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 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. Usually, I shoveled down food and went to bed.
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 felt. 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 check in with the Kala. Again, there had been no developments. He was due to call again today, and I eagerly awaited 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 with 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 have irritated 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 an eleven year old girl 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 grew more amused with each step as 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 would 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 to wait for me. He looked more annoyed than anything as I took my time sulking up the steps.
“It won’t happen,” he said quietly 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 too…”
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 got a kick out of watching him squirm. Turned out he had a vulnerability after all. Odd that it was 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.