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kids when their world collapsed. Perhaps they had already been wild things, bullies on the playground who grew up always in trouble with the law. I can see a lack of feminine influence in their dirty teeth and unwashed hair.
    “Well, lookie here, JayJay.” The brother in the passenger seat, the one nearest to me, whistles.
    “Yep, I see her, Stevie,” JayJay mutters back. “Where’s a pretty thing like you been all our lives?”
    I reach up and remove my sunglasses, letting them get the full effect of my icy blue eyes. “You boys have come to do a bit of mischief.”
    “Aw, sweet thing, that’s what we do best.”
    They give me grins, thinking I’m going to be charmed. All I want to do is gag.
    “Why don’t you throw that baseball bat you have under your seat out of the window nice and slow.” It wasn’t a request.
    They blink as their tiny minds digest what I’ve asked them to do. The slimy smiles immediately fade from their faces, and they lose their affable relaxation.
    “What the hell are you talking about?” Stevie asks with a growl.
    I move my right arm fractionally, and I reveal the three small daggers I have in my fist. “You might be thinking that these small blades are no match for the force behind a swinging club of wood, but I doubt you simpletons are fast enough to hit me quickly enough before my sharp little friends tear through your flesh.”
    Again, there is a second delay as they both try to digest what I’ve said to them, and when it does sink in, both sputter in a tirade of outrage.
    “What did you call us?”
    “Why, you little bitch!”
    “Who the hell do you think you are?”
    JayJay throws the truck in park and bangs out of the driver side. He storms around the truck toward me, and before he can blink, a dagger embeds itself into the tender spot right above his armpit. He howls and steps back from me. He yanks the little dagger out, and as I watch him look from it to me, I see the fury explode in his eyes.
    He does something incredibly stupid at this point by raising the dagger and taking another step toward me. Obviously it hasn’t sunk it that if I hit the spot I was aiming for, then it stands to reason I know how to use these blades. I toss another one, which imbeds in his hand. He screams in pain and drops my dagger to the ground. He falls to his knees, tears streaming down his face as he sobs in pain.
    I walk over to him and calmly pick up one dagger from the ground before grabbing the hilt of the one protruding from between his knuckles.
    “This is going to hurt,” I tell him and then quickly yank it out of his flesh. He screams again and stays there dripping blood onto the dusty street. I hear the truck door slam, and I instinctively know that Stevie has the baseball bat in his hand, getting ready to use it on me. So I crouch down and whip my arm out, letting the third dagger fly from my fingertips. I see it embed itself into Stevie’s thigh, at which he promptly cries out and falls back. The bat hits the ground with a clatter. I rise and walk over to him, watching for a moment as he moans in pain and clutches the area, which is bleeding profusely.
    Like I did with his brother, I yank the dagger from his flesh. He manages not to scream, but I catch him puffing deeply from the pain. Tears leak from his lashes.
    I wipe the blades on his shirt, capturing his attention.
    “Another inch and this blade would have hit your femoral artery,” I inform him. He just stares at me in part mixture of horror and hatred. “And in case you don’t realize what that means, you would have bled out in about four minutes. I imagine it would have just seemed like four seconds as your heart pumped out your blood with each beat, causing you to get weaker and weaker until there wasn’t any more left to sustain your body. I wonder what your last thought would’ve been, eh?” I fall silent, letting that thought marinate for a moment. “People say your life flashes in front of your eyes just