NOVEL NEXT Chapter 12: The Grounding.
“I heard you were grounded.” Her little brother whispered through the small crack in her door.
“I’m definitely not allowed to play games with you Everett. And next time knock on my door.” Zoey told him, tossing her hand wraps in the air and catching it.
“Mom would say something if she knew I was talking to you.” His lips poking through the door.
“She didn’t ground me from talking to my own brother.” She laughed at the sight of his lips. “Come in.”
He slowly opened the door before closing it as softly as he could. He looked around her room and sat on the bed next to her.
“I bet you were hitting that punching thing really hard, huh?” He asked, pointing to the punching bag.
“Yeah. How’d you guess?” She smiled.
Zoey didn’t exactly handle anger well. She liked to keep her emotions under control and be totally in control at all times but humans were flawed creatures. She let all her frustration and anger out on the heavy bag last night and managed to level up her Punching skill to level 12. After she calmed down a little, she decided to start leveling her other skills to level 10. Giving more focus to her defensive skills instead of her offensive ones. Punching was very fun and satisfying but Footwork, Slipping, Blocking, and Parry would definitely save her life if she was in trouble.
Yesterday she almost died. Zoey didn’t believe in God despite most of her family being religious black folk who visited Church every Sunday. But she definitely felt like she saw a light after nearly suffocating in that alley. Maybe seeing that light trope used so often in tv was the reason why she believed she saw one too. She read online that the brain attempts to calm and soothe the person from the horrible position that they’re in by showing them something else. Zoey didn’t know if it was true or not but it sounded logical enough for her.
Now after that near-death experience, Zoey would be far more careful in dealing with demons. Keeping an eye out for weird shit like that long tongue and anything else that could catch her off guard. But most importantly, focusing on her protective skills and raising them higher. Punching things hard enough won’t work forever. There has to be hundreds of demons out there that could deal with her punches through weird means. Shock absorbent skin, armor, rock skin, or even being too huge to deal with. Until Zoey can learn magic to fuse with her boxing skills, she will definitely need a way to stall to survive against things she can’t punch half to death.
“I could hear the sounds from in my room.” Everett said.
“I’ll try and put a towel under my door next time to block out the sound.”
“Hey, Zoey. Do you hate mom?” He suddenly asked, surprising her.
She took a moment to think before responding.
“No. I don’t hate mom. I love her, I guess.” This wasn’t a lie.
Zoey knew why her mother was the way she was. Her mother had her during high school and her biological dad broke up with her mom. A 16-year-old girl is not ready to raise a child in any form. Along with the way her mom was raised by her granny, it was the most obvious choice that she would repeat the teachings of her mother to raise Zoey. Being forced to go to Church on Sundays, getting whoopings on the butt for punishments, listening to the demands of your parents without ever questioning them, and just following with what they say even if you can’t understand.
‘Mom’s generation just sucked ass at raising children. It’s not her fault that I hated her for most of my childhood.’ Zoey understood.
Who could reasonably expect a 16-year-old mother to know how to raise a child properly? Zoey wasn’t forgiving her mother for how she raised her but simply acknowledging that she knew no other way of raising her. And she didn’t hate her now that she was older. She pissed her off and had a lot of things she disliked about her but that was that. Her mother still did a lot of good in her life. It wasn’t filled with all bad or horrible moments. Zoey was just the type of person to focus on the wrong done to her rather than the good first.
“Oh... I love her too but I think I love Dad more...” He whispered.
“That’s okay Everett. Just never tell Mom that, okay?” She wouldn’t handle it well if one of her children said something like that.
“It’d break her heart.” She told him despite how similar Zoey felt.
A long time ago, her mother accidentally found one of her dream journals. A dream journal filled with her thoughts about everything and anything. Cartoons, celebrities, boys in her class, girls in her class, her teachers, and how she felt about her mom. So of course, her mother had a talk with her. About why she said she called her a bitch in her dream journal. Zoey never wrote that she hated her mom in the dream journal, just nicknamed her as Bitch. That talk with her mom was one of the most painful and excruciating ones. Back then it made her annoyed. Annoyed because back then, Zoey only saw her mom as an enemy. An enemy she loved, hated and needed all at the same time. So whenever her mom got sad or started crying, inwardly Zoey didn’t care at all. She was a selfish little asshole kid like most others, why would she? The only thing she wished was that her mother would hurry up and stop talking to her about it. In the back of her head, she made sure to hide her dream journals much better to prevent that situation from happening ever again. Not to change the way she thought of her mother.
