After lunch, he suggested a lesson in hand-to-hand combat and that was when things got interesting.
I shouldn’t have been excited about it, considering he was about to hand my ass to me without breaking a sweat. I had a moment of trepidation when we reached a flat area in the field Nathan declared a suitable location. That anxiety vanished when he removed his sweatshirt and tossed it to the ground. Luckily, his back was to me, and he didn’t catch my eyes bugging out of my head.
The black torn sleeveless t-shirt he had on underneath revealed the sculpted biceps he’d been hiding all along, and the sides of the shirt scooped low enough that I glimpsed a smooth ripped chest when he turned. I was acutely aware that this was the first time I was seeing so much of him. It was nice, really nice.
His upper left arm was marked with a tattoo I couldn’t make out from the distance. Other than that, his skin was unmarked and flawless. Lean and smooth muscles blended and moved together like a marvelous piece of well-oiled machinery.
I’d bet he had one hell of a six pack.
“You change your mind?”
“Huh?” It took me a moment to realize he had been talking to me as I was ogling him. That was what, the third time he’s busted me now?
“I asked if you were ready,” he said slowly, like I was an idiot, which he probably thought I was by now.
“Yeah,” I said quickly. “Let’s go.” I swung my arms and clasped them in front of me with a sharp nod of my head.
“Alright, then.” He took a wide stance, crossing his arms in front of him and, God help me, all I could think about was how sexy he looked. “What do you do if someone attacks you?”
It didn’t help my case that I hadn’t been prepared for a quiz first, and stared at him dumbly.
He tilted is head. “Take your time, Kris.”
“Shut up.” I could do this. I jutted my chin out at him. “Man or woman?”
He hesitated, clearly wondering where I was going with this. “Man.”
That was easy. “Kick him in his happy place.”
His lips twitched and I caught a brief twinkle in his eyes. It took visible effort, but he managed to keep a straight face—something he seemed to have a hard time doing around me lately. He considered my answer and nodded objectively. “Good tactic, and probably effective, but I think we’ll skip over practicing that one, if it’s okay with you.”
“Sure thing, coach,” I snickered.
“Plan B?”
I shrugged. “Run?”
He made a face. “How far do you think you would get before I caught you?”
From him? Not far. He knew that. He knew that I knew that. But honestly, what were my alternatives? He towered over me by nearly a foot and had eighty pounds on me. He was bigger, faster, and stronger. He was a trained part-god. I couldn't possibly compete with him.
I huffed. “You can’t expect me to stay and fight you. I’ve seen what you’re capable of. No thanks,” I said defensively. “Plus, look at you, look at me. It’s hardly a fair fight.”
“Exactly,” he exclaimed like I’d said something brilliant. “There are ways to use your opponent’s size and strength against them, so that when you do run, you get away, and maybe they think twice about following.”
If it worked, he would be in serious trouble. “Okay, Sensei, and how do I do that?”
He spent the next half hour going over technique and demonstrating a few maneuvers to incapacitate an opponent of any size. By the time he offered for me to try a few moves on him, I was giddy with excitement.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll hurt you?” I teased.
He didn’t even hesitate. “No.”
I scoffed. “You just taught me how to hurt you. Isn’t that an insult to your teaching skills?”
“It’s an insult to your ability to use what you’ve learned,” he returned quickly, and then relented some with an easy shrug. “It is your first time trying.”
I would have been infuriated if it had come from anyone else. Coming from him, it sounded…right. Plus, from the smirk on his face, I knew he was teasing me. So Nathan wants to play? Game on. For dramatic effect, I stretched my arms behind me and tilted my head from side to side.
Nathan watched me, and waited. “Let me know when you’re ready,” he said casually.
I put my hands on my hips and narrowed my eyes at him. “Ready.”
I really was not ready when he lunged at me, and that was my excuse when I failed miserably and ended up restrained in his arms. And that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
He let me try over and over, and I failed each time. Finally, out of breath after five minutes, I stopped him. “What am I doing wrong?”
“Nothing. You just need more practice. You can’t expect to be good at it the first time you try.”
“You’re really fast,” I panted, clutching my side.
“You’ll get faster too.”
“You have an advantage right now,” I reminded him. “Just wait. I’m going to surprise you one of these days.”
He didn’t look convinced. That only made me more determined. Somewhere along the way, I had come to seek his approval, and dammit, I was going to get it.
* * *
In the following days, we fell into an easy rhythm: breakfast, weapons, lunch, hands-on combat. He bossed me around. I dug my feet in. He yelled at me. I yelled back.
A significant chunk of every morning was spent on target practice. I stood a chance at defending myself with a gun if I had to. Getting over the thought of shooting someone, even someone evil, would be my biggest hurdle.
What I excelled in was the physical stuff. Even after only a few days, I could already tell a difference. Nathan still handled me easily enough, but I was getting faster and building a stronger stamina, along with a decent right hook. One of these days, he wouldn’t block it fast enough and I would get him.
I wanted to get him. Bad. It was more than just to prove myself. That was part of it, but even more than that, and what surprised me the most, was that I had come to love the carnage.
The close physical contact with a really ripped, really hot trainer didn’t hurt.
