She attacked again, landing a series of blows to his ribs with her feet, avoiding his hands this time. Marco tried to block, but she was too fast, and she only needed to catch him in the head once to leave him dazed and barely able to defend himself. He shook his head and saw her lunging at him again, so he dodged, then grabbed her by the shoulders and sent her flying into a wall. By the time she’d flown back to him, trying to deliver a jab to his right eye, his head was clear enough and his arms obeyed him again. He blocked her blow and aimed a right hook at her side, but only encountered empty air as she jumped backward, then flew up and hit him in the head from above with her foot.
He knew she expected him to back off, and his vision was blurry, but a stubborn urge sent him upward instead. He couldn’t even see her clearly as he lunged after her, grabbed her feet, and brought her down flat on her side with enough momentum to knock the wind out of her. She gasped for air as he landed on her and swung his fist, but he was still feeling the effects of her previous blow, and instead, his fist connected with the floor as the room tilted before his eyes. His weakness must have been obvious, because a second later, Marco was on his back, and Pain’s fist was flying at his face. She managed to hit him twice before he caught her arm and twisted it, making her cry out, while his other hand kept a firm grip on her thigh so she couldn’t get up.
She snarled when she realized that she was trapped and resorted to hammering at his ribs as he kept twisting her right arm. But if she thought that his vulnerable position mattered, she was wrong. Her slight weight didn’t affect him as he jumped back to his feet, and since he was still gripping her arm and leg, he quickly hit her with his forehead. There was a satisfying snap, and she shook her head a few times to clear it, as Marco picked her up and smashed her against the floor again. Despite the strength of her shield, he expected her to lose focus, at least for a moment. But as he stood over her, she suddenly flew between his legs, never changing her horizontal position. What the… Marco wondered as he spun and blocked her next blow. Her control of her power was so stunning it almost distracted him.
She attacked him with full force again, and it seemed her limited sight wasn’t really making any difference. Besides, she had managed to wear him out during the chase. It was supposed to be a quick fight! Marco grunted resentfully to himself as he landed another blow on her side, but she dodged so fast that his fist barely connected with her body. Then she stomped on his foot with all her strength, making him gasp as he felt bones break. This fight was ridiculous! An elephant and a snake would make a better pair of fighters than them! They were too different at everything, and while it was an interesting exercise, there seemed to be no end to it. He had to trick her, and the only way to do that successfully was to attack with the same speed, at least once.
He dropped his left fist just for a moment, knowing that she would fall for the bait and go for a right cross, and as she did, he leaned back and caught her hand with his. He jerked her arm, trying to dislocate her shoulder, but instead he heard a snap. She let out a half-cry, half-snarl as she froze in his grasp, her arm twisted unnaturally.
“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Marco heard just as someone threw him into a wall with so much force that he could feel all of his bones creak. He opened his mouth to protest, but then realized that it hadn’t been to punish him, but to keep him as far from Pain as possible. She was in Skull’s arms, kicking at him and trying to break free so she could lunge at Marco once more. Then Marco realized that Peter had been yelling for a while: that buzzing in the background for the last two minutes of the fight had been Peter’s angry voice.
He didn’t know how he had managed to break her arm. It must have been the momentum and the fact that he wasn’t used to fighting girls. He never measured his strength, and while her muscles were strong, her bones were simply too thin for an opponent like him.
Skull finally got hold of her ankles, but now her left arm was free, and Marco watched with some twisted satisfaction as it connected with Skull’s nose at full strength. However, it could have been just a friendly pat on the cheek for all the effect it had. Skull didn’t even flinch as his nose broke. Instead, he just caught Pain’s arm and strode toward the doors, the girl twisting in his grasp like a fish on a line.
“To the infirmary,” Peter called stiffly after Skull, ignoring Pain’s angry snort, “Come back after that.”
Then he turned back to Marco. Not feeling like talking, Marco chose to ignore him. He simply limped to one of the benches and sat there, hugging his sides. A series of painful stabs reminded him of his damaged ribs, and his chest felt on fire. He took a number of careful, shallow breaths, wincing when the pain got too strong. Jane’s hate-filled stare bore into his skull, but he didn’t raise his head. For some reason he didn’t want to meet her eyes.
Peter left without a word, and the other fighters also moved slowly to the exit, shooting him wary glances as they went. He guessed they didn’t feel like practicing after what they had seen.
The pain in his ribs became stronger with every minute, and he grimaced as he tried to shift his position so they would hurt less. He sat there in a kind of trance, staring sightlessly ahead, his mind blank and his vision blurry, as he restored his energies. A couple of minutes passed, and then he was dragged out of his stupor by a booming voice from above.
“What are you waiting for??”
With an enormous effort, Marco looked up and saw Skull towering over him. The giant was scowling, and his broken nose made him look even scarier than normal. Marco got up with a groan, just wishing that everybody would leave him alone. He was too drained to talk.
