by K. A. Excell
Mr. West started on the offensive with a right hook toward my jaw. I ducked under and separated as quickly as I could.
“That was a missed opportunity,” Mr. West said, “You’ve got to do better than that—unless you want Saturday detention?”
I grimaced but changed my strategy. I was already staying tomorrow while everyone went home. I wouldn’t stay any longer if I could help it. Mom would need help at home—and I could certainly use the extra time to process the backlog of information I was generating.
I pulled all the lines from their idle business behind my vision to the front of my mind and set them to analyzing opportunities.
Mr. West pivoted on his hips and brought the tip of his elbow up. The intercept with my chin flashed red, but another line flashed purple at the same time. Quick step to the side, right hand fisted, I made to slam the side of my fist into his temple. He was faster. The elbow of his free hand came up and my fist hit only padded bone.
West pivoted and grabbed my hand. A moment later, it was twisted behind my back, only a few degrees from agony. I grit my teeth and put the heel of my foot into his cup. He grunted, but didn’t release my arm very much. I jerked my head back into his nose, and he stumbled back.
I pressed the attack, but he caught an errant leg left out too long and slammed me to the mat. All the breath whooshed out of my lungs and the lines scattered. I pushed up to standing, and he let me. A moment later, we were trapped in that loop of action-reaction. Intercept-avoid. Plan-replan. Repeat.
I found his eyes halfway through as the rhythm finally made sense. A program, quickly brushed aside, warned me against taking my focus off his center of balance. Eyes could lie, after all. Taking advantage of Mr. West’s concentration on the fight to figure out what he was hiding was stupid at best, but I brushed the warning aside and dove into his eyes anyway.
On the surface, there was concentration and interest. Deeper down, there was caution tempered by nervousness. Some of it was about me. I was…strange. Terrifying in that deep down place left over from when fire was all that stood between us and the wolves of night. He fought that fear with passion and a drive to protect. But who was he protecting? Me? Someone else? Someone close to him who was injured now. All he could do was watch and help on the outskirts of the fight. The only way to protect her was by protecting the ones she loved.
I forged on, and suddenly there was a deeper fear—someone else? No, two people. One was a person in power who could not ever know what he thought of her. One already knew, but couldn’t do anything. He would have to be careful.
I went lower—deeper into his eyes—but there was a wall. He was hiding something—
My visions erupted into red intercepts and I knew I couldn’t avoid them in time.
A thousand impacts hit me at once and I found myself face up on the mat, looking at the mirror on the ceiling. Red trickled down my jaw.
There was a figure in front—on top of me? No, definitely in front.
“Farina, are you alright?”
I blinked at the words, but his mouth was fuzzy and the sounds just floated past.
Alright?
According to Oxford Dictionary, that meant ‘acceptable’ or ‘only just good enough’.
I took what inventory I could. My toes wiggled—well, I couldn’t feel my right pinky-toe—my fingers moved. My vision?
It wasn’t black, which was an improvement over a moment ago.
“Yeah,” I breathed.
I struggled to stand back up as one line limped back onto my vision, but it fizzled out as the mat tried to hit me in the face.
Fingers grabbed me, hands checking—something?
The lines wouldn’t come back, and the colors of my vision danced like fire in the wind.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
I managed to get my eyes focused on the blobby-fuzzy things that bore a statistical resemblance to fingers—or they probably would if I could figure out where my blue lines went.
The appendages split and fused with dizzying haste, and my stomach twisted. “Ah, that’s not biologically possible.”
There was another sound—one Mom said was bad. The proper noun for it floated somewhere outside my head. Curse word? Maybe. It was unimportant.
He pressed something on a silver bracelet thing on his wrist. “Pretty, pretty jewelry,” I sang out.
He looked at me again when the bracelet made a sound.
“Yeah, I need you to come pick up a student. She looks like she’s got a concussion.”
“Cun—cuncusssssssss,” I said, trailing out the sounds. It was an ugly word, too, but it hissed through my mouth just right.
“Yeah, hurry,” he said.
Chapter Seven
The doctor—a guy in his mid-thirties—helped me back to his office and confirmed Mr. West’s diagnosis. After ninety minutes by the clock on top of my vision—which might not have been completely accurate after that bump—I could find my lines again. Two hours later, the doctor let me go to classes with strict orders not to participate in any of my martial classes today, If I still wasn’t at 100%, he said I wouldn’t be able to participate in any of my detention classes tomorrow, either. I wasn’t very worried about it, though. I healed faster than anyone had a right to—which might be why, even after a summer with Zach, I was still in one piece.
I escaped to lunch, but ate little. Across from the table, Tabitha frowned at me. “I heard West put you down hard during First Martial.”
I nodded.
Briggs shook his head. “You’re a beginner. Going full contact with you wasn’t just stupid—it was dangerous.”
I frowned and pulled up the images from my peripheral vision during the sparring match with West. Some of the older kids had minimal contact, but even Briggs—who bore a statistically significant resemblance to Castillo—didn’t actually touch his partner.
Tabitha’s eyes narrowed. “It’s his choice how he teaches his students, but he should have been more careful. You’re brand new, not used to how combat works.”
