That was all it took. Brett had never been challenged like that before, so he wasn’t used to it at all. In a complete, uncontrolled rage of fury, he charged forward with the obvious intent to do her harm, but instead he received one thing in return for his efforts.
A kick to the face.
It happened so quickly he didn’t even know what had hit him. He stayed on his feet, but he stumbled to the side and instantly brought a hand up to assess the damage. There was blood all over his lip where Kiana’s foot had split it open. He stopped and looked at her wide-eyed for a few seconds, somewhat unsure what to do next. None of his prior victims had ever injured him in any way.
“Are we having fun yet?” Kiana asked. “Come on, you big baby, is that all you’ve got? I’m not even warmed up yet.”
The onlookers started exchanging excited glances. They couldn’t believe what they had just seen. Not only had Kiana stood up to Brett, she had landed the first blow.
And then she landed the second.
And the third.
And the fourth.
The fourth blow, which went straight to his midsection, took the wind from his lungs and clearly hurt him badly, but at the same time he was much too stupid to give up. He charged at her again, but this time she decided to stop toying with him and do some real damage. She kicked at him again, with one of her beloved snap kicks, but this time he was expecting it and he actually managed to block it with his right hand. Unfortunately for him, however, he didn’t realize how much force was behind the kick and Kiana’s foot bent his fingers back far enough that it stunned him temporarily. While he was stunned, she threw another snap kick, this time using her opposite foot, and it hit him squarely in the stomach. As he bent forward from the force of the blow, she kicked him again, this time using a nasty roundhouse that hit him in the side of the face. The kick knocked out at least three of his teeth, spun him completely around, and dropped him to his knees. Once he was down, she finished him off with an axe kick to the back of his head that knocked him face first onto the pavement. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.
Realizing the fight was over, Kiana turned to address the crowd, which was now completely silent. They couldn’t believe how quickly she had defeated Brett, nor how easily. He hadn’t landed a single blow.
“Let it be known,” she said. “While I’m a student here at Jackson, there will be no bullies. I don’t like bullies, and any of them will meet the exact same fate as Brett. Is that understood?”
The entire audience erupted in cheers at the conclusion of her words and they all crowded around her to give her hugs and affectionate pats on the back. A bunch of boys lifted her up onto their shoulders and carried her around the parking lot as though she was the champion of the world.
From that point on, Kiana was a legend at Jackson High. Word of what she had done spread through the school like wild fire. That night, she received over three thousand friend requests on Facebook and an equal number on Twitter. The next day, the wrestling team made her an honorary team member, the shop class made a parking sign with her name on it and put it in a spot in the school’s parking lot that only she was allowed to park in from that point forward, and the members of the school’s band wrote and played a song in her honor (they even recorded it and uploaded a video of it to YouTube, and it got over 10,000 views within an hour of being posted). And she got a nickname around school, King Kiana. It was a little silly, she thought, and she had never really liked nicknames that much, but at the same time she had to admit it had a nice ring to it and it definitely sounded better than King Brett.
Amazingly, and much to Kiana’s relief, there were no repercussions. Jackson’s vice principal, who was a man named Roger Franklin and was in charge of school discipline, heard what had happened, but he had never been a fan of Brett, in any way, so he acted as though nothing had happened, even though fighting on school property was normally grounds for immediate expulsion. Brett didn’t show up at school for a week after the fight and when he finally did he was wearing braces and his entire face was swollen and purple (Kiana actually felt a little bad about it since she hadn’t meant to hurt him so badly). Upon seeing him, some of the other kids started saying, “What happened, Brett? You get beat up by a girl?” He clearly didn’t like it, not at all, but he didn’t do anything in retaliation for fear of having to deal with Kiana again.
Amazingly, however, that wasn’t the end of the story. It was actually just the beginning. About a week later, as Kiana was walking to her car in the school’s parking lot, she was greeted by a bunch of high school kids she didn’t recognize and had never met before. One of them was wearing a sweatshirt with the letters GPHS printed on its chest.
“I’m Chris,” he said. He was a small boy, probably a freshman or a sophomore, with dense freckles and bright red hair. “This is Amy, Steve, Dave, and Kaitlin. We all go to Glacier Peak.”
Glacier Peak was a high school in a nearby town called Snohomish. It was about ten minutes from Jackson. Kiana had never been to it before, but she had heard from Stacy and Veronica that it was one of the counties’ newer schools and it was quite nice.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Kiana said. But then she raised an eyebrow. She was a little puzzled. Why were a bunch of kids from Glacier Peak at Jackson and what did they want from her?
“We need your help,” the girl named Kaitlin said. “We have a big problem at Glacier Peak. A bully.”
Kiana’s eyes got big the minute she heard the word bully, and she instantly knew what they wanted. And of course, since she hated bullies, she was more than willing to help.
Thirty minutes later, she was standing in the main parking lot at Glacier Peak High School, and the school’s bully, who was a really ugly kid named Damien DeJesus, was lying at her feet. His eyes were glazed over and blood was dripping from both sides of his mouth.
“I may not go to this school,” Kiana said, “but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to tolerate any bullies here.”