“They’re waiting for you in the infirmary,” Skull stated in a voice that couldn’t be ignored.
Marco just stared at him silently with a doubtful look, not even trying to argue. Skull advanced on him then, and Marco took a small step back.
“I’m not going if she’s in there,” he complained in a voice that sounded more like a whisper. “Why do I have to tell you this…?”
“So you’d rather die here than share a room with her?” Skull asked dubiously.
“Exactly,” Marco exhaled, then joked weakly, “And they say big guys are dumb…”
The last thing he remembered was Skull’s fist as it smashed into his face.
Chapter 11
Marco walked in the canteen, stood by the counter and looked around. The sky outside was stuffed with thick, violet clouds and threatened to burst open any moment, giving the place a grim, grayish cast which was unusual at this time in the afternoon. The few rays of weak sunshine that did manage to pierce the room with their shimmering yellow light illuminated the few fighters that occupied the tables.
He noticed Pain sitting alone at a table by the wall, poking slowly at her food with her good hand. Skull was eating near the window, his huge shoulders hunched over the table and a frown on his face, as if he were lost in thought. Marco looked over at the other fighters who glanced back at him warily. After what had happened in the training hall three weeks ago, they made even more of a point of avoiding him.
He grabbed some food and headed straight to Pain’s table, noticing how the others tensed, expecting trouble. Well, he deserved it.
Pain’s right arm was still in a sling, although her face looked as if nothing had happened. He guessed she was good at healing, but there had been some complications with the fracture.
She hadn’t said a single word to him since the fight. It got tiring eventually, but most of all he hated that he couldn’t get that fight out of his head, and that she had managed to cause him so much damage. It hadn’t stopped him from breaking her arm, but it had left him with two broken ribs, a concussion, and a number of bones broken in his foot. One more blow, and he would probably have been dead.
In the end, he had spent two weeks in the infirmary. His ribs hurt like hell, so he could barely move, and he was bored beyond belief. Being sick sucked when there was no one to care for you, he found out. At the end of the first week he
had become so annoying that Doc had brought him a small TV. Marco spent another week watching ball games, but that was it. He couldn’t face it any more. Doc let him go, and although he wasn’t allowed to practice yet, he could at least walk. It was better to limp around the building than go insane, alone in his room.
He dropped his tray on the table and carefully lowered himself into the chair opposite Pain. She ignored him and stared in another direction, her eyes uncommonly expressionless.
“You don’t have to skip the practice because of your arm, you know,” he said, pointing at the arm with his chin as he took a mouthful of his potatoes.
Her look was sardonic when he raised his eyes to her again, but she didn’t say anything. She just pushed her tray away and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. Marco had known it wouldn’t be easy, so he wasn’t going to give up just yet.
“You should bandage it and try only using your feet,” he continued and saw her raise a hand, silencing him.
“First you break my arm, now you’re lecturing me,” she said flatly, “Stop.”
“I’m not lecturing you,” he bristled. “I’m just saying that you’re good with those feet. You don’t need your arms to fight.”
“If I’m good, I can afford a few weeks off,” she waved him away lazily, “Scram, Marco.”
“You stubborn little…” he began, then swallowed the rest of the sentence, gripping the chair under the table, “…annoying woman!”
That earned him a dubious look from her.
“Would you just listen for once??” he asked, and when she didn’t answer, he continued anyway.
“You’re good, that’s right. But if you want to be the best, you gotta be ready to fight in any condition. You may be fast, but you’re a skinny little thing. One good blow is enough to break your arm or leg. If you’re able to fight after that, one day it might save lives, including yours.”
He gave her a serious look to emphasize his words. Her black eyes were full of weary arrogance as she stared back at him dully.
“And?” was all she said, and it sounded like it took an enormous effort to force out this one syllable.
“Well, I can’t fight yet, but I can show you how to do it,” he said with a shrug and took another bite.
“Why should I believe that you know what you’re talking about?” she enquired in a sharp tone, and he knew instantly where this was going. “Who trained you, Marco?”
Her face betrayed no emotion, but the question was too intense to be random. For the first time Marco was the one to look away, wondering how much she knew.
“It doesn’t matter. Take it or leave it, I won’t offer twice,” he answered, then added after a moment’s thought, “The training hall is empty this time of day.”
She raised an eyebrow, and he knew he had struck a chord. Of course, she wouldn’t want anyone to see her practice with him after what had happened. But he was sure she was interested. There was just no way she could have forgotten a fight so intense the moment she stepped (or was dragged) out of the training hall.
She took a long, deep breath, and then something flickered in her eyes, something entirely different: laughing and mischievous. It was gone in a second, and she leaned on the table, looking him straight in the eyes.
