Mate Killer - A Demon Series (#Wattys2016)

Chapter 15: Show Must Go On

As Mac and I finished sorting through our shipment, I couldn't help running my hands over everything one last time before locking up. The cold felt right under my hot fingers as I let my hands wander over the metal sheeting walls and the hanging equipment. As I walked up the steps I looked one last time than I locked the door behind me on the keypad sighing.

"It still amazes me how you can love everything in there," Mac said pushing the brick wall back in place. "Don't you consider it a reminder?"

 "Yes and No," I sighed again. "Its a reminder of the horrible things we did, but it also feels real to me. Its helped shaped who we are. It helps me feel connected to something. Does that make any sense?"

 "I can understand wanted something, anything to stay connected too. Still feels like a weird thing to connect to," Mac pointed out as he followed me up the basement stairs.

"People have their barbie dolls and monster trucks. I have my toys," I grumbled.

Mac shook his head as he left me in the kitchen with Dora. She sat next to Kyle helping him work out a calculus problem for homework. This was becoming a regular thing in the last week her and Kimber helping him with his homework. I had tried and failed miserably. I could teach someone how to severe the Achilles heel of his opponent in three different places, but I couldn't teach someone how to work out a calculus problem. That someone being Kyle.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not stupid, even though it felt like I was after that stupid math problem, but I wasn't book smart. I liked working with my hands, anything that I could take apart with my own two hands and than see how all the components fit and worked together as I rebuilt it was what I lived for.

Breaching a major government building.

Done.

Planning an assassination.

Done.

Interrogating a prisoner.

Done and not so nice.

Helping out on a Grade 11 homework problem.

Fail. Fail.

And oh, did I mention. FAIL.

That's why Dora had taken over helping out after I made Kyle more confused and why I was now sitting on the counter with an iced tea watching him scratch away with a pencil as the night dragged on.

"That won't work Kyle," Dora pointed to the equation. "Your missing a step."

Kyle quickly erased as soon as she pointed it out and wrote out something else almost immediately. By the look on Dora's face he had answered it correctly this time. Where he got his book smarts from growing up with me, I will never know? I sat watching him finish the rest of his homework as Dora came over with her cup grabbing some water from the sink letting him finish the rest on his own.

"He is going to have to go in and get the teacher to move him up to advance calculus. This stuff is child's play to him," Dora said as she stared out the window.

"What? He just started this class last week," I pointed out. Kyle was so transfixed by his homework he didn't even realize we were talking about him.

"Trust me," Dora claimed turning to look at Kyle. "If he doesn't than his teacher will be giving you a call sometime next week to tell you there moving him up a class grade in math."

I couldn't believe it.

"He's smart Liz. Really smart know that someone is teaching him."

"HEY! I taught him," I snarled softly.