Page 66 of Kings Against the World

It’s a video of her in a deserted field somewhere, dressed in swat-like gear, holding a fucking bazooka over her shoulder as she fires it at a long-range target. The missile lands exactly on its intended spot in a burst of smoke and flames.

“That was for some special field training I did with the military. It was elective, but I thought it would be exciting to shoot a bazooka.”

“Fuckkkk…” I groan. “That… just may be the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. New kink unlocked. Hot chicks with bazooka guns. You ever handle a flame thrower?”

She laughs, swiping her phone to the next video. “Still on the to-do list. But here I am disassembling an M4 in fifteen seconds.”

I’ve forgotten all about the pizza as she shows me a few more videos.

Videos of her expertly disassembling and reassembling guns. Videos of her at target practice at the FBI’s firing range. Even an old video of her going through some active shooter simulation at the academy course she had to attend in Quantico.

It’s all so damn impressive. I’m not sure if I’m hard or just proud.

Maybe some confusing mix of both.

“I can see why your boss thought you could handle Boone and his men.”

“That was a hard sell. Honestly, he’s still not all the way convinced this operation is a good idea.”

“What made you interested in becoming an FBI agent? Not a lot of little girls grow up wanting to hunt bad guys.”

She folds her arms again, resting her elbows on her thighs. Her expression’s turned contemplative, like she’s trying to figure out how to answer.

“Believe it or not, Ozzie… I was a shit student too. I was C average at best. I got suspended a few times.”

“You!? Suspended?!” I blurt out, thrown off. “How? For being perfect?”

Her mouth pulls into a half-smile, though she shakes her head. “I’ve never been perfect a day in my life. Especially not back then. I was… an angry teenager. I had a temper, and sometimes that resulted in me being violent.”

“Why were you angry?”

It seems like a simple enough question, but as soon as I ask it, I can tell it’s loaded. For her it’s not some simple reason, but instead something deeper and complex.

The room fills with silence for a while ’til I’m sure she’s not gonna answer. Then she seems to change her mind, sighing as she does.

“My parents…” she says slowly, dragging out each word. “My parents chose their vices over their daughters. I was the oldest… so all the burden… it fell on me.”

“Damn,” I whisper, immediately struck by the urge to pull her closer. Put my arms around her and give her some kinda comfort I doubt she’s ever been offered.

She goes on before I can.

“I figured since they couldn’t show up for me. I’d show up for my sister. I would try to make everything okay for her. Zani… was beautiful. She was bright and sweet and just everything I wasn’t. If anybody was going to make it out, I wanted it to be her.”

Something I’d never thought I’d see happens.

Tears emerge in Zoe’s eyes as she drops her gaze down to her lap as if shocked by them too. Her breaths turn sharp, shoulders tense.

“Zoe…” I say, stretching out my hand to grab hers, but she pops to her feet and walks over to peer out the glass balcony door.

“I was away at college when it happened,” she says. “I hadn’t even thought I’d ever go. But I got a good enough score on my SAT that I scraped by and got into a Cal State. While I was gone for the first semester, my father’s debts caught up with him. He had no way to pay, so Boone took the next best thing.”

My chest clenches from the revelation. So damn disturbed I can’t even react otherwise.

“They said they had no choice. That Boone and his men broke down the door and dragged her out of her room. Back then, he had a whole network in the area. He used to get teens from off the street to join his operation and do his bidding. Drugs, theft, prostitution. Just like that, Zani was gone. Sucked up into some black hole.”

“Where is she?” I ask, my throat dry. “We can find her… we can get her back, right?”

“She didn’t make it. She… she overdosed. She was found in some motel room after a job. The medical examiner ruled it accidental, but all the pills she took…”

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