School of the Crown Assassins

26

I knocked on Axe's door. There was a shuffling sound before the door swung open in a slow motion. Axe didn't wait for me to step in before we walked back to the kitchen counter and sat on one of the bar stools. I closed the door behind me and turned to him.

"You ready to scold me?"

I stood next to him beside the counter as he stared at his hands, refusing to look me in the eyes. I took a deep breath.

"I want to know why."

Axe hesitated, playing with his fingers. He was restraining, trying to keep whatever he was hiding under wraps. I pushed on.

"I deserve to know, Axe. I'm sure you have a good reason. Just tell me."

He looked up and after a moment, he spoke.

"I don't think anyone ever has a good reason to kill their father," he said. "But I don't think mine were bad."

I nodded, telling him to continue.

Axe sighed, running down his sleeve, over the blades still resting on his forearm.

"When I was younger, my father always seemed a bit.. loud. Unpredictable. Sometimes he would be happy and loving, and then the next minute he would be shouting at us beyond sanity. He would tell me that I was awful, that I was stupid, that he wishes I was never born. Sometimes he said he wanted to send me away, other times that he wanted to kill me to get it over with. Everyday, I was reminded that I was worse than every other child he had ever come into contact with and how much he wished he had one of them instead. I was always useless. And then, the next moment he would be giving me a pat on the back or a slice of cake.

"I always thought that was his method of motivating me to be better. Maybe it was. But it wasn't until I came to Evandor for a full year away from him that I realized how harmful his methods were. Do you remember that first year? I was always at the very bottom. But I never wanted to be there. I had dreams, big dreams, ones that kept me awake at night, wondering when and I how would ever achieve them. And I thought I was doing everything I could to be better, but I wasn't. Not even close. My father's words only tore me down, made me think that I could never get where I wanted to be no matter how hard I tried. So, I had given up before I started, I didn't even know it.

"It wasn't until I met Echo and Chance that things started to change. Echo, ever the ambitious one, saw the same in me. She could tell I had dreams that I would do anything to accomplish, but I had something blocking me. Chance was the one who could identify what it was. They helped me out. By the end of that first year, I was starting to heal, and it was because of those two."

I nodded. "That's when you started rising higher in the ranks."

Axe nodded. "And then it was time for summer. I went home and everything was fine that first evening. The next day, home life returned to how it had been—my father blaming us for everything. He told me how much of a failure I was for staying at the bottom for most of the year. I didn't have the energy to tell him that I would get better, he wouldn't believe me anyways. So I kept my mouth shut, passing every day those few months telling myself to block out his words and keep going. But I could never block out how he did the same to my younger brother. I could never forget my brother's expression when he heard the harsh words, the way he was torn down so much further than I had ever been. It only made him fall even further and my father shout even louder.

"I went back to school for my second year, and things quickly escalated. I was climbing higher and faster than before. Every day was a competition to get to the top, and Echo's constant 'I bet you can't beat me' pestering kept me going. I wanted to prove her wrong. I wanted to prove all of them wrong. I got better and better. I was happier. And every night, my dreams grew bigger and bigger and the next day I would wake up and take another step to accomplishing them. I was thriving.