“Okay. I won’t say anything...” His legs dangled off the edge of her bed.
“Hey Zoey, why’d you start boxing?” He asked.
“I wanted to learn how to defend myself.” She answered honestly.
“Why not something cool like karate or taekwondo or Muay Thai, or Brazillian Jiu jitsu?” He knew a lot about fighting...
“I liked boxing more.”
“I would’ve picked taekwondo. I wanna learn how to kick awesomely.”
“Kicking is cool.” Zoey hasn’t yet used her legs in a fight yet but she already had a few ideas in mind.
“What were you defending yourself from?” Zoey didn’t know if she wanted to answer this as honestly...
“Magicians...” It came out syllable by syllable.
“Magicians?” He responded reasonably confused.
“I thought I would have to fight two magicians. So, I took up boxing to give myself a chance to fight back.” She told him.
“Are you joking with me?” He narrowed his eyes at her.
“Watch this.” Zoey suddenly regretted how she treated her mother yesterday.
Zoey went inside her bag and pulled out her cursed boxing gloves. She grabbed a knife from under her bed and sliced open the padding of the gloves. Everett stared in amazement as the gloves started mending themselves back together. He couldn’t contain his squeal of excitement and let Zoey’s ears take the full brunt of it.
“Magic is real!? My sister is a magician!?” Zoey shook her head.
“I’m not a magician. I just got magic boxing gloves. But I do know 2 magicians at my school.” He squealed even louder this time.
Her mom burst into the room to see who was murdering a squealing pig inside. From the look on her face, it looks like she expected to find Zoey doing something she wasn’t supposed to be. Her eyes did close in on the knife in her hand though. But with a lack of blood anywhere and Everett not looking scared at all, she realized that couldn’t be the problem. But she was going to make it a problem.
“What are you doing with that knife?” She questioned.
“Showing you something I should’ve yesterday.” Zoey got up with her gloves and the knife. A look of confusion sprouted on her mom’s face.
Zoey showed her exactly what she showed her little brother a moment ago.
“What is this? How is it doing that?” She asked.
“It’s magic. Or magji as they like to call them.”
“Magic isn’t real, Zoey. This was a nice little trick you decided to show me but you’re still grounded. And give me that knife.” She grabbed the knife out of her hand and Zoey for a moment felt tempted to grip her hand around the handle tighter so she couldn’t. But she didn’t.
Now she could say she tried, right? Some magic was performed right in front of her face but she thought it was a trick instead. Didn’t even give it the faintest chance of being real. It annoyed Zoey but once again she understood. Some people are really ignorant and it just so happens that her mother is one of those people. And unless she can form a fireball or teleport, there was no way she was accepting the existence of magic anytime soon.
“I believe it's magji Zoey...” Everett spoke behind her.
“Thank you...” Her disappointment in her mother was at an all-time high but at least she wasn’t alone.
“Is that the only thing they can do?” He asked.
“They like blood.” She closed her door after her mother left. A lingering thought tempted her to lock it just to spite her mother but if she found the door was locked, she’d make a big deal out of it.
Her mom was raised in a family where there were no locked doors. If a door was locked it made her nervous and uncomfortable. Locked doors made Zoey feel safe and comfortable. Everett was similar as he also liked to lock his doors and not have a certain mother just bust in his room whenever she felt like it.
“Blood?!”
“Yep. If they drink blood, they repair themselves.”
“That is so cool...”
“That’s it though.”
“Can I borrow them?!”
“No. I need them for school.” There might be more demons at her school from what Alexander and Lindsay believe.
“What’s at your school that you would need magic gloves for?”
“Cursed gloves. And demons!” Seeing his excited little face was not going to get boring anytime soon.
Zoey soon started to tell her little brother about everything.