“Okay. On one condition. If I fall down and break my other arm, you’ll be the one responsible, Mister Know-It-All.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but she silenced him with a raised finger.
“You will pick up my laundry, do the cleaning, ironing, whatever I need,” she ticked each task off on her fingers as Marco’s eyes grew bigger and bigger, “for a whole month.”
She finished talking, and Marco stared at her, speechless. He would have assumed she was kidding if he hadn’t already known how insane she was and how she loved pranks. Somewhere in the back of his mind he even wondered if she was actually crazy enough to break her arm on purpose, so she could spend a whole month gloating as she watched him cleaning and ironing.
“You don’t seem so sure of your methods, huh?” she noted, watching him hesitate, her lips curved in a sly smile.
“Deal,” he suddenly said, startling himself.
Her eyes widened, but she quickly recomposed her expression.
“You do know that if you break this promise, I’ll have to hunt you down and kill you,” she teased, “I don’t need my hands for that, after all.”
His face twisted with annoyance.
“Oh, cut it out, woman. Now, move your ass. I’m a busy man, you know.”
Then he got up and jerked his head toward the doors.
“Yeah, right,” she snorted, letting him pick up her tray, since he was the one with two working arms, “What’s on your agenda, busy man? Watching a Simpsons marathon?”
“What??” Marco huffed, appalled, as they shuffled to the exit. “How do you know??”
“Oh, chill,” she said, waving him off, “I’ve heard it coming from your room far more than once.”
“My room?? The hell were you doing there?” he grumbled, and she snapped a response, but it was lost in the commotion near the doors.
*
Skull watched them go and shook his head. He would have to check the training hall later, and probably knock them out again so he could deliver them to Doc. Or maybe not, he thought idly as he chewed his chicken, Maybe this time they won’t try to kill each other.
He sat in the canteen longer than necessary before he emptied his tray into the trash can and left the room. Betsy the Cook gave him a creepy smile, making him shudder. It was bad enough that he’d had to work with her in the past, but now he had to see her every day in the canteen. He ducked out of the door and headed down the corridor to the training hall. The door was ajar, and he slowed his pace as he reached it, not wanting to give away the fact that he was there, then carefully peeked inside. What he saw made his eyes widen.
Pain stood in the center of the hall, and Marco was unwrapping a bandage while instructing her. Skull couldn’t hear what he was saying, partly because they were so far away, and partly because his mind went blank at the sight. She was actually going to let him bandage her arms, one-on-one in the empty training hall. Skull snorted. What was wrong with this girl??
Marco wrapped the tight white bandage around her, like a mummy, leaving her arms secured around her torso. Then she began to practice against a dummy, and Marco stood a few feet away and watched her moves, commenting every now and then. Skull watched for a few more minutes, to make sure that this wasn’t one of Marco’s evil schemes. He couldn’t believe that the fighter had suddenly decided to befriend her, especially after she’d broken half his bones. Could he be bored without her attentions, no matter how malicious? Or maybe, she had something against him, and he had decided that it was better to keep his enemy close. Skull mulled over the possibility in his head. However, just now, the two young fighters seemed to be alright. With a sigh, he turned and walked away.
In the four years that he had known Pain, she hadn’t made a single close friend among the more than a hundred fighters at the Headquarters. It wasn’t her age, not really. It was because she was a total control freak when it came to her sister’s safety. He couldn’t blame her. He’d even considered mangling a couple of the more obnoxious fighters himself, if they laid as much as a finger on Jane. But as a result, the others had learned to avoid her, rather than get their limbs accidentally dislocated. He could see a future with Pain remaining an outsider if she didn’t learn how to form at least some kind of relationship with other people. But unlike him, she still had a chance to change that.
He thought about the past two months as he waited for the elevator. He had been against controlling Pain and Marco from the start. They were big kids and had to settle their conflicts on their own, but Peter was too overprotective to let that happen. Now he wondered if what Pain needed in a friendship was someone just as crazy as she was. They did seem alike: two sadistic teens who didn’t know how to use their overflowing po
wers.
He smirked as the elevator doors opened and he stepped inside. A Black Eagle fighter as a friend. Now that sounded like something that could happen to Pain. After all, Marco didn’t seem as bad as the others Skull had met. In fact, he thought as the elevator took him down, He didn’t seem bad at all…
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Acknowledgments
Using Naomi Barton’s words, writers crave feedback not just to improve their craft, but to know, “I’m here. You exist. You matter.” Thanks, Twitter, all that wasted time is finally justified. Thanks to everyone who made me feel this way by sending me messages on Tumblr and Facebook, asking questions on Goodreads, sharing my artwork, and writing comments and emails. Just seeing a single new message from a reader in the morning always makes my day.
Sky Ghosts: Marco (Young Adult Urban Fantasy Adventure) (Sky Ghosts Series Book 1.5) Page 6