How To Be A Bad Girl

Nikki and Trinity

The bullet went straight into the target, but did not reached the drawn body, instead it hit the wall next to it. A small groan left Olivia's mouth, she was so close of hitting the target. Ace and Trinity did not disapproved it tough, they applauded her.

"Congratulations! It was your first shot and you did well!!" Ace said, smiling and clapping her hand like a proud mother.

"But I didn't hit the body" Olivia said looking at the hole where her bullet was.

"Oh c'mon on Liv, it was your first time yet you did a great job." Said Trinity. "On my first time, the bullet hit the ceiling." She reassured Olivia.

Olivia felt a little warm inside, she had made a mistake but the girls didn't seem to care. They were cheering her on instead. It meant a lot for Olivia because she never had this kind of incentive before. Not even from her father.

Her father... how was he doing? Olivia started to wonder about him and how he was handling her disappearance. She didn't know if him was taking it well or if he was worried. Obviously he should be beyond worried though. That thought alone left Olivia thinking of herself as the worst daughter ever. She was not just stupid enough to run away from home without leaving a not, also she was a part of a gang.

"Are you ok Liv?" Trinity asked and it caught Olivia's attention. "By the way, do you mind if I call you Liv? It suits you."

"If you want, you can call me that" Olivia said.

"Okay, enough with the chit chat. Let's get back to train" Ace interrupted the two girls. Olivia nodded and turned to her target again, trying to shoot at it while Trinity cheered.

---

Weeks later...

Olivia was returning from some long hours of pure training. Weeks had passed and Olivia was getting better at her train. She could spend hours working out, without almost dying of exhaustion. Ace taught her some arts of self defense like karate, aikido and kick boxing. Olivia was doing fina at the three of them, but still needed much more training if she wanted to excel at it. The only thing that she wasn't getting better though, was shooting targets.

She didn't know why, but whenever she held the bullet on her hands, she couldn't concentrate enough. Olivia always hit the wall next to the body target, but never the body target itself. And if she hit it, it was only on the foot or legs. In real persons, it was enough to cause damage, but never injure them severely to the point of killing. And maybe it was because of it that Olivia couldn't bring herself to shoot correctly. Whenever she was about to shoot, she remembered that what she learned, would be used to try to kill someone. And Olivia just couldn't do it.

Ace said that she had potential, to fight, to shoot someone and to do gang business. But her major flaw was her compassion. Olivia wasn't the kind of person who could do something as serious as kill someone. But if she wanted to keep living that lifestyle, she had to learn how to shoot someone. It was needed in some cases and in missions, even when everything was peaceful, the gun was something she had to carry at anytime.

"Are you hungry?" Said Nikki while Olivia entered the house. It was almost dinner time and Olivia's stomach was growling.

"Yeah, I'm really hungry. What are you doing for dinner?" Olivia asked.

"Lasagna, you need some carbohydrate too if you want to be stronger." Nikki answered. Olivia smiled and said a little thanks. Nikki was a nice girl. Olivia got to know her better by the weeks that passed. Trinity was a great friend of Nikki, and since Trinity was Olivia's "best friend" at the gang house, they started to get along too.

Olivia learned that Nikki liked to cook, and she was reallt good at it. She learned also that Nikki was a funny and kind girl, but someone who you shouldn't mess with. To Olivia, it was strange how could someone so kind, like Trinity and Nikki, be a part of a word as naty as the criminal. But then, their stories on how they entered this world, was something that stayed glued to Olivia's mind.

Flashback:

A week after Olivia made the decision of staying with the gang, she was starting to get familiarized with the house and it's residents. Everything was peaceful, they weren't attacked anymore and the only business they did was dealing with another gangs about some product they were selling. The training still was as hard as Olivia's first. She wasn't used with all the lessons and work outs yet, but she managed to survival during one week.

