Never a Good day.

Axel ran down the walk to the street, she could hear the bus, but she knew it had already passed her stop.

“Guess it’s not my day after all.” She kicked the stop sign that sat in front of her corner house. She braced for the pain, there was always pain, because she always forgot that kicking the sign in sandals (just because she missed the bus) was very painful. Yet there was none. She looked down and saw the slightly now scuffed top of her Converse.

“Huh.” Was all she could say. At least now she wouldn’t have to walk to school in pain. She licked her thumb and rubbed the black mark off the rubber top.

She walked three blocks north, and two towards the West. She walked into the alley that was a shortcut to her best friend Oli’s house. His real name was Tolip, but he was teased because everyone had called him ‘Tulip’, and he did not like being compared to “some wimpy flower.”

A couple of loud footsteps caused her to reach into her leather jacket pocket. Two men appeared in front of her, and she could sense the one behind. She pulled her switch knife from her pocket. She flipped it open, the metal reflecting what little light the alley had. She twisted the knife upside down, just like her dad taught her, so that the blade was facing towards the ground, but the actual serrated edge was facing towards the men in front of her. “Better to slice upwards with” her dad had said. “Then just flip it around, stab and slash back down.”

“Axel.” said the tallest man in front of her.

“Mac.” She replied with a smile. He always met her here in the mornings. Most of the time they had a short standoff, then they left her alone, but sometimes they tried to steal what little money was hidden on her. Most of the time it was inside her jacket in a small hidden pocket; but today it was tucked in her shoe.

“Is that Nad with you? And I’m assuming the one behind me is Ret. I’m guessing from the stink though, so it could be any number of your goons.” She heard the one behind her take a couple lunges forward. She tightened her grip on the knife, she wouldn’t like it, but if need be she could take him without turning around. ‘Never turn your back on Mac.’ She had learned that the hard way.

“Ret. Stop.” The footsteps ceased. Mac turned to her, “So how much do you have today?” He asked her so normally, as if they were good friends, and this was going to end well.

“Twenty seven.” She said smirking, she was carrying more money than usual. She had forty, but the other thirteen was hidden in her left shoe, she never told him the true amount of how much she had. That way some days she would still have some money left. Mac smiled,

“Hmm, seems today is our lucky day.” He took a step forward and the light caught his face. There on the bridge of his nose, running down his cheek were three jagged lines. Axel smiled again, which bugged her, why was she so happy to have caused those scars? But she was happy, and he deserved them. The two closest to his lips were caused the same day. Axel had swung the knife down, flipped the blade around, and then back up, trying to get away from him. He had still tried to take the money that had been clenched in her hand, but the pain disoriented him, so she shoved him backwards and ran as fast as she could.

That was her second encounter with him, and she had been eleven. Her first run-in had been three months prior, he had caught her in the alley unaware, and pulled his own knife. She had turned her back and tried to run away, but the knife caught her on the back of her neck, and she herself had a raised, curving line from the back of her ear to the bottom of her right shoulder blade. When she had walked home, very slowly bleeding to death, her parents took her to one of seven hospitals in their town and had her sown up. The doctor had tried to make the scar look nicer, but nothing had worked, the jagged edge of the blade had caused too much damage to the skin for it to look normal again.

After she was healed, she asked her dad for a knife and then asked him how to use it. He hadn’t been too pleased about teaching an eleven year old how to fight, but he couldn’t deny that she had to know. He didn’t want her to get hurt again because he was to stubborn to teach his daughter how to defend herself. So he brought down his great great grandfathers knife, from World War II, from the attic and taught her how to handle the weapon.

Three months later she was prepared when he attacked her, and now he was sporting his own marks of their ongoing battle. After their second fight, she didn’t see him for 3 years. Licking his wounds, she supposed. Then one day he showed up again, and she was ready. They had grappled a little, she was lucky he wasn’t one of the bigger guys that picked on weaklings, but he was strong enough, and she gained a new scar from her jaw to her collarbone that weaved like a snake. Then the next year he tried again, and the third scar appeared right under his eye.

Now, off and on he would come, always bringing two partners.

“You want me to add a fourth line, to that pretty little face of yours?” She sneered at him, and raised her eyebrows, an invitation to begin. She shouldn’t be pressing her luck, no matter how skilled of a fight she had become three to one was no easy task. But today just felt like she couldn’t lose, today she was bold.

“Come now Axel, let’s be friendly.” He had found out her name during one morning when they had talked for over an hour. She had been scared out of her wits the whole time, but at the end he had just melted back into the shadows like he always did. She almost relaxed, but the twitch of his fingers sent her knife arm sailing back. The blade connected with soft flesh and a sharp slice was heard. She jerked her arm upwards into an awkward position. Then pulled forward, successfully releasing the knife from Ret’s torso. She heard the body collapse behind her, she really hoped he wasn’t dead.

People died constantly in Downtown, car accidents, diseases, muggings, fires, but Axel had sworn she wouldn’t be a part of it. Mac stood there shaking his head in amusement.

“Always ready.” He then glanced up and smiled at her, a cold smile. “I really hate that.” He snapped his fingers and Nad lunged towards her, she sidestepped and swung her arm backwards again, but he had been told to avoid this because he wasn’t there. She ducked on instinct, hearing the whistle, and a knife flew above her head.

Downtown sucked.

She rolled forward, always trying to keep her back away from Mac, she knew that if he got a shot she was done for. Nad appeared in front of her and she took a swing, bringing her arm upwards across her body from right to left. She waited long enough till he believed that was the action she was going for, and then he changed footing to avoid the cut. She then flipped the blade around so the point was headed away from her thumb. Then she jammed her forearm down until it pierced through his button-up shirt. She was lucky today was warmer than usual or the knife would not have gone through his jacket. He gasped in pain and fell backwards. Axel tried to take the knife out quickly but it was stuck, and she to was pulled towards the ground.

She fell on top of Nad and hurriedly jumped up, crouched, in case Mac was waiting behind her, but he wasn’t. She couldn’t see him anywhere, probably took off, the chicken. She struggled to pull the knife out, and when she succeeded she head a sickening crunch and his chest fell sharply.

“Well thats just great!” She screamed angrily. She looked back at where Ret’s body laid. She got up and looked at both of them, then sighed and bent back over Nad searching his pockets. She felt a small metal device in his front pocket and pulled

out the phone.

“911.” She said out loud “And fast.” She waited for three-seconds, and then a small hologram of a woman appeared.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Two men are hurt, stab wounds it looks like.” Then she clicked the End button and dropped the phone back to the bodies. They could trace where the call had come from, then they would find these two along with the phone. She looked at the grown men left helpless in the alley way,

“I’m sorry” she said quietly, “I didn’t want to.” This happened every time, she ended up hurting someone in some way and she hated it, but it was survival, what was she supposed to do? She stalked away towards the end of the alley that she had been heading towards before this fiasco had happened. At the corner she glance back then turned away, and as she walked away her eyes pricked with tears.