by S. E. Weir
A short pause. “You think he made it up so he could get with her first?”
“Hell, yeah, I do. His story is weak. He knows I’ve been wanting to tap her since she showed up.”
“He said she was acting suspiciously then.”
“Lies, man. All lies. Have you seen him when he looks at her?”
“I don’t know. He still acts suspicious when she’s around.”
“Pssh. Don’t be fooled. He looks at her like she’s the red-hot frosting for his very bare and lonely cake. There’s feeling wrapped in there.”
Phina caught herself and turned back to the bouts. Balehn had fought decently with Shaw and unsheathed his blades for his fight with Masha. In the process of recovering, she missed a sentence or two.
“...think you could be reading into things.”
“I’m not.”
Another brief pause. “So, does that mean you aren’t going to approach her?”
“Hell, no. I’m going to wait till everyone has gone today and offer some private tutoring sessions. She’s good but inexperienced, so she’ll jump all over that. Then it’ll only be a matter of time before she’s jumping all over me,” the man bragged.
Phina snorted in derision. She caught sight of Felan on her left, who regarded her with wry amusement before glancing at the braggart and his friend. He nodded that way before speaking quietly. “They obviously have not been watching our practices.”
She lifted a shoulder with a rueful smile. “Not my fault if they’re unobservant.”
He laughed silently, his shoulders bouncing up and down. “Don’t break them.”
“You’re killing all my fun, Fel,” she deadpanned.
Felan chuckled out loud, which caused Phina to mentally do a fist pump. She was happy to be one of the few who was able to make him laugh.
“Relax,” she told her friend. “I’ll get my point across without even touching them.”
“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow as he glanced at her in amusement. “You going to use magic or something?”
“Or something.” She flashed a grin. “Watch and learn, brother. Watch and learn.”
He shook his head, but his shoulders shook again.
As Phina turned back to the middle of the room, she saw Jasper leave the floor. He hadn’t shown as well as he would have liked, judging by his expression. Nodin walked up to trade places with him.
She glanced at Link as she opened a mental connection. Hey, boss man.
To his credit, Link showed only a slight hunching of his shoulders at the unexpected greeting. What’s wrong?
Does something have to be wrong for me to talk to my favorite mentor?
He shot her an annoyed glance before focusing on the fight again. Nodin fell back to avoid a kill strike but couldn’t recover. He accepted his defeat and readied himself for hand-to-hand.
Fine. I want you to volunteer to fight me after my bouts are done as a demonstration of my skills or something. And I don’t want you to hold back.
Surprised interest crossed Link’s face, and he turned to look at her. Who are you trying to intimidate?
She side-glanced at the two men. They think I’ll be amenable to extracurricular practice as well as certain other offers.
Anger flashed on his face before he got control. I’ll pound the little twerps myself!
I think the point would be better made coming from me.
That doesn’t sound like nearly as much fun for me.
Yes, she teased as Nodin bowed after being defeated. Gina slid her last weapon in its sheath and walked over. Because it’s always about what’s fun for you.
I want to teach them a lesson. He feigned innocence.
We will. Not everything needs to happen with a confrontation.
He mentally sighed. Fine. We’ll do your demonstration. But I want to know if they do anything after that so I can show them what to do with their tiny...
Link, Phina frowned at him.
Egos! I was going to say egos.
Uh-huh.
Phina shook her head in amusement as Gina finished with respectable times and Cade stepped up.
She wondered if it made her a bad person to wish he would do poorly enough to be kicked out.
Chapter Twenty
Cade finished strapping on all his weapons and strutted out onto the middle of the floor. After facing Sergeant Hardass, he glanced at Phina to make sure she would see him kill this weapons test. His vindication would be sweet.
As he turned back, Shaw leaned forward with a harsh whisper. “Focus, Cade. You won’t win if you aren’t paying attention.”
Jaw tensing, Cade nodded and settled into his stance with knives in his hands.
When the beta agent called the start, Shaw came at him hard. Cade stepped back to block, his heart rate shooting up. He continued to withdraw as he frantically tried to withstand the blows that Shaw gave him. His knife skills weren’t nearly strong enough to allow Cade the chance to push the agent back, but Shaw didn’t give him the space he needed to switch weapons.
Shaw landed his blades within an inch of Cade’s neck and thigh where two major arteries lay. Cade froze as he realized he had been killed, and it was time to move on to hand-to-hand.
He dropped his weapons on the floor as anger flashed inside him.
This wasn’t how he had envisioned his assessment going! He was going to be strong, skilled, and suave. He was going to be the best and show everyone else up.
How dare Agent Shaw take his moment from him! The man had always been jealous of him and tried to push him down. It was inevitable that the man would break and show himself now.
Cade should have seen this coming. That was how smart he was. He knew what was going on now.
He drove his fist toward the other man’s face, sure he would take the agent by surprise. The tables turned when Shaw deflected Cade’s punch and delivered his own. Cade’s head snapped back; he’d had no time to block. He stumbled and was only able to catch himself because Shaw didn’t follow up on his punch.
Fury rose inside Cade. Shaw thought he could patronize him after pulling that cheap shot?
