Soulamtes

A little story I wrote that I personally like a lot.

"Get in position!" The Boss shouts. 

I shift my body so that I am in my fighting stance, one arm positioned by my hip, and the other holding my knife tightly out in front of me. My legs are separated at a perfect angle, making sure I stay on balance and can lunge with perfect agility. 

"Ready!" He shouts, pausing. I take a deep breath, puffing my chest. "Attack!" He shouts. 

I lunge forward, jabbing my knife into the training dummy in front of me. The Boss strolls over, taking a look at my teammate's moves with a look of disappointment on his face. He makes his way over to me, a look of pride crossing his face before he even sees the knife.

He claps me on the back as he sees it, seeing the perfect positioning of the knife in the chest of the dummy.

"See?" He says, turning towards the other about 50 people in the training room. "Perfect. This is the accuracy we need for the fight tomorrow!" He shakes his head as he sees the girl beside me. Her jab missed the target completely, and the look on her face tells me that she is really disappointed in herself. 

"Do it again," The Boss orders, making it a point to stare at the girl who missed as he says the words. The rest of the gang groans, reaching for their knives that are still lodged in the dummies. 

"We have been doing this for three hours!" Someone on the other side of the room complains.

"Want to make it six?" The Boss threatens. That seems to scare them because everyone turns back towards the dummies in front of them with tired looks of determination.  "You," He says, turning and pointing at me. My back straightens, and although my jab was perfect, I'm scared of what he is about to say. "Take a break," He says to my relief. 

I nod curtly, tucking my knife in its position at my hip and wander off to try and find my water bottle in the massive pile in the corner of the room. 

"You're only letting her take a breath because she's your daughter," someone mutters into the silent room. I freeze, not turning around to see who said it.

"Once you perfect your moves as she has because she actually puts in the work unlike you people, then you will have earned a break. Do. It. Again." He demands again. 

Not too long later, he dismisses the practice session. "Rest up for tomorrow," he says as everyone is leaving the room. 

As we're walking back to our rooms, I match the pace of the two boys in front of me, and I listen to their conversation as I walk silently behind them. They don't know I'm there. 

I've been trying to practice walking silently behind people just in case. 

"I can't believe you're my soulmate," The first boy says. I can hear the smile in his voice, and a smile creeps onto my face too. 

"Yeah it's crazy," The second boy says, also smiling. "Sorry for almost stabbing you, I can't believe I missed that target by that much," he chuckles, bumping playfully into the boy next to him. 

"No worries," The first boy says. He turns to the other boy with a grin, and I get a warm feeling in my chest. I'm super happy for them! They round a corner and the conversation fades out of my line of hearing. 

I should probably explain. 

Once you reach a certain age, your soulmate can't hurt you in any way. Whether it's a gun, a knife, a punch, or anything. It gets deflected, without any sort of identification that anything happened. No mark, no pain, nothing. 

I guess there was a slip in the training room with those boys, and they found out they're soulmates. Cute. 

I yawn as I turn down the next hallway, exhausted after a long day. I almost bump into the door, which startles me. 

I change into something more comfortable, keeping my eyes closed out of tiredness. I think I put my shirt on backwards, but I'm too tired to care. I crawl into bed, falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. 

*******

The next afternoon rolls around quickly, and the gang starts to prepare for the fight we have planned this evening. I stroll around the weapon room, slowly collecting my weapons of choice and strapping them to my body. My knife at my hip, one tied to my right ankle, tucked perfectly in my book and another on my left thigh. I find more places to hide them, and soon enough, I have managed to strategically place thirteen different weapons on my body, invisible to anyone who looks at me. 

Although I hate using them, I take a high-powered pistol from the wall and tuck it into the waistband of my pants on my back. Just in case. 

I watch the rest of the gang preparing, and I start to wonder why we do this. 

We fight other gangs for no apparent reason, causing death upon so many people that might not even deserve it. But with the fact that my father is the leader of my gang, I don't really have a choice but to fight. 

I've been training agility since I could stand upright, using knives and guns since the age of six, and I was pushed into the gang when I turned ten. It's been hard. I wasn't allowed to go to school or make friends outside of our gang. Most of the people in our gang are adults and not the best company for a seventeen-year-old. 

I continue walking around, trying to prepare myself mentally for what's about to go down. I see the boys from last night, sitting on a bench with their foreheads together. I can see that they're talking, but I can't hear what they're saying over the loud noises around me. 

I move to a corner and start training by myself, but I can't seem to stop thinking about if I'm ever going to find my soulmate. My dad starts barking out orders behind me, but I'm not listening. I just continue throwing my knives as if my life depended on them. 

Because tonight, it will. 

*******

We were at the planned site of the fight about half an hour early, hoping to get an advantage on the other gang, but it looks like they had the same idea. 

The fight started earlier than expected, throwing us all off balance. 

None of us were fully prepared. 

Knives were flying left and right, guns were being fired, and I'm pretty sure I heard an explosion a couple of feet away. Everything has been a blur. 

Being the Boss' daughter, I end up being at higher risk during fights like these. Everyone trying to get to me just so they can say they killed the gang leader's daughter. Luckily I'm trained. 

People were screaming, and soon, that's all I can hear. The guns going off and screaming. 

Someone charges at me from my left and I swing at him in a daze. My knife slashes across the person's throat, and I see him drop his machete as his hands fly to the wound on his neck. I move away from him as he falls, wiping the blood from my face with the back of my hand.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the Boss, my father, go down as a bullet connects with his chest and my vision fogs.  

Thanks to that, I don't have time to react to the knife that is flying at my face at top speed in front me. 

I turn and make direct eye contact with the boy that threw the knife, and a smirk covers his face as he sees that I'm not reacting. 

The boy looks to be a couple of years older than me, twenty maybe, and I find myself wondering if he is in the same position I am. Forced from a young age to be part of something he doesn't want to be. 

But as time seems to slow, I see the look in his eyes, and I know it's the complete opposite of that. He wants to be doing this. Killing people. He is enjoying himself. 

I brace for impact, but when the knife bounces off my head, leaving no pain and no marks, the world goes still.