The crowd of Glacier Peak students standing around her began cheering and chanting her name.
A week after that, she was at Lynnwood High School, taking care of another bully, a week after that she was at Monroe, and a week after that she was at Kamiak.
Getting rid of bullies was a full-time job, but she was willing to do it.
Chapter 20
After the incident with Brett, Kiana was one of the most popular girls at Jackson. Everyone wanted to meet her. The ‘smart’ kids offered to help her with her homework and the ‘cool’ kids offered to let her sit with them at lunch (she turned them down since she preferred to sit with Stacy, Hailey, Veronica, and the rest of her softball teammates). But there was one additional benefit of being one of the most popular girls at Jackson, and it was the one Kiana liked the most.
Boys.
Originally, she had been a little worried, since she had thought boys were intimidated and turned off by girls who were strong, so she was worried her beatdown of Brett would scare the majority of them away. But much to her relief and delight, the majority of the boys at Jackson weren’t intimidated at all. Quite to the contrary, she got more attention than ever. Everywhere she went, boys were smiling at her and waving and saying, “Hi.” On Tuesday, a really cute basketball player named Jamal Jenkins asked her to a movie, on Wednesday a cute wrestler named Aidan Walker asked her to dinner, and on Thursday, two different boys, both members of the school’s photography club, asked her to get coffee. Kiana loved the attention and she was tempted by all of the offers, but ever so politely she turned them all down. It was true she was interested in a boy at Jackson, and there was one that had completely caught her eye, but unfortunately it wasn’t any of the ones who had asked her out.
His name was Jacen Connor and he was a senior. He was the shortstop on the school’s varsity baseball team and everyone said he was really good (Stacy said scouts from Major League teams had been coming to his games regularly since he had been a freshman). As far as Kiana was conc
erned, he was dreamy - tall and lean, with broad shoulders and ripped arms (his biceps were gorgeous and they flexed every time he did something, even simple things like reaching out to fist bump someone). He had shaggy, blonde hair and the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen. Just looking at him turned her knees to jelly.
But what she liked about him the most had nothing to do with his appearance. It was his attitude. He was one of Jackson’s best athletes, and one of its most popular players, but he didn’t act like it at all. Most jocks, especially ones as talented as him, were self-centered, cocky, and full of themselves. They walked around the school like they owned the place. But not Jacen. He was quiet, courteous, and he even seemed to shun attention to some degree. He had a small group of friends that included some of the other players on the baseball team, but other than that he kept to himself most of the time.
“Does he have a girlfriend?” Kiana asked. Like usual, she and her friends sat at their table in the school’s cafeteria.
“Not that I know of,” Stacy said. “For a while, he was seeing a girl from Monroe, a sophomore on the softball team, but I heard they broke up a while back. Not certain why.”
“I heard Emma Phillips had the hots for him for a while,” Hailey said, “but it sounds like it didn’t go anywhere. She said he wasn’t interested.”
“He wasn’t interested in Emma Phillips?” Stacy asked, raising an eyebrow. “Every guy is interested in Emma Phillips. Heck, I’d go out with her if she asked me.”
The girls laughed. Emma Phillips was one of the school’s cheerleaders. She was tall and voluptuous, with long legs and a huge chest. Most of the boys at Jackson started drooling all over themselves the minute she walked into the room.
“Apparently,” Hailey said, “he wasn’t.”
“So,” Stacy said to Kiana, “you interested in him?”
“Maybe,” Kiana said.
It was a stupid answer and not true at all, since she really was interested in going out with him, but she didn’t want to look desperate.
“Go ask him out,” Veronica said. “You’re so popular now I’ll bet he’ll say yes. I bet he won’t even think about it.”
“I’d like to. But I struggle with things like that. I don’t have a lot of confidence when it comes to asking boys out. I prefer if they ask me.”
“Don’t we all,” Hailey said.
“Wait a minute,” Stacy said. “You can kick boys in the head, but you can’t ask them out? That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Kicking them in the head is a lot easier than asking them out. I’ve tried asking a few out back when I lived in Anaheim but it was a disaster each time. The last time I tried, I started shaking so badly I couldn’t even talk, and then when I finally did I bit my lip so bad it drew blood. I was so embarrassed I ran away and wouldn’t even go near the boy again.”
It was true. It had happened a few years back, when Kiana had been a freshman at Anaheim. She was really interested in a boy named Dillon Stephenson, a player on the school’s football team, but it all came to a quick and unfortunate end after her disastrous attempt to speak with him. She had been so embarrassed she had never gone near him again, and she had purposefully gone out of her way to avoid him whenever he came near. Which was actually kind of sad, because she later heard rumors that he had indeed been interested in her, and he had indeed wanted to go out with her, but by the time she learned it too much damage had already been done.
“I’ll ask Jacen for you,” Stacy said, and she started to stand up.
Kiana’s heart stopped. “Don’t you dare. I’ll kill you if you do.”
“Why? What’s wrong with me asking him out for you?”
“That’s so cornball. I hate when people do stuff like that. If it’s going to happen, either I need to ask him or he needs to ask me.”