The residents of the house were getting used to her as well. She could greet them in the morning without getting a glare in reply. Mo was still her moody self, Olivia didn't talk much to her but they were slowly(and by slowly, it was REALLY slow) warming to each other. Ray still ignored Olivia and Ace was kind yet distant, like always. The only real friend Olivia had made were Trinity and Nikki. Trinity had introduced Nikki to Olivia a day after her first train session. And since that day, the three of them got along pretty well.

That night they were seated together, star gazing. The house they were living at was far away from the city lights, which allowed them to see the stars of the night sky more clear. They were talking about trivial things, not really caring if the topic was a stupid one. While Trinity and Nikki talked about some boys they met, Olivia was thinking about her life back then when she was a girl stuck in her house. And how things turned out to being like this. Then, she remembered that the two girls besides her, were once normal girls too. Or at least, weren't criminals at some point. She wondered how girls like them ended up in that kind of business, so she asked.

"How did you joined the crime world?"

The two stopped talking, their faces turning serious. Olivia's cheeks reddened, had realised how stupid she sounded. She didn't even know the girls for too long, yet she was touching in such a delicated topic. But to her surprise, one of them decided to explain

"My father was a drug dealer." It was Nikki who revealed. "My mother died giving birth to me, leaving my father to take care of me." She paused a little, as if the memories caused pain, it probably did.

"He was a gentle and honest man, but then, the life cost was getting more expensive, too much for him to handle. So he entered the drugs world. But he didn't dare to use them, he just sold them to another people." Another pause, she seemed to be struggling to talk.

"If you don't want to talk about it I understand. It was insensitible of me to ask such things" Olivia said and Trinity nodded. But Nikki shook her head, refusing to stop

"No it's fine, I'll be fine. It's just a little painful." Then she continued her story. "Like I was saying, he began to sell drugs. It was a easy job at first, but then, he was getting too involved with the drug world and it's "owners". I was too young in that time, so I didn't do anything to stop him."

"One day, I was coming back from school, and I saw him laying on the couch, injured. He was so injured that he couldn't even talk properly." Nikki stopped once again, closing her eyes, maybe trying to hold back tears. "I tried to take him to the hospital, but he just said to leave him be and ordered me to go to my room. That was just the beginning though. The poker games from that day ownards were more frequent. My house's mobiles were starting to disappear and my father seemed to always being in a bad mood. Always worried, always paranoid.I was so naive, I thought that he job was doing us well. I should've told him to stop." She was sobbing a little, but continued nonetheless.

"But one night" Her voice trembled. "One night, I came back home from a friend's house, and I saw my dad..." Her sobs increased. "I saw him...dead on the kitchen's floor." She was holding back even more sobs. Olivia and Trinity were hugging her. They didn't dare to say a word, Nikki needed to let that go of her chest.

"By his side was a note for me. It's been years, but I still remember each word that was imprinted on that paper." Nikki was stopping her sobs, instead, her voice was filling with rage. " In that said: "That's what happens with people who mess with us. Never owe a drug lord little girl." That man was so cruel, he killed my father and mocked me at the same time. I was a kid that time, I didn't understand much of all, but it marked me. And when I grew up, I decided what I wanted. Revenge." Nikki said, now her tears gone. Olivia and Trinity stopped the hug.

"When I was a teen, I became a "girl of the night", always doing favours to men I didn't care about. But it solved my problems in the end, I learned my way through the drug business. I discovered who commanded that area, it was the same man that murdered my father. So I made a plan, I would seduce him with my skills, take him to a room, and kill him." Venom was droping on Nikki's voice

"He was a frequenter of the cabaret I worked. He liked to sleep with one different girl every night. And I was lucky to be one of them. With the gun I stole from one of his fellas that night, I entered a room with him. He tried to take off my clothes but I was faster. I aimed the gun at him and revealed who I was. I still remember his surprised face, it was almost hilarious." Nikki smirked a little. Olivia could understand why she was so twisted.