I relaxed my fists finger by finger as I fought away the image of Zachary’s face. To a point, Smith was right. I had never participated in two way combat. I’d always either curled into a ball and waited for it to be over, or I’d ensured that the only possible outcome was the complete annihilation of my enemy.
I knew how it worked, though.
The weak got hurt by the strong, so the weak worked until they could break the strong down and make it so they could never hurt anyone again.
What West did was different, though. I hadn’t seen his eyes after he gave me the concussion, so I couldn’t be sure, but the visual record showed that I was the one who let my guard down.
“I know enough to not make the same mistake twice,” I finally said. I finished the last bite of my sandwich.
“Hey, Farina!”
I turned to see Hunt just over my shoulder, and wondered just how long she’d been there.
“I heard you took a big bump in your martial period. How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
I’d had worse and, while my analysis wasn’t going to be great for the next little while, I would survive it.
“You sure that’s not just Stupid talking? You can’t just shrug off a concussion—I don’t care what kind of crap you’re used to.”
Despite her off-hand attitude, I could tell she was genuinely worried. I twisted my mouth into a smile.
“If I start having trouble, I’ll get help. I promise.”
She grinned. “Atta girl, Farina.” Then she was gone.
I reviewed the encounter twice before the gong rang, but each time was the same. Hunt really was trying to look after me. I couldn’t tell whether to be glad about it or not.
I shoved the confusing emotions away and stood carefully, with my
blue lines watching for any sign of dizziness—but there was no issue. Hunt’s worries were unfounded.
Still, I didn’t hurry to follow the crowd of kids streaming toward the door. I had a doctor’s note that gave me permission to sit down during the recreation period, so I didn’t have to rush to claim a specific activity. It would be good to have a few minutes to just breathe.
Eventually, the hallways emptied and I was all alone with my thoughts. I replayed the visuals I had from my sparring match with West again, this time focusing on the things I’d seen inside his eyes. The feelings were duller in memory, but I had more time to look through them. Somewhere, deep in his eyes, I could see an echo of an image. His arms were extended to shield someone he cared for. Was it one of his students? One of his friends?
A feeling like someone had hit me over the head with a bat crashed through my vision like lightning, and the thought was gone. I staggered against the wall to keep from falling as the floor in front of me started to twist.
“Miss Farina, are you alright?”
I looked up to find Mr. West striding down the hall in front of me.
“I’m fine.”
He frowned. “You don’t look fine. How’s your head?”
Pounding like a herd of buffalos. “Not great.”
He offered me one long, muscled arm. “Here. I’ll help you back to the infirmary. Concussions are nothing to mess around with.”
I waved him off, though. “The headache isn’t from that.”
“Oh?”
“It’s just a little data overload. I’ll be fine in a few minutes.” Data overload or not, I risked a glance past his eyes—but he was looking at the floor.
“You should at least sit down, then,” he said.
I put my back against the wall and used it to slide slowly to the floor. Mr. West sat next to me in the hallway, and my eyes widened. “Don’t you have someplace else to be?” He was a teacher, after all.
He chuckled. “It’s nothing that can’t wait until you recover from your—data overload?”
I suppressed the urge to see what the blue lines on my vision had to say about his behavior. It would only prolong the throbbing in my head. Instead, I added the analysis to the queue and leaned my head against the wall.
Mr. West sat next to me in companionable silence for four minutes and twenty-seven seconds, then stiffened and climbed to his feet. A moment later, Doug Houston, the Prefect from Ballet, rounded the corner.
Headache or not, I summoned my blue lines to the forefront of my vision to analyze this new threat.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in the teacher meeting?” Doug asked. The set of his shoulders and jaw projected a cocky boredom that set my teeth on edge. I pulled farther into my ball and focused on being anywhere but there. Maybe if I pretended hard enough, he wouldn’t notice me here. Houston was the last person I wanted to talk to when my data systems were still recovering from that blow earlier.
“I could ask the same of you,” Mr. West said. He positioned himself between Houston and where I sat on the floor.
Houston just snorted. “I would be, but Berry said something about a missing first year who’s supposed to be in the rec room right now. Know anything about that, sir?”
Mr. West didn’t even twitch my direction. “If you mean Farina, I think she went to lay down. Doctor’s orders.”
Houston’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?” There was unmistakable anticipation in his eyes. “What happened?”
“None of your business. Now go let Berry know he can go back to just monitoring the rec room.”
Houston shrugged. “Can’t. Apparently, he’s got to talk to her, and he’s not allowed into the girl’s dormitory by himself. The other Prefects are in the meeting.”
“I’ll tell her to come down. You’re dismissed.”
Houston lifted his hand in a sloppy salute that complemented the sneer on his face. “Yes, sir.”
When he finally turned on his heel and stalked off, I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Mr. West turned to me with tight lips full of concern.
How had Houston not seen me? I was sitting here in plain sight—even with Mr. West between us. He certainly wasn’t wide enough to hide me.
“Take however much time you need,” Mr. West said gently. “When you feel up to it, I think Berry’s waiting for you in the rec room.”
