Queen of the Underworld

15

"You're joking, right?" I said, letting out a nervous laugh.

"Nope," he shook his head.

"I'm not doing that," I said flatly.

"You wanna go kill some bastards with me, then you do it."

I furrow my eyebrows at him, giving him a look of disbelief. That sounded so wrong, it made me nauseous. What kind of life is it, the one we are living, in which someone says that like they say "pass the salt."

"If you don't realize how wrong and perverted that sounds, we need to get you to the ER for a brain surgery."

Nicolas let out a chuckle, making me smile and shake my head.

"You know what I mean, and don't change the subject! Get up there."

I looked at the long silk rope he wanted me to climb. Lorenzo wasn't kidding when he said intense training. Yesterday, Saturday, he woke us all up early and brought us to a gym he bought, yes bought. I'm convinced he doesn't know what to do with his money anymore. He said he wasn't going to let any of us lose our skills just because we were in America. Yesterday was calm, he put me to fight the boys and run a few miles on the treadmill. Then we lifted weights and at the end had an exhausting amount of target practice. I aced almost every shot, because I'm not perfect, but he said in this job I had to be. So I tried again and aced them all.

Now, he sent Nicolas and I early to start on a few gymnastics and acrobatics training. The others would join us later, but he wanted me to practice something he puts Nicolas to do all the time. He says that any skill, this one in particular, is useful for a job.

There was a long silk rope, tied to the ceiling somehow, that fell all the way to the floor. He wanted me to climb up, all the way to the end of the rope. Mind you, the ceiling is about fifty feet up in the air so I wasn't exactly ecstatic about this. It doesn't seem that bad since there is a huge soft and fluffy mattress below the rope, but that doesn't help my nerves either.

"Do I look like Harley Quinn to you? I'm not doing it."

He rolled his eyes, "I've done it a million times, its easy. Especially if you're already flexible and an unclassified acrobat, which you are."

My eyes trailed from the bottom of the rope all the way to the ceiling. I swallowed hard, feeling the sudden urge to teleport my ass to Ireland or something.

"I'd rather let the joker beat me senseless than—"

He sighs heavily through his mouth, "Enough with the DC references. Now get up there!"

I gave him a fake dirty look, "Marvel fan are we?" Desperately trying to change the subject, so I didn't have to pull this stunt, which would surely lead to my death.

He shrugged, "And?"

I stepped away and looked at him in disgust, "I'm appalled."

He took off his shoes, "maybe I'm just not a fan of shitty movies and bad comedy."

I scoffed, "oh please, you're just mad Marvel is...Marvel is...stupid."

I shut my eyes, that was pathetic. Stupid? The only stupid thing right now is me.

He smirked, "ahh, and ladies and gentlemen, she realized she has lost this battle."

I roll my eyes, "Did not!"

"Did too!"

"It's true! They are stupid!"

"Yeah, okay. Ms. DC princess of crime."