finish this story?

How do I tell you what I've done Ellis? She wasn't sure how she'd react..

Ok! So I have a Job now, and the next chapter wont be as fast. I dont know where to go next, but I got her first kill out there, and I hope it felt natural... ^^; See you all next time!