The Boss's Daughter

05

We walk slow. It's not so much walking as it is strolling, really. But it's nice. I make sure to mark trees as we go. I carve a small X in the trunks. There tends to be silence between Carl and I often. Not that I mind. Silence is a virtue.

     Then I get an idea. "Let's play 20 questions!"

     "The guessing game?" He asks.

     "No no, the other version. Where we each ask 20 questions about each other," I explain. "It's the best way to get to know someone in a short amount of time. You start."

     He thinks for a moment. "I don't know. Uh. What's your favorite color?"

     I laugh. "All the questions in the world and that's the one you go with."

     He shrugs, smiling. "It's the little things that count, right? Just answer it."

     I smile back. "Red." He nods, accepting the answer. "My turn! Do you have any siblings?"

     He smiles and looks down at his feet. "My baby sister Judith," he answers. "She's about two."

     "Aww how cute," I swoon. "I bet she looks just like you."

     His cheeks flush red. "Nah. She looks like my mom." His face drops slightly. Another thing we have in common. Mom = touchy subject.

     "What happened to her?" I carefully ask.

     "Hey, it's my turn," he says. Right. "How old are you?"

     Ah yes. I suppose that's important if I really want to become... close... with him. "18," I say. I wish it were a lie. I feel so much older. I certainly act older. People mistake me for a 20-something-year-old all the time.

     "No way," he argues.

     "Yes way, why would I lie?" I smile.

     "I don't know, you just seem like you're in your 20s." See?

     I shake my head. My turn. "You got a girl back home?" I bluntly ask.

      My question takes him off guard. "You've known me for a day, and you already want to know if I have a girlfriend?"

     "Sure, why not?"

     "Bold," he mumbles. You're goddamn right I'm bold. "No, I don't." I smirk. Perfect. Carl keeps his head down now. His voice is low when he asks his question. "What happened to your face?"

     Hm. Wasn't expecting that. Normally, I'd slug someone in the face for bringing it up. It's one of my only rules. But I have just as much curiosity about his eye, so I can't say much. "I have a lot of different stories," I say truthfully. "Which one do you want to hear? The ex boyfriend, the mace, or the kidnapping story?"

     I can tell I've confused him. "The real story," he says.

     I purse my lips and nod. "Understandable answer." I pause a minute and ask myself if I should lie. I usually do. I don't like the real story. It makes me sound weak. Until the end, anyway.

     I decide to suck it up and tell him the truth. "I was 14," I start. "He was 17. We'd been 'dating' for a few months, and he was ready to take it to the next level. I wasn't. He didn't like that," I continue, shaking my head. "Dickhead tried to rape me. And considering the fact that he was 17 and fucking huge, I wasn't strong enough to push him off before he grabbed his pocket knife and slashed my face to try to shut me up. That only encouraged me. I nailed him in the nads and ran. Daddy was not happy when he saw what Damon had done."

     Carl looks stunned. "W-what happened to him?"

     I hesitate. I don't want to scare Carl off, but I need him to know that I don't fuck around. "I killed him."

     To my surprise, he doesn't look terribly shocked. People usually look horrified. A 14-year-old girl killing a 17-year-old beefy jock isn't exactly normal. But Carl just looks... understanding.

     "I had something similar happen to me," he says. "My dad stabbed the guy at least 10 times. I would've done it myself if my dad didn't go ballistic that night."

     I can't stop myself from smiling. "Wow. You are just full of surprises."

     Before he can reply, we hear the sound of leaves rustling. Both of us crouch slightly and look around. The familiar snarl of a corpse emits from behind us. We straighten up.

     "I got it," I say, walking towards the corpse. I free my mace from my belt and twist it in my hand. The corpse reaches out to me and growls. "Oh shut up."

     I swing my mace up, connecting with its jaw. The blow sends it on its back. Then I bring the mace back down into its head, cutting its next growl short. The mace drips with brown corpse blood. I swing it again to sling the blood off. Then I look back up at Carl. His expression is a mixture of impressed and terrified.

     I scrunch my eyebrows. "Whose turn is it?" I always get a little caught up when using the mace.

     He hesitates. "Yours."

     "Right, right," I say. Then I turn serious. "Same question."

He nods. "I was shot. Ron was holding a gun to my dad, and my uh... step mom stabbed him. I guess reflexes made him pull the trigger."

     I pause for a moment. For once in my life, I don't know what to say. "Hm. Not what I expected."

     He squints. "What were you expecting?"

I shrug for what feels like the eighth time today. "Maybe you survived a nasty blow to the head that knocked your eyeball out of your head,"
I say. "For all I know, that could be why you wear that hat."

I've seen it happen. Daddy has knocked a few eyes out of a few heads before. It's gross. But also kinda awesome. In a sadistic sort of way. But to me, 'sadistic' has the same definition as 'normal.'

A/N: THAT WEAK ASS ENDING THOOOO. I'll do better, I swear 😂