He lunged and drove both fists at Shaw one after the other. Cade didn’t care if they connected or not. He just wanted to make Shaw pay. The man was out to get him.
Very few of the flurry of blows Cade heaped on Shaw got farther than the forearm used to deflect or block them. In his rush of emotion, Cade didn’t see that he wasn’t getting anywhere until Shaw kicked out his leg, which caused him to fall to the mat.
Cade lay there stunned, his chest heaving. He focused on the face above him that was partially blocking the light. Shaw shook his head with his lips pressed together before uttering words that didn’t compute in Cade’s mind.
“Sloppy, Cade. Completely sloppy. I expected a little better from you.”
Once his mind had caught up, Cade turned his head in Phina’s direction. He caught her curious gaze and took it for a sneer. Well, of course he lost. The bitch had done it again and made sure he lost. It was Phina’s fault.
It was all Phina’s fault.
Phina watched Cade’s bout with Shaw with her mental shields open to his thoughts. What she heard confused her. There were major discrepancies between what she saw and what Cade thought was happening.
Frowning, she adjusted the filter while Cade moved on to fighting Masha. Suddenly the pattern became clear.
Huh.
What?
Phina glanced up at Link’s mental voice, not realizing she had held the connection between them.
Oh... Um... Well...
Link frowned at her from across the room. It’s not normal for you to dither like this.
Her head shot up. Dither? I wasn’t dithering! Who uses that word, anyway? It’s such a weak-sounding word. Dither, she grumbled. You make me sound like an old lady at a fancy ball in those bad romance novels.
And you make me want to tear my hair out sometimes. Newsflash! This is one of them.
S
he glared at him. I wasn’t dithering.
Fine! You weren’t dithering. You were doing something, though. I just want to know what brought it on.
I was listening to Cade’s thoughts.
Oh. The interest washed out of his mental voice. That sounds perfectly boring. Why did you make it sound like it was something good?
It’s not good as much as intriguing.
I swear it’s like pulling taffy. Forget the build-up; just tell me what I want to know.
She sighed and crossed her arms. You are all heart today. You want to know because he is nuts.
Nuts like funny, or nuts like crazy?
Nuts like... She surreptitiously raised a hand and tucked her hair behind her ear. He’s mentally unbalanced and potentially dangerous to the people around him.
Oh. Huh.
Yeah, exactly.
They both fell silent as Cade fought Jack. It wasn’t going well. Cade’s frustration was on full display.
Not that I doubt your conclusions, but what makes you think so? Link sounded deadly serious, his focus on Cade.
His thoughts show signs of paranoid personality disorder with narcissistic leanings. She crossed her ankles as she leaned against the wall. It’s textbook for PPD because his thoughts of paranoia run very strong. In every thought, he’s the victim, and everyone else is out to get him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had another disorder in there too. He also has sociopathic traits. He is the only one who counts in his mind. What matters is what he wants and needs. Other people don’t matter at all.
He glanced at Cade and Phina. That’s... Wow! How do you know all this? Is it, like, an inherent thing you pick up after reading people’s minds for a while?
She mentally laughed. No. It doesn’t work like that. After Todd and ADAM found out that Aunt Faith was either mentally ill or being controlled, I decided to read the DSM-5 brought from Earth so that I knew all the possibilities of what could have happened.
Link’s surprise could be seen from across the room. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders? Isn’t that book like a thousand pages?
Basically.
He scratched the back of his neck and shifted in place. Well, okay. You have way too much time on your hands.
Phina glowered at the man. It’s interesting.
Uh-huh. I’ll have to take your word for it.
No, really, she insisted. Did you know that before we left Earth, they were studying Caffeine Use Disorder and Internet Gaming Disorder to see what effects were occurring in people’s brains and behavior?
He stared at her. That’s not a real thing.
What isn’t? She frowned back at him seriously.
The caffeine one. Everyone knows caffeine is essential for good health.
Everyone doesn’t know that! Don’t make me come over there. It’s a real thing that some people struggle with. Her eyes flashed dangerously. She dimly registered sporadic cheers and claps.
Well, sign me up because I’m not giving up my caffeine. He lifted his chin stubbornly.
I’m not asking you to. She rolled her eyes. I just thought it was interesting and fun to talk about and wanted to share. You killed the fun.
That’s me, the fun killer, he drawled.
Phina scowled and began to retort back when Nodin nudged her with his elbow.
“Hey, where’s your head? Felan just started his round. Don’t you need to strap your weapons on?”
Phina snapped to attention. Fudge in a bucket!
Shaw readied himself for the next bout as Felan and Jack fought. The Wechselbalg was good: quiet and contained personally, but focused and intense while fighting.
It had been a good bout between the two of them when Shaw had fought Felan. The fight between Felan and Jack proved even more vivid, which caused cheers to break out in the audience.
Finally, the two finished, having reached a very respectable bout time.
Phina stood waiting at the side as Felan bowed his head in respect to Jack and turned to the side before wiping his forehead.
Felan walked by and leaned as he passed Phina. Shaw could just barely catch his words. ”Show me the magic, sister.”