"I shot him and ran away. But I think some of his mans noticed I killed him and went my way. But the lucky seemed to be at my side that night, Ace, Ray and Trinity saved me" Nikki was smiling remembering of her friends. "And the rest you can already guess, we met, got along and then they invited me to be a part of the gang" Olivia nodded, so this was how Nikki entered the gang. Wow

It was even more twisted than her own story. Olivia felt a little pity towards Nikki, she had no one. Her mother died, her father died. That's why she was so twisted and confusing. That's why she was with the other girls, they might be as twisted and confusing as Nikki.

"This is really sad Nikki" Olivia said. "But I know now that you found a new family. One that you can count on." Olivia reassured Nikki, she smiled kindly in return. Then Olivia turned to Trinity and asked the same thing.

"And you Trinity, what's your story?" Olivia asked and Trinity looked at her, sighing.

"It's not as dramatic as Nikki's." Trinity said, turning to look at the stars, Nikki laughed a little and told her to hurry up and tell.

"It's quite short actually. My parents were like your father Olivia, overprotective and all. But I didn't like all their strict rules. I liked to sneak out of the house and get in trouble." Trinity said huffing a little. It was the first time Olivie had seen Trinity act like that.

"They were always punishing me for what I did. Locking me in my room." She closed her eyes. "So one day I got so tired of all that, of all their rules and expectations, that I ran away. Not my best decision in life though. I lived in the streets, doing some dirty jobs like stealing and robbing some houses to survive. My parents never looked for me. They knew I would run away one day or another. It enraged me even more." Trinity sighed again, her memories, unlike Nikki's, only brought her anger.

"It was like they didn't care. So one day, I got in a fight with some girls, that time anger guided me through life. But Ace and Ray pulled us apart, that was the day I met them. They were girl who, like me, were misfitis and lost in the world. So we decided to form a alliance, and then, a gang." Trinity finished her talk with a long sigh.

"So now you know how we entered this business." Nikki said, making her voice sound like some kind of narrator ending their story. Olivia nodded but she had the feeling that their stories, even though she never experienced them, would be marked on her mind forever. Then, she wondered how the other girls met. Ace and Ray knew each other before Trinity and Nikki, and probably Mo was the last one to join. Aside from Olivia, obviously. She thought what kind of stories the others had, but didn't have the guts to ask Nikki or Trinity to reveal more of their pasts. The night was painful enough for them, she didn't want the others to feel this way as well while telling her their story. But to be honest, she didn't even knew if they would tell her if they asked. So Olivia just kept quiet and looked at the stars.

End of Flashback.

"Where are the others?" Olivia asked, looking for the other girls.

"They will come when I say that dinner is ready." Nikki assured Olivia. It was common in that house, the girls locked themselves on their rooms sometimes and only came out when someone called. Suddenly, Olivia heard someone's loud footsteps. It was Trinity. She had in hand a paper with some article from a journal but Olivia couldn't see it so well.

"Hey, you don't know what I discovered!!" Trinity said.

"I don't and I don't want to know while I'm eating." Nikki replied and shouted. "Dinner's ready everyone!!" Then, suprisingly quickly, all the other girls came out of their rooms and seated on the chairs of the table. Taking advantage of the situation, Trinity spoke about what she had in hands.

"It's serious Nikki!! I found out something important" She said and all the heads turned to her. Ace gave her a nod to say that she could keep talking about her discover.

"Ace, like you asked me, I was searching for some further information about Vasquez deeds. It took me quite some time to find something. But then, I found this." She said, handing Ace the paper. Ace read the article and Olivia could swear that her eyes wildened a little. Then, Ace turned to her gang members.

"This is bad. Really bad." She said, trying to sound monotone but her voice was filled with surprise.

"What happened?" Mo asked.

"This article is about one of Vasquez connections. It says that they were business partners and long date friends." Ace explained without revealing the partner's name.

"And it will help us because..." Ray trailed in form of a question

"It doesn't help much. Well, at least not for us except one." She said.

"And to who it matters?" Nikki asked.

"To Olivia" Ace said turning to face Olivia. "It's...I can't fool you. It's..." Olivia's heart raced, her mind could only think of one person that mattered to her. It couldn't be him, It shouldn't be him.

"Your father"