Calculated Risk

by Stephanie Doyle

  Sabrina pushed down the comforter and crawled between the sheets, peeking first to see that they looked reasonably clean before she did. “You should rest,” she suggested. There was no chair in the room and as fresh and alert as he still looked he had to be feeling the effects of the night they had just had.

  Quinlan seemed to study her for a moment. Then he must have reached some internal conclusion. He circled the king-size bed, sat and took off his shoes, then lifted the comforter and joined her.

  At no point did their bodies touch, but that didn’t do anything to ease the tension she could feel rippling along her nerve endings. It was too hard, she thought, not to remember the very last time they had shared a bed. Too hard not to remember everything that had happened after.

  If the stiffness of his breathing was any indication, Quinlan was having a hard time forgetting, too. She was stunned that he didn’t have better control over showing it. Not that he said anything. Neither did she. But they both knew what the other was thinking.

  Just block it from your mind, she told herself.

  It was a technique that she’d been taught during her training, one that she’d embraced throughout the years. Sometimes as the only means of holding on to her sanity.

  If she could block out the memories from her past, she could move forward with her life. If she could block out what her quirky brain sometimes wanted to process, she could pretend she was a normal person.

  If she could block out the pain echoing faintly inside her heart at just lying next to him, she might be able to sleep.

  Block it all out.

  It had been the second thing she’d learned during phase two.

  The first, of course, had been pain.

  Chapter 13

  Twelve years ago

  Sabrina danced on the balls of her feet, the gym mat underneath cushioning her weight, as she let her arms shake loose in front of her in preparation for the workout to come. Regardless of whatever else she was learning at Secret Agent U, fight training remained a constant in the curriculum. Two hours every day. Today she expected to be working with Kai, who was her kung fu master.

  She’d already mastered karate and jujitsu, and a few other more obscure martial arts, but kung fu was her favorite. There was artistry in the movements that all the disciplines shared but that “the foo,” as she liked to call it, took to another level. The symmetry of the form, the elegant angles the body was required to simulate, all of it was a math freak’s physical dream come true.

  Actually, for most math freaks, Carmen Electra was probably a physical dream come true, if the poster in Arnold’s classroom was any indication. The idea of the old man lusting after the woman half his age made Sabrina snicker. For all his genius he was still just a man.

  A girl genius totally had the edge.

  Sabrina removed her stylishly ripped T-shirt, the various holes giving it a cool look-and tossed it off the mat. That left her dressed in a pair of dark leggings and a white stretch tank top that was more than tight enough to contain what she liked to refer to as her respectably smallish-size breasts. The snug workout clothes gave her freedom of movement and bare feet gave her better traction and balance on the mat. All in all she was feeling pretty good today.

  As a result, she decided she was going to kick Kai’s ass. If for no other reason than she wanted Kai to have to say, She kicked my ass, should Quinlan ask about her workout.

  Not that she was all about trying to impress Q. Okay, maybe she’d shown off a little at the shooting range, but she couldn’t help it if she was a natural. Fighting, however, was something she’d had to learn just like everyone else who came through the program and she’d learned it well. She’d applied herself mentally and physically, until her instructors proclaimed her to be good. Good wasn’t great, but she was working on it.

  That was all she wanted Quinlan to know. That she hadn’t been slacking in his absence. It was no big deal.

  She heard the door open and was surprised to see Quinlan enter with another man-shorter and not nearly the physical specimen Q was-right behind him. She suspected that she wouldn’t be working out with Kai today.

  Excellent! She’d show him herself what she’d learned. And if she knocked him on his butt a few times in the process, that would be gravy.

  “Are you serious?” the smaller man asked Quinlan, as he stared openly at Sabrina. His face was a spasm of shock and disgust.

  Instantly, she reached for her hair thinking it couldn’t look that bad since she’d pulled most of it into a ponytail. There were just a few loose curls around her face, but surely it wasn’t disgusting.

  “Wait over there and say nothing,” Quinlan said, pointing to the wall closest to the door.

  “She’s just a kid…” The man tried again, but stopped when Quinlan glared at him for a prolonged moment.

  “Hey, pal,” Sabrina fired back. “I’m going to be eighteen in a few weeks. Cool it with the ‘kid’ talk.”

  She couldn’t imagine why her age was giving the guy fits. Maybe he couldn’t imagine someone of her size taking on an opponent like Quinlan. But that was the beauty of the foo. If executed properly, it lessened the impact of size as a factor in fighting, giving smaller, quicker opponents a decent chance. Granted, Quinlan was probably equally skilled in the art. He’d been doing it for way longer than she had, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t hold her own.

  Sabrina made a mental note to point out the fact-exactly how long he’d been doing it-as soon as she had him on his butt. It would be both a skill and an age jab.

  Dressed in his typical workout outfit-dark loose cotton pants and a dark T-shirt-Quinlan stepped on to the mat.

  “Just like old times.” Sabrina smiled, enjoying the anticipation of the sparring to come. She couldn’t wait to see the shock in his face when he realized how far she’d advanced in the past two years. Not that he would be likely to show it. But she would be able to see. It would be there in his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to hide it completely.