And he was good at it. It was obvious he had been an instructor before. He was all about tough love. It was a good thing I had thick skin. If I hadn’t cried when he yelled at me last week, I wasn’t about to cry now.
I’d been close a few times, but attitude had prevailed. There had been a lot of vulgar language and use of obscene body language on my part, mostly to his back. Once I lifted a stiff middle finger to his face. That had earned me raised eyebrows and a snide, “very mature of you.” My response had been a haughty, “screw you, Nathan.”
That was the extent of our communication. He was more tolerable in the evenings, but by then, I was so tired, sore, and pissed off I didn’t want anything to do with him. I shoveled down food and went to bed. Not always in that order.
Every night, I had some version of the same dream featuring the boy in white. I never got any closer to him, he never turned all the way around, and I never saw his face or heard his voice. Almost every time, some unseen force stabbed him in the torso, turning his crisp white ensemble into a gory sea of blood that sent me spiraling through the black abyss with an inaudible scream on my lips. Night after night, nothing changed.
Except for the increasing desperation to get to him, to speak to him, to...find him. I wasn’t sure if it was my desperation, or his, that I was feeling. I didn’t even know him, but every night, I woke with tears in my eyes and an ache in my chest. I didn’t understand any of it.
Nathan kept me too busy to give it much thought during the day.
The only break he gave me was three days ago, when he cut training short to drive into town to check in with the Kala. Again, there had been no developments. He was due to call again today, and I was eagerly awaiting the break, though it didn’t seem imminent.
This morning, he had me honing my knifing skills on a sack of corn while he played wi
th his toys in the shed. I would rather shoot guns or fight, but at least the corn didn’t scold me when I didn’t stab it with perfect form.
Nathan’s jerk-like behavior wouldn’t irritate me so much if I didn’t know he was capable of kindness. I had witnessed it. I knew he could do it. He chose not to. Because of that, the admiration I had developed for him had morphed into hatred. Again. At least not liking him made it easier to ignore how pleasant he was to look at.
I eyed him from a distance. Okay, it still wasn’t that easy. I reminded myself that he was off limits. Taken. Or so I assumed. He had never actually said so himself...
No. I shook my head rapidly to push the thought out of my head. I wasn’t eleven anymore. I absolutely could not crush on him. I wouldn’t.
I looked at him again, with a scowl this time as I remembered the brutality of the past few days. That did it. Attraction…gone. Momentarily blinded by disgust, it took me a moment to realize he was watching me.
“What’s wrong with you?” he called across the field.
I smiled wickedly. “Just thinking about how much I hate you.”
He nodded like that was the answer he had expected. His expression growing more amused with each step, he approached me. “I think you need a break, before you start plotting to kill me in my sleep.”
“I planned that a long time ago, Nathan. I’m just waiting for my chance.” I raised the knife in my hand for emphasis.
He stunned me with a playful grin. “Want to take out your aggression over there?” He nodded toward the spot that had become our fighting ring, marked by the trampled grass and patches of bare earth.
I nodded enthusiastically. “That sounds so much better than stabbing corn.”
It was a lot better. I even managed to land a couple of blows. They rattled me more than they did him, but I got pleasure from making contact nonetheless. I think he enjoyed it too, even if he didn’t fight as hard as I knew he could. The longer we scrapped, and the better I got, the more he upped his effort in response and, after about an hour of steady fighting, both of us were panting, sweaty, and gross.
I was on a bit of a roll, had connected a few good hits, and had kept Nathan on his toes to my satisfaction. We were in the middle of a sparring exercise when I pulled off the best leg sweep of all time, and sent him crashing to the ground.
My hands shot in the air. “Ha! I did it!” I grinned down at him. “I actually—”
One moment I was boasting my achievement, and the next I was doing a face plant into the dirt beside him. I heard Nathan chuckle as I pushed myself up. When I looked at him, he laughed outright, and my frown lifted into a reluctant smile.
“You could’ve let me have that one,” I said as I wiped the dirt off my face.
“I couldn’t resist.” He stood and extended a hand to help me up. “Next time, don’t celebrate too early.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I dusted my clothes off. “I still got you.”
He turned toward the cabin with a carefree shrug and I trotted up beside him.
“That was a good move I pulled off, huh?” One compliment. That was all I wanted.
“Not bad.”
I rolled my eyes. I guessed that was the best I was going to get.
He glanced down at me. “You are advancing a little faster than I expected you to.”
I beamed. “Really?”
He nodded thoughtfully. “You might have fighting blood in you.”
Like he did? Oh no. Maybe we were related. I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to risk sounding like an idiot. Besides, another thought distressed me more.
“I don’t want to have fighter blood,” I complained.
“Why not?”
“To be a fighter, you have to have strength and muscles.” I forced myself to not look at Nathan’s. On him, they looked amazing. On women, muscles like that looked hideous. “I don’t want to get all big, and bulky, and ugly like those women boxers and body builders.”
He chuckled again. “That’s what you’re worried about?”
Boy, he was in a good mood today. While I wanted to enjoy the rare occasion, I was stressing way too much. I didn’t consider myself beautiful, by no means, but I did take pride in my appearance. Fighting all the time would surely take its toll.