She flashed a grin before stepping forward to meet Shaw. Between one step and the next, her face dropped every hint of emotion.
Phina faced him and drew her knives, holding one in a reverse grip and the other with her thumb on the spine as she settled into a ready stance and waited.
Shaw smiled inwardly. She knew that knives were his weapons of choice. He wondered what her reasoning could be for choosing them.
Jack called the start, and Shaw and Phina surged toward each other.
As they swung, stabbed, blocked, and occasionally kicked, Shaw wished he could stop and examine how Phina moved. His thoughts preoccupied him enough that it took him more than a minute to figure out what she was up to.
She matched him step for step. They were so in tune that it felt like participating in a dance that they had coordinated ahead of time. Shaw wasn’t sure how she did it, but it felt amazing.
Until it changed.
Phina upped her pace, and Shaw had to dig deeper, move faster, snap his motions harder. He was working for it now and quickly losing ground.
Just when Shaw began to flag, Jack called the time, giving them a few seconds to adjust to hand-to-hand. Phina sheathed her knives instead of dropping them to the floor. It wasn’t against the rules, per se, but it hadn’t been the popular choice throughout the day.
Shaw glanced at Phina before the hand-to-hand was called and realized she had a small, pleased smile on her face. He became distracted and fell a beat behind Phina when the bout restarted.
Knowing how quick off the mark Phina had been before, Shaw felt sure she would catch him with the off-timing. The woman wasn’t a slouch of a fighter by any means. It was one of the things she had been determined to perfect during the past several weeks. That attention to detail was prevalent in her movements.
However, she didn’t press her advantage. Her movements slowed when he slowed and sped up when he did. What the hell was she doing matching her pace to his? It felt like she was toying with him.
Floored by his realization, Shaw decided to test it. As she drove her fist toward him, he sidestepped and blocked it weakly. He wanted to see what she would do.
Sure enough, she adjusted her momentum so instead of receiving a hit that would leave him with a bad bruise and a numb arm, her strike glanced off him.
Huh. She was matching her steps and hits to his. To be that precise meant she was either downplaying her skills, or something else was going on.
He glanced at her in confusion as he took a step back and to the side to give himself a few seconds.
The cheeky woman looked like she was having fun!
Shaw shrugged inwardly. It didn’t matter if the woman was playing or not. He would give the fight his best shot. Phina was the last trainee, so it didn’t matter if he ended up fatigued at the end.
Shaw renewed the fight with greater intensity and couldn’t help feeling that his nickname for the woman proved to be supremely apt.
Phina finished her bout with Shaw. The time had been called, and the fight was declared a draw.
Murmurs had risen around the room as they fought, the audience wondering at the matched pace and her level of skill. It was common knowledge that Shaw was one of the best fighters in Spy Corps, which was one of the reasons why he was in charge of training recruits.
To have her match him set all the tongues wagging.
Shaw inclined his head with an amused smile before taking a spot at the side of the room to watch the rest of the bouts.
Pulling out her katana, Phina made sure she appeared grateful for the rest after the bout.
Masha settled in front of Phina with a katana, her weapon of choice, waiting for the call. The other woman sized her up curiously.
Phina lowered her shields enough to catch the woman’s rather loud thought that she obviously
wanted Phina to hear.
What’s going on in your head, girl? You going to match me with my own weapon like you did with Shaw?
Instead of responding verbally, Phina flashed her a grin and lifted her presenting shoulder. Masha snorted and settled herself into her stance.
Jack called the start, and the air sang with slashing metal as they both responded.
Step by step and slash, block and dodge by deflect, strike, and guard, Phina mirrored the other woman. She kept her movements fluid, flowing around Masha. Phina considered it a real challenge since a regular bout would be too easy.
Her brain and body moved much too quickly now.
By the time the weapons part of the bout was called, Phina felt good and warmed up.
Chapter Twenty-One
Phina blocked Masha’s punch with her forearm as she slid her foot inside the other woman’s stance to knock her off-balance.
Masha jumped back to avoid the takedown, then kicked at Phina’s thigh. Phina moved to avoid the contact and returned with an uppercut when the time was called.
The women broke apart, their intense gazes meeting before they smiled in amusement.
“Good bout.” Masha clapped Phina on the arm before grabbing her katana and moving to the side of the room.
At Jack’s approach, Phina met his sharp gaze with a quizzical one.
“Do you have what you need before you start?” His baritone voice held an edge.
She wondered what she’d done to irritate him but decided to ignore it since it wasn’t the time. “Not yet.”
“One minute.”
Phina went to the weapons area and switched out her katana harness for her dual swords.
Murmurs in the crowd rose to conversational level when they realized that Phina was again using the trainer’s preferred weapons against them.
With Shaw and Masha, it hadn’t been much of a gamble since she was fairly certain she could match them, if not beat them since she had the strength and inhuman agility and speed to keep things on an even keel.
However, it wasn’t the same with Jack. He had been a master of weapons long before she was born. With her abilities, Link hadn’t had to tell her that Jack and Masha had been two of his very first Spy Corps recruits after hers and Jace’s parents. Unlike Masha, who had come from the Etheric Academy, Jack had already been a soldier with his combat experience.