“Well then get over there. He’s right there at that table. It’s a perfect chance for you.”
Jacen was on the far side of the cafeteria, at a table with some of his friends, eating an apple.
“I already told you,” Kiana said. “I can’t ask him out. I’ll probably bite my lip again.”
“Then don’t ask him. Just wander over there and stand near him for a while and give him a chance to see you. If he sees you, I’ll bet he’ll ask you out. How can he resist, especially with your newfound notoriety.”
Kiana was a little hesitant and she thought the plan was pretty silly, but the other girls encouraged her (and Stacy nearly pushed her out of her seat), so she finally got up and wandered over toward him. Once she got close, however, she got hesitant, and she shot nervous glances back at her friends. They waved her on, so she built up her courage and moved forward with the plan.
Unfortunately for her, however, it didn’t go well. As soon as she got near Jacen’s table, another one of the boys who was seated there, a boy named Phil Johnson, turned and saw her walking up. He started talking to her, and even went so far as to ask her out. She politely declined, and she tried to make a little small talk anyway, just so she could hang around their table a little longer. Jacen sat there silently the whole time and at one point he smiled at her, but he never said a thing the whole time she was there. Discouraged and disheartened, she eventually turned and headed back to the table where her friends were sitting.
“It’s hopeless. He didn’t say a thing the whole time I was over there.”
“Go figure,” Stacy said. “Who knows? Maybe he’s gay.”
“You said he used to date a girl from Monore.”
“Maybe he switched teams since then.”
Kiana sighed. That would be just her luck. She had finally found the perfect boy but he was gay. Without saying anything more, she stood up, rounded up her belongings, and headed for her next class.
Chapter 21
The second Kiana walked through the front door she knew something was wrong. Despite the house’s security system, an intruder had somehow gotten inside and was standing in the living room, less than five feet away from her. Without as much as a thought, and acting by pure instinct alone, Kiana dropped her backpack to the floor and threw a nasty kick. Like all of her moves, it was insanely fast, expertly thrown, and would have dropped a normal person immediately upon impact. The intruder, however, stuck up a hand and deflected the blow to one side. Somewhat surprised by the response, yet still undaunted, Kiana threw another, and another. The intruder blocked both kicks.
For a few seconds, Kiana was in disbelief, but much to her relief Michael entered the room from the far side near the kitchen.
“Dad. There’s an intruder. Help me.”
Michael’s eyes filled with alarm the second he realized what was happening.
“Kiana. That’s not an intruder. That’s my date.”
Kiana was just about to launch a nasty roundhouse when she froze in place. It was at that point she realized Michael was holding a bottle of Chardonnay in one hand and two wine glasses in the other.
“Date?”
He nodded.
Kiana felt her entire face get warm as she turned and, for the first time, took a good look at the intruder. She was a tall, shapely woman in her mid-thirties, with light blue eyes and straight, blond hair. She wore a tight, form-fitting, sleeveless dress and a pair of really stylish heels.
“Nice to meet you,” Kiana said.
It was a really dumb thing to say, considering she had just tried to knock the woman’s head off, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say and, to be perfectly honest, she had never been so embarrassed in her entire life. She couldn’t believe she had just attacked a completely innocent person.
But then something else came to mind.
Date?
Michael had a date? That was something new. And unexpected. Kiana’s mom had died approximately five years before, but to the best of her knowledge Michael hadn’t gone on a single date since.
“The pleasure is mine,” the woman said. “Those were some nice moves, Kiana. I’m impressed.”
“I’m so sorry. I don’t normally attack people. Well, not innocent people, just bad guys. And bullies.” She was about to say something more, something more to help explain herself, but then a thought came to mind. “How did you block my kicks? Not very many people can block my kicks. Not that easily.”
The woman smiled. “I’ve done a little taekwondo myself. Not much, but I know the basics.”
She was about to say something more but Michael stepped forward and formally introduced them. “Kiana, this is Christine Carmichael. Christine, Kiana.”
“It’s nice to finally get to meet you, Kiana. Your dad has told me so much about you. I’ve wanted to meet you forever.”
“What? You two have known each other for a while?”
“For years,” Michael said. “Christine is an agent at the USIA, too. She was originally assigned to the LA branch but she just received her transfer to Seattle.”
“I was starting to get nervous,” Christine said. “It took them a lot longer than normal to approve my request. I was starting to think they weren’t going to do it. And if they hadn’t, that was going to ruin our whole plan.”
“Your plan?” Kiana asked.
“Our plan to tell you about us,” Michael said. “Christine and I have been seeing one another for about a year now. Originally, I didn’t want to tell you since Christine is an agent and I didn’t want you to have any connections with the agency. But once the accident happened and you became an agent yourself I decided it was time.”
Kiana wanted to say something in response, but all she could do was stand there with a stupid look on her face. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard. Michael had a girlfriend? And he had had one for a year but he had never told her?
“Things will be so much simpler now,” he said. “Now that I don’t have to keep Christine a secret from you. And I think the two of you will get along great since you have so much in common. Christine loves hand-to-hand combat too, just like you. The two of you can do a little sparring.”
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