  She lifted her chin in the direction of the man at the door who was looking at the two of them with a decidedly pinched expression on his face and his arms crossed over his chest. “Who’s the dweeb?”

  “He’s observing.”

  “What’s his problem?”

  Quinlan didn’t turn around to check on him, but instead remained focused on her. “Are you ready?”

  “Sure.” She lifted her arms in a ready position and didn’t wait for him to make the first move, but rather moved forward in an immediate attack. He blocked her first strike, but the second landed in his midsection with a little more force than a practice session warranted. She heard a brief whoosh of air, and smiled as she jogged back out of range.

  “Sorry. Was that a little too quick for you old-”

  The blow ripped across her face with stunning ferocity. It turned her head, and she could feel the blood welling in her mouth as the inside of her cheek was cut against her teeth.

  “What in the hell?” she whispered. She wiped the blood from her mouth and tried to swallow the bile in her stomach caused by the sheer shock of what he’d done.

  “Practice is over, Sabrina,” he told her, his voice monotone. “This is a new game. It’s called Submit. As soon as you say the word, we’re done. But know that you’ll be judged on how long you can continue to fight without saying it.”

  She looked at his face and tried to understand what was happening, exactly what he was saying, but her mind was still coping with the fact that he’d hit her. He’d hit her. Hard.

  “Are you ready?”

  A chill ran through her body and she found herself wanting to call time-out. Time-out, like a kid would do in the middle of a kickball game when things weren’t going according to plan. But she wasn’t a kid. She was training to be an agent, a field-op. For an agent in the field engaged in physical contact with an opponent, time-out wasn’t an option.

  “Are you ready?”

  She nodded and held her hands up. He
moved fast. So fast that the only thing she was able to process was how much he’d been holding back those times he’d sparred with her. His leg swung in an arc and came down on her shoulder with enough force to numb it. He followed with a punch to her stomach that almost knocked the wind out of her. She staggered back and tried to focus on what she knew her body could do, but this was the first time she’d had to execute the moves while suffering actual pain.

  She moved forward to attack, but he countered her moves easily. She tried a side kick, but he blocked it. She tried to swing her elbow against the side of his face, but he stopped it, and her close proximity to him left her vulnerable. Taking hold of her right wrist he captured it and swung her arm around her back. Then with his feet he tripped her, sending her to the mat facedown.

  He pushed her arm higher along her back until she couldn’t hold back the squeak of pain.

  “Submit.”

  She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She thought she’d come so far only to be shown in seconds that she wasn’t even close. She wanted to ask him why it had to be him. Why couldn’t he have sent someone else? Because the pain was nothing compared to her humiliation. But none of the words would come out. All she could do was breathe.

  “Submit,” he prompted again.

  “Go to hell,” she moaned.

  She felt him loosen the angle on her arm slightly, but then he took her pinky finger and began to bend it back against her hand.

  “Say it.”

  He was scaring her, she thought dazedly. He wouldn’t do what he was threatening. Not to her. No way.

  “Say it,” he growled.

  “No.”

  The first thing that registered was the sound of the bone snapping. The second was the horrible rolling pain that started in her hand and overtook her whole body. Before she could scream, he had another finger in his hand.

  “Say it. Now.”

  Sabrina couldn’t speak if she wanted to. She couldn’t think, she could barely suck in oxygen, she couldn’t even cry. Only his name penetrated. Quinlan. Her mentor, her only friend. They’d played cards a few nights ago. She’d teased him and made him laugh. And now his knee was digging into her back, her mouth was full of blood from where he’d hit her face and if she didn’t say what he wanted her to say, he was going to break another finger.

  The betrayal was crushing.

  “Sabrina. Submit. Say it.”

  She clenched her teeth and shook her head. The second break didn’t hurt half as much mostly because she wouldn’t let it. Something was happening to her on the inside. She thought of her mother and remembered a woman with flowing hair and smelling of soft perfume, bending down in front of her daughter to tell her that she just couldn’t handle her little girl. She’d been hoping for a friend, and instead she’d gotten another freak. Just like her father. Sabrina had felt betrayed then, too.

  She recalled at age nine her father telling her that he was needed on an assignment and would be gone for several weeks, but that she was old enough and smart enough to look out for herself. The first night alone in the empty house, she’d been so afraid. So afraid that she’d actually missed her mother for the first time in years.

  Sabrina felt the anger of those events rise up and merge with the anger she was feeling now. She wanted to rail at Quinlan. She wanted to tell him he could break all of her fingers, but it wouldn’t matter. She was tougher than that. She was stronger. Nothing would break her. Not her mother or her father. Not him.

  Nothing had. Nothing would.

  He didn’t give her any warning before he broke the third finger. Her body jerked against the pain and in response she felt him loosen his grip. She turned her head so that her cheek was resting on the mat and saw that her left hand was free. It had been the whole time, but with his knee at her back, containing her, he’d been safe from any attack.

  Not that she could have mounted one anyway. She’d been too lost in the fog of what he’d been doing to her to concentrate on what she could be doing to him.

  “Say it,” he said again.