I nodded. “Thank you.” And I meant it. Mr. West couldn’t possibly know how much Houston scared me, but he had still stood between us.
Mr. West smiled. “Any time.” He lifted a hand, then strode off.
I waited for my heartbeat to calm down again, then spent a few moments in my safe space—but I couldn’t stop the swirling questions. Mr. West was an enigma. First, he started a full-contact sparring match where he gave me a concussion, and then he stepped between Houston and I? Did he just feel bad about what happened earlier?
But merely feeling bad wasn’t motive enough to lie about where I was—not when I was in plain sight behind him! And why would he shield me from Houston, specifically? Did he know what ugliness Houston hid behind his eyes? Finally, the headache calmed down enough for me to face Berry, so I pulled on the BYE-BYE module to force the question from my mind. That done, I started toward the rec room.
“Farina!” Eugene Berry’s voice cracked across the space as the rec room door closed behind me. I turned to face him with a sigh.
“I was not running in the ‘hall’, and I have a doctor’s note excusing me from normal restrictions. What do you think I did this time?”
He stared at me a long time, his eyes undecided between rage and laughter. Finally, he snickered. “Better watch out, Farina. That attitude will get you in trouble even if you aren’t doing anything against the rules.”
I didn’t respond except to note the word attitude and put it in blue next to Berry’s head. I wasn’t the one with attitude problems when he spent all his time giving detention to unsuspecting first years on their first day.
He sighed. “Ms. King wants to see you as soon as their meeting gets over, which is,” he made a show of looking at his watch, then gave me a nasty grin. “Now, I think.”
Ms. King—the teacher who had stared at me at the tournament. Tabitha Smith’s advanced Krav Maga instructor.
“Why?”
Berry shrugged. “Not my business, didn’t ask. Now get going, or she’ll be giving you detention.”
I frowned, but left without argument. I got halfway down the hall before I realized that I hadn’t asked where Ms. King was, but Berry was gone and I couldn’t bring myself to go back. I sighed and pulled up the map of the academy I’d created earlier. Some portions were still blank, so I pulled what footage I could to fill those blank spots in from the route down to the auditorium where the tournament was held.
I located an office on the far side of the hallway that contained Mr. O’Brien, Mr. West, and Ms. Kirna’s classrooms. It had a little nameplate to the right of the door labeled Ms. King.
My frown deepened and I sent a query running through the map footage. There weren’t that many office-like rooms in the entirety of Martial Academy. Ms. Green had one across from the lunchroom—understandable given that she was the school administrator—Mr. Mccoy had one next to the Rec room, Mr. West had one in the hallway I had Mr. Salzar’s class in, but Ms. King was the only other teacher that had an office.
I scribbled down a note for later, reminding me to start a tentative school hierarchy. Most places, workplace politics were complicated but mostly subtle—based on education level and time-in-grade. Perhaps figuring out some of the school’s internal politics would help me figure out Mr. West’s odd behavior, and Ms. King’s stares.
I hurried through the halls and arrived a few minutes later at Ms. King’s office.
She opened the door as I moved to knock.
“Ah, Farina,
come in,” she said, and held the door open.
The lines in my vision scanned across the room with quick, excited flicks and began highlighting angles, corners, and projected walk paths.
My eyes narrowed as I tried to keep up with the massive amount of data the lines spat out. Finally, I turned to Ms. King.
“Why do you have a rhomboidal room?”
There were mirrors on both walls carefully positioned to make the room look rectangular, when the walls were both angled ten degrees.
She grinned wide. “Do you like it?”
“It’s giving me a headache.” Or more of one, anyway. I rubbed my temples in an attempt to take the edge off.
She laughed. “Blunt. We might have to work on that.”
I took a moment to shunt the blue lines to the back of my mind—keeping only the projected walk-path so I didn’t miss the desk in the middle of the room. Almost immediately, the headache dulled by two degrees and I concealed a sigh of relief.
She grinned again as I arrived precisely in front of the center of the desk—something someone without my analytical skills would have found to be a frustrating venture. I bit the inside of my lip as I remembered Mr. West’s warning. Maybe I should have acted confused instead of coming right here?
“I can see that you’re in Psychology with Mr. O’Brien. Good.” She looked down at her desk with a frown. “Have you taken Sociology yet?” she asked.
“No.”
She sighed. “That’s what comes of recruiting first years.” She dropped a Sociology textbook on her desktop.
“Recruiting for what?” Odds were that I was the first year she was referring to and, therefore, being recruited for something.
“Blunt, and direct; not unsurprising. I teach a class called Social History. It’s a secondary martial focus class—so it would replace ballet with Kirna and Houston. Similar to Mr. Mccoy’s Military Practice and Mr. West’s Advanced Firearms class, it is not on the class lists. I don’t generally recruit freshmen unless they have a family history with the school, but you’re interesting.”
I frowned. Interesting how? Her eyes held no clues. They were ice blue and cold, showing nothing but calculating intelligence. “Why is a Social History class a secondary martial focus?” I asked, intrigued but cautious. First West found me interesting but concerning, now Ms. King? Were all the Krav Maga teachers out to study me?
