Three

"What was that?"

"…thirty four-"

"The fuck that's not thirty four. Do it again asshole and go lower this time."

"Alright." Dave answers, exhausted but he's obviously trying to do the push-ups the way I told him to.

This is the the third time Dave has managed to impress me. The first time was when Daddy and I saw Kick-Ass' debut on TV and he fought those thugs with his batons. I thought he was pretty brave to do that and his fighting skills weren't that bad. Although Daddy says he got his ass kicked. The second time was when he shot D'Amico with a bazooka.

True to his promise Dave did whatever I told him to do in our training sessions. Which is weird because I know I'm pushing him too hard. Or at least I'm making him think like I am so he'd start thinking something like 'Mindy made me go through hell-training so I can take on anything you assholes throw at me'. I'm imagining Dave doing just that. But in my head he's Kick-Ass and he's standing on top of a pile of dipshit motherfuckers he defeated. Then Kick-Ass turns to look at me and flashes this bright smile with his blood-stained teeth and says 'We did it Mindy.'

"Hey Mindy, Mindy?"

I'm jolted out of my daydream and Dave is already doing the stretching exercises I taught him.

"I'm meeting Katie later, do you want to come along? We were going to watch a movie but I asked her if we could hang out at Atomic Comics instead. So you know, she could meet you and stuff." Dave was trying to reach his arms over his legs and touch his feet and failing at it.

"And she said yes?" I asked incredulous to the idea that this girl, from what I've seen of her from school would cancel a movie date to go to a comic book store to meet a 12 year old instead of sucking face with her boyfriend while pretending to watch said movie.

This time Dave is reaching his arms up. "Well not exactly" he says with his voice squeaking again.

I knew it.

"Maybe next time. I don't feel like going out and Marcus might start looking for me soon." At least that reason wasn't a complete lie. Marcus would be checking up on me anytime soon. I promised him I'd be back home early for our Saturday movie night.

I'm starting to find a pattern here. Some of the best excuses I've made, or at least those that worked have a bit of truth in them. I guess that guy from the TV show Marcus was watching the other day was right after all, that the best lies have an element of truth in them.

Dave looked genuinely disappointed that I couldn't come.

Finished with the exercises I taught him he stood up and reached for his backpack and got something from it that was wrapped in brown paper.

"Here, I thought you might like this."

I took the package and opened it. At first I thought it was a notebook because it was too thin to be a book. I flipped through the back first and there were a few blank pages before I saw several photos of the cat with a red bow on her head wearing different costumes. The cover read 'HELLO KITTY' in a red glittery font and the whole page was pink aside from the cat. There was an even bigger photo of the cat with the bow on her head but on the cover she was wearing a red jumper. I'm guessing the cat's name is Kitty.

"It's a sticker book." Dave says. "When you get more stickers you put them on the blank pages." he says leafing through the pages himself. "This book already has some stickers on it, but if you want you can also trade stickers with other collectors. The lady at the store said this was very popular with girls these days. Maybe you can swap stickers with potential friends?"

"Thanks, Dave." I said and I meant it.

I saw Scott the insurance guy after school today. He was wearing a dark gray suit and it looked pretty weird since the last time I saw him at a formal event he was the one wearing casual clothes. And if seeing him at school wasn't strange enough he said he actually came by to see me.

Scott was asking a lot of questions about my Daddy. He wanted to know if my father is Damon Mcready the police officer. Why was he sent to prison? Did he come to see me when he got out? Do I still talk to him? Where he is now and stuff like that.

No one except for me, Dave and Marcus knew how my Daddy died or even when he died for that matter. That it was at a public execution orchestrated by Frank D'Amico in his quest to rid the city of superheroes that fuck up his business. And for the most part people weren't asking how I ended back with Marcus as my guardian so I didn't think I'd need to come up with a story to cover for it.

I wonder what piqued his interest. Clearly he didn't buy any of the things I told him that night we first met when I told him my Daddy was a real-estate broker who got caught in a crossfire when this client he was showing one of the properties to ended up being a high-profile drug syndicate and the rival drug cartel boss was gonna take a hit on his client. My Daddy managed to shoot a few of the bad guys and get out. But just when he thought the shooting was over his phone rang with his very beautiful and pregnant wife on the line and he just had to answer and tell her that he was okay. Doing so he let his guard down and one of the assholes shot him and Marcus was one of the cops who went to the scene and my Daddy held on to life for enough time to tell Marcus about his wife who was going to have a baby and to promise him that he'd take care of that baby girl, who is me of course. Unfortunately my mother died giving birth and that's how I ended up with Marcus as my guardian. Pretty cool story huh?

Anyway, thanks to Marcus' perfect timing I didn't have time to answer any of Scott's questions. Scott backed away the moment he saw Marcus' car drive by and said he hoped to see me again sometime. Marcus asked about school and I automatically told him that I didn't skip any classes but I didn't bother telling Marcus about Scott and his pesky questions. I'd figure something out if I had to deal with him again anyway. Besides after what happened the other night, I didn't have the heart to talk about Daddy with Marcus any time soon.

Hold on, I could dig up why that douche is been asking about my family history. Daddy has a database on all the properties D'Amico has amassed in the city. I'm sure Scott's name will turn up in those entries, then I'd know what angle he's working on. If that doesn't work, maybe I can have Marcus invite Luna over for dinner.

I had that dream again. The one where I'm slitting a man's throat. It's not like I haven't done it before. I've done it once or twice as Hit Girl, but never as Mindy. I thought it's post-traumatic stress from our revenge. I'm actually worried it might mean something. When I woke up from that strange dream I remembered the face of the man I killed. It was Scott.

Note: Not so happy with this chapter, but the draft has been on my laptop for days now so I figured why not. This chapter was originally intended for a whole different plot, oh well, let's see how this works out. Thanks for reading.