  She lifted her hand and made a motion as if to bring him closer. She muttered something knowing it was too soft for him to hear. She felt him lean over her to get his ear closer to her mouth.

  “Q,” she whispered when he was close.

  “Say it,” he whispered back.

  “Fuck you.”

  With that she separated the fingers of her left hand in a move Spock would have been proud of and sent them directly toward his eyes. She heard him howl as she made contact and was able to roll until she was on her back. His hands were on his eyes, probably trying to figure out if they were still there and she struck again with her left palm, slamming it into the upside of his nose. The force of the contact sent him falling backward and she scrambled out from beneath him until she was on her feet.

  In seconds he was back on his feet, as well. His eyes were red, but undamaged and only a thin trickle of blood escaped his nose.

  “You want to fight?” His voice was low and ominous in a way she’d never heard from him before.

  She looked down at her hand, saw her fingers bent at impossible angles and searched the room for the T-shirt she’d discarded. She found it on the edge of the mat and where it was already torn, ripped a strip from the bottom. Steeling herself against the pain, she wrapped the cotton around her three fingers until they were immobilized. Using her teeth to hold one end, she tied it off in a tight knot and grimaced as the broken appendages were pushed together.

  “Are you ready?” she asked. Her voice quavered, but she didn’t take notice. This time she attacked without reservation, without consideration, without holding anything back. This time it was her speed and her fury that surprised him. Quinlan staggered when she landed a kick to his solar plexus. He stumbled when the side of her foot made contact with his face.

  But soon he was moving again and the punch he landed to her ribs was intense. She bent over to protect that side from further assault, but as soon as she did, she made herself vulnerable. His foot came down on her left ankle and for the fourth time that day she heard the sound of one of her bones snapping.

  Instantly, her leg caved and she fell to the floor in a heap of agony. Sabrina could feel her heartbeat shallow out and she tried to pant through the pain, fearing that she would faint. Colors swam in front of her eyes until she couldn’t see. So she closed them. Rolling onto her knees and elbows, she tried to focus on shifting her weight to her left knee. With her left hand, she pushed until she could rock back onto her right foot, but before she was able to stand she lost her balance and was forced to put her right hand down. Her broken fingers protested against the weight and the shooting pain that rifled through her body sent her back down to her knees.

  She lifted her head then to see where he was, to prepare for whatever attack was coming next. In her current position, she was vulnerable to anything he might throw at her. But he was just standing in front of her, his arms at his sides. His face was a mass of red blotches that she took special satisfaction in. His left eye was beginning to swell shut.

  She wanted to laugh. And she wanted to cry. All she did was shake.

  He said nothing, but turned and walked off the mat.

  “I didn’t say it,” she mouthed. Only she knew he couldn’t hear her. She sucked in some breath and tried again. “I didn’t say it.” The sound was still too faint to carry the length of the gym. He was almost at the door now. But the dweeb stepped in front of him.

  “You’re disgusting,” she heard him tell Quinlan. “You feel like a big man now? Do you?”

  Quinlan simply reached out and wrapped his hand around the man’s thin neck forcing him against the wall with enough strength that, if he’d wanted to, he probably could have lifted the dweeb off his feet. “Fix her,” she heard him say.

  He reached for the door and this time Sabrina dug deep, breathing oxygen all the way into her stomach.

  “I didn’t say it!” She shouted it so loud the word
s echoed off the gym walls.

  Quinlan stopped, then walked through the door without looking back. The dweeb turned out to be a doctor. The first thing he’d offered was a shot to kill the pain, but she refused.

  The pain was important, she wasn’t sure why, but she knew that it was.

  Later that night there was a soft knock on the door.

  “It’s open.” It had been left open for the nurse who had been in and out a few times to check on her.

  Sabrina wasn’t all that surprised when she saw who it was. She knew Quinlan would come eventually. She was sitting up in bed watching TV. Her hand was casted, her ankle was casted, her face was a bruised mess and her ribs hurt when she breathed too deep.

  For a moment they just looked at each other. She saw that his eye was now completely swollen shut and the skin under both eyes was almost black.

  “Are you here to say you’re sorry?” she asked. But she knew he wasn’t.

  “No. It was a lesson. I was the one ordered to teach it.”

  Quinlan walked over to the bed and gazed down at her. Almost instinctively, he reached out with his hand to brush the bruise along her cheek, but she turned her head at the last second so his fingers wouldn’t make contact. She wasn’t ready for him to touch her yet.

  Eventually, she would get over that. Maybe Quinlan didn’t understand the other thing that had happened in the gym today, but she did. Before he’d been her mentor. Her idol in a lot of ways. But the hero worship was gone now. What was left in its place was raw. So raw she wasn’t ready to acknowledge it. Not yet. But someday she would. She wondered if he would, too.

  “What was the lesson?” she wanted to know.

  “There were two actually. The first one is obvious.”

  “Learning how to fight through pain,” Sabrina easily answered.

  “Fighting through it, accepting it, tolerating it. Some people freeze at the first hint of extreme pain. They can’t work beyond it. It’s not uncommon. Sometimes the mind shuts down in an attempt to cope.”