“Yes, I’m worried,” I whined. “You can’t tell now, but I used to take care of myself. All this sweating is doing terrible things to my hair and skin. I can’t imagine how much worse it could get if I had to do this all the time.”
His eyes brushed over me, and I would have liked to think he was really checking me out, but I knew better. To him, it was merely an indifferent observation of my appearance. Then again, that was probably a good thing, considering I looked like a gross sweaty bum.
Why did I care anyway?
“I think you’ll be fine,” he said dismissively.
“Whatever. You’re a guy.”
“That kind of makes my opinion valuable, don’t you think?”
“Maybe,” I admitted like I didn’t care. Truth was I couldn’t help wondering what his opinion was. “But ‘I think you’ll be fine’ isn’t very encouraging. It’s a typical guy response.”
He sighed and shook his head at the ground. When we reached the porch, he bounded up the steps ahead of me, opened the door, and stood aside, waiting for me. He looked more annoyed than anything as I took my time sulking up the steps.
“It won’t happen,” he said quietly, reluctantly, as I passed by him.
“What?” I asked, pausing in the doorway.
He gave me a lopsided smile. “You won’t turn big and ugly.” He made a face like he wasn’t satisfied with his wording. “I mean…” He seemed to be searching for the right words, but eventually shrugged, defeated. “I don’t really know what I mean, but I know that what you’re afraid of won’t happen. It’s not possible. I mean, you’re…”
I raised my eyebrows as his words trailed off. Did he think I was pretty? Had he almost said that?
I had to admit, I was getting a kick out of watching him squirm. Turned out he had a vulnerability after all. Odd that it would be girls. Guys that looked like him were usually full of themselves. Not Nathan. Girls made him nervous. Or was it just me?
Either way, I decided to throw him a bone. “Well, thank you. I think.”
He shrugged, still looking puzzled, and I didn’t hide the smile on my face as I waltzed inside ahead of him.
CHAPTER 17
Did he think I was pretty?
Seriously, was it possible? What else could he have been trying to say?
You’re too...
I spent the duration of my shower obsessing over the possibilities, but I kept coming back to pretty as the most likely option. Or beautiful. Or hot. It didn’t matter. They all meant the same thing.
Nathan thought I was pretty.
Reaching that conclusion on the heels of physically dominating him, even if it was a short-lived victory, made my day. By the time I finished in the shower and wrapped myself up in a towel, I was floating on clouds.
That only made the fall that much harder.
I wiped my hand over the steamy mirror to study my reflection, and maybe find a way to do something with my hair that didn’t involve a ponytail. Instead, I could only stare in horror at what I saw.
Or didn’t see, rather.
I brushed my damp hair to the side, clearing it from my forehead in a frenzy, though it was pointless. It wasn’t hidden. It wasn’t misplaced. I hadn’t forgotten where it was. It was gone. The hideous, repulsive scar was completely gone. I traced a finger over the course I knew it had followed. Nothing was left. Not a dimple. Not a faint line. Nothing.
I knew I should be happy to be rid of the ugly thing, but I wasn’t.
My fist shot out and connected with the mirror, shattering it. A chunk of glass fell to the counter and exploded into hundreds of tiny shards. I didn’t feel the pain in my hand until I saw the blood run down my arm. Even then, it wasn’t that, but the ache in my
chest that dropped me to my knees as I sobbed their names over and over.
Lauren and Megan. Their memories were like daggers floating around loosely in my chest. Every now and then, one would strike my heart—and the pain was excruciating.
It wasn’t fair. Why they died, why I lived, why I had to go on, pretending the events of that night had not darkened my soul forever. Sometimes, I thought it would have been easier to die alongside them, than to face their loss day after day.
Why did he have to save me?
And then he was there, scooping me up off the floor. Despite me thrashing in his arms, he easily carried me to the bed, where I was dropped with an unforgiving thud. He left me to return to the bathroom, only to hurry back with another towel. I winced as he wrapped it around my hand in an effort to stop the bleeding.
As an afterthought, I wished he had thought to bring another one. I was feeling rather exposed, sprawled on the bed in nothing but a thin towel that insisted on creeping up my thighs to the point of indecency. Good thing I was too upset to really care about how much skin was exposed. Even better that Nathan’s focus was on my hand, and not that.
“What happened?”
I shrugged. “I punched the mirror.”
“I can see that. Why?” He looked at me, and he saw the answer with his own eyes. His hand rose, and stopped just before his fingers brushed against my forehead. He lowered it again without touching me. “I didn’t even notice. That was fast.”
My lip trembled. With the loss of the one thing that connected me to them, I felt as if I were losing them all over again. My life was falling apart, again, and that was all he had to say?
“I’ve never seen a scar heal that fast,” he added, more to himself than to me.
“I didn’t want it to heal,” I wailed.
He blinked, looking confused. Of course he didn’t understand. It was my connection to them. Not his. I tried to push past him. Where to, I didn’t know yet. I just wanted to get away, to be alone with my misery, but I couldn’t even do that. He gripped me by the shoulders and forced me back on the bed.
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