Seeing the gates open up to her grand estate, Xin was feeling more nervous than ever before. She didn’t fail to notice that there were more men in suits than usual outside the gated driveway. There were even more standing outside the house itself.
‘Was he worried that they would come after him as well after finding out about me?’ The high school girl wondered.
She also thought that having all these guards was useless. In the end, when Xin had been kidnapped, it wasn’t them who had come to rescue her. In her opinion, her father was just wasting his money and time with them.
Still, she understood a lot of the gang business, businessman, and government politics that went on. How they all needed to work together in nearly every city to do what they needed to do.
Unfortunately, it had become abundantly clear that although her father had joined hands with the Rising Dragon gang, it meant nothing in the face of one of Slough’s big time gangs. Despite anything Mayor Clove might have promised during his election, the ones really in charge of the town were still the gangs… just like everywhere else.
Eventually, exiting out of the car, the two siblings walked up a grand staircase that led to their large front doors. The closer the high school girl came to those doors, the heavier her legs felt, seemingly about to buckle.
“Jayden.” Xin addressed her brother, stopping completely at the stairs now. “You will back me up, right?”
Jayden only glanced at her for a second, before letting out a small sigh. With that, he continued to go up the stairs. It wasn’t a good sign, as it indicated that he wouldn’t be able to shield her from what would come next.
After walking through the double doors, Xin’s mother could be seen pacing back and forth, biting her fingernails at the entrance way to their home. As soon as she saw who came in, she ran right up to Xin giving her daughter a huge hug.
“My baby!” The mother exclaimed, holding onto her tightly as if she was unwilling to ever let go again. “I can’t believe those guys did that to you! I knew we shouldn’t have moved to this town. I’ve been worried about you since day one, and now this happened.”
“Mum, you’re starting to hurt me.” Xin softly said, leading her mother to let go for a moment. The middle-aged woman stood up and gave Jayden a kiss on the forehead as well. Although she knew that it should be nearly impossible for normal gangsters to hurt her son, a mother would always worry about her children.
Alas, there was still someone else Xin had to meet. “Come on, your father is waiting for you. Don’t worry, darling, your father and I have already been making preparations to prevent something like this from ever happening again.”
Xin took a deep breath, and she gulped down hard. It was something that couldn’t be avoided. All three of them soon walked towards a large black door. Opening the door, an office could be seen on the other side, with bookshelves decorating the side of the walls and a large desk in the centre.
The person sitting behind the desk was naturally Ben Clove, Slough’s mayor. The middle-aged man even had a little plaque on his table, to make sure any potential guest would be aware of that fact. Her father was sitting in the chair and didn’t get up to see if she was okay, like her mother had done. He just continued to sit.
Meanwhile, her mother went to stand behind the mayor’s chair. There was a chair opposite him, and Xin understood that her father wanted her to take the seat. Sitting down, she was just happy that her brother was in the room with her as well.
“First, I know this whole event must have been scary for you, and it’s my fault. We knew that you might become a target because you are my daughter. I thought that perhaps they would use it to leverage my position and get me to help the other gangs, but I never imagined that the only thing they would want was money.” Ben explained.
“Wait.” Xin interrupted. “Dad, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. They didn’t kidnap me for money. Well, they did, but that was just the secondary reason. All of this was just because I had a falling out with one of the girls at school and-“
A loud bang was heard on the table as her father hit it with the underside of his hand.
“Xin, whatever reason they might have had, it doesn’t matter. We want to keep you safe. We tried it your way, and it didn’t work out. Furthermore, we even had guards taking you from and to school yet this still happened. Even if their target wasn’t really me, it can still happen, and I just can’t take that risk.
“I admit that I was selfish when I listened to my advisors. ‘A mayor who even trusts to send his own daughter to a public school’… it sounded good for my public image, but I should have never risked your well-being. … I’ve made a mistake, Xin. Your life is far more important than what the voters think of me.
“That’s why, your mother and I have agreed that we’ll be sending you to a boarding school in a Tier-2 city under a fake name. You can come back to see us on the weekends.”
This was what she was afraid of, when she heard her mother say those few words by the doorway, she had imagined this would be the result.
‘I have… I have to fight back… I don’t want to live like that.’
“Dad!” Xin shouted back. “You just said that my life is more important. This is MY life you are talking about. I might not be an adult yet, but I’m sixteen, so shouldn’t I get some say in it? Come on, Jayden, you didn’t have to go through this stuff. Please!”
Her parents were often stubborn when it came to decisions, having already made up their mind, but they did listen to their firstborn son.
“I’m sorry, Xin, but I actually kind of agree with them.” Jayden looked down. “I know it’s not fair for you to suffer like this when I didn’t have to. However, when I was younger, our parents weren’t important figures yet. Barely anybody cared about our Clove family… but after what happened today…
“Slough isn’t safe right now. I won’t always be there to protect you.”
Immediately, Xin felt defeated, not even her brother was on her side. With her parents like this, they would never trust her, not even when she was an adult. She knew that her father would constantly be putting guards on her. When would it end? She couldn’t see any light in sight.
“Still, I have to agree that this is your life. That’s why I do have a suggestion. None of us would have to worry if Xin was… like me, right?” Jayden asked, and from the reaction of her parents it was clear that this was the first time they had even entertained such a possibility.
“If she could protect herself, you wouldn’t have to worry. Xin, this is completely up to you, okay, but what do you think about joining the Altered Fighting Academy like I did?”
Both of her parents looked at each other, they didn’t really know what to say, and it wasn’t really a suggestion they were expecting.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling Xin to become a professional fighter or anything like that, but it’s a two-year course, and we do have the money. So why not make her into an Altered that can protect herself? We’ll keep who she is away from the public and change her name. After two years of training, there won’t be any thugs in the street that will be able to take her on.”
It was something Xin had never even considered. She liked fighting because of her brother, but never thought about it as a profession. Even though her brother said she didn’t have to make it a job, going to the AFA meant no longer going to a regular school.
“I’ll do it!” The teenage girl made up her mind.
‘If that’s what it takes, so I can live the way I want, I’ll gladly become an Altered!’
*****
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