◊
AL WOKE ME UP at the crack of dawn’s ass for our morning training session. I was so delirious I tried plugging my phone charger into a tree and broke it.
“Straighten your back leg!” Al used the flat part of his foot to push me off-balance. “See what you’re doing there. Your stance is all off. Your hips should be level with the ground while your front leg acts as support. You look like a wounded donkey. Concentrate on two things. Breathing—keeping your mouth open—and hitting the correct poses. Katas are about repetition. He put a hand to his head in frustration. “You are a terrible student.”
Seeing Al standing there mocking me—with the trees spread out around us on all sides, enclosing us in a boxing-ring-like arena—I started to get angry. It was the stern expression on his face, like he was tormenting me for provoking him last night. I get it; I was a jerk, but that didn’t mean I was going to apologize.
“Keep your weight above your heels. Move, step, turn—here.” Al pointed at a nearby tree. “Use this as a punching bag. Practice your footwork and kicking. See what’s more powerful—”
I held up a hand. “Whoa, whoa, whoa… You want me to start punching and kicking a tree? Come on, man, I’m beat, and we have a whole day of walking ahead of us.”
“Zero point two seconds.”
I drank a sip of water, some of it dribbling out of the side of my mouth as I said, “Excuse me?”
“That’s how fast a normal technique takes to execute. It’s a blink. Vampires are faster than a blink. Do you think you can beat us if you don’t train for speed?”
I felt my defiance deflate like a balloon. He was right. I had no chance of surviving against a vampire attack with my limited human strength and lack of super-speed. It had happened to me back at the warehouse.
As if reading my thoughts, he said, “You may not always have your blade. If something happens, you need to be able to handle yourself without it.”
I blew out a troubled breath. “You’re right… I’m a terrible student. I promise to start working on form and technique with gusto, the likes of which you’ve never seen before. I’ve been fighting this—you—everyone for far too long.”
Al flashed me a rare smile, and this time it felt genuine. “Now you’re learning.”
***
After I’d spent the better part of the morning stretching out the soreness in my stiff muscles, I finally moseyed back to our campsite.
Larna was resting on a flat rock in the shade of a giant oak, her legs tucked under her reading something. Once I got close enough, I saw that she was combing through her father’s old journal. The pages were so worn and tattered that they had started to break apart at the binding. I couldn’t help but notice how cute she looked sitting there, her eyes moving rapidly over whatever was written on the page.
Al was in the process of feeding the fire more sticks and branches. It hissed its thanks, smoke barreling back up into the air as it flared back to life. Birds chirruped softly to each other from out of the tree-tops. It was peaceful this early; normally, I slept right through the morning.
I was instantly transported back to a hot summer day in Texas, camping out with my old man. He used to have to drag me away from the confines of my room, telling me I had to learn how to appreciate nature properly. I hated it at the time because he made me leave every single one of my electronics behind. Funny, now I’d trade just about anything to be back with him one more time, sweating my butt off in a tent with an inflatable mattress. I didn’t want to be the weak link of the group and admit to Larna how homesick I actually was.
“How much further do we have left?” I asked, wedging myself beside her on the rock. Our thighs touched, and I could feel the warmth radiating off her skin, even through the thick layer of material of her camo pants. I shifted uncomfortably, painfully aware of how much sweat was slicking the back of my T-shirt to my skin.
Larna glanced up from her reading, blinking at me as if she hadn’t even heard or felt me sit down beside her. “Alastair said one more day. We could have pushed on, but we’ll still have a distance to travel once we get to the cliff. We’re going to a cave and then straight down. Apparently, it’s the supersecret entrance Sozo gave him—so, no one else knows we’re coming.”
“So a cakewalk—” I said, my voice thick with sarcasm. The sudden smell of cooking meat stopped me cold. “Do I actually smell hot food?”
Larna flashed me a quick grin. “Alastair caught fish.”
I gave a derisive snort. “Of course he did. I would complain about the guy being able to do everything, but I’m starving—so I’ll jump on the Al bandwagon this one time.”
Larna nudged me playfully with her shoulder. We sat in silence, watching the sun filter through the saplings—the soft rays of light playing across her face softened the harsh lines around her mouth, and raven-colored hair. Even her coppery gold highlights twinkled like sun dappled waves in the ocean. I found myself staring at those long, dark lashes of hers too. This was the most relaxed I’d seen her in ages. She seemed so serious these days. A second later, when she turned away, the hardness in her eyes had returned. It was the face of someone who had the world sitting on top of their shoulders. I knew what that felt like. We opted to keep each other company without the need to carry on a conversation. Our silence spoke volumes: we were going to get through whatever happened next as long as we had each other.
Al checked the white, flaky innards of the fish across the way; I could hear it bubbling and sizzling as it cooked. Breakfast of champions.
My mouth started to water at the thought of eating meat. It had only been a day and a half but, between working out and hiking, I was starving.
Among the peaceful backdrop, the wind nuzzling the leaves, it was enough to lull me into a comfortable stupor as I waited for the food to cook.
Larna broke the silence after a while. “Your dad would be stupid excited if you told him you were outdoors.”
I dug my nails into my palms as anxiety rushed up to greet me. Go away. On the inside I was freaking out, but on the outside, I managed to flash a small grin. “I was just thinking the same thing. I was fine being sedentary back then, but now that I have this blade… I don’t know. The thing called to me for a reason.” I swiped a hand through my hair, distressing it to a fine point on top. “I swear it’s testing me, toying with me… to see how far it can push me before I break.”
I watched Al reach over to pluck the succulent morsel from the fire. He plated it on a napkin he had in his pack, and then appeared in front of me in a blur of movement that made him look like a flickering hologram.
I accepted it with a nod of thanks. “Y’all don’t want any?”
Al grabbed a thermos from his bag and unscrewed the top. “We’re covered.”
He handed the bottle to Larna first so they could share.
I would never get used to the fact that they drank blood. It was disgusting. For them, they didn’t see anything wrong with it; they gained years of life back. Would I go to those lengths in order to find youth? I knew a lot of people who would. There was a small part of me that wondered what it would feel like to take a swig of liquid life. Just a tiny taste… I shuddered and the blade at my hip hummed: It’s wrong. They’re wrong. Enemy. Fight. Seek retribution. Retribution just so happened to be sitting two feet away from me. I tried to shake the words out of my head. This thing wasn’t going to mess with me anymore—except I felt a little warning bell at the back of my mind that said, I haven’t even started messing with you yet.
I pulled the small brown bag of coffee beans from my duffel, inhaling the heady scent, hoping it would distract me from my dark thoughts.
A few minutes later, Larna appeared by my side, startling me out of my daze to hand me a fresh cup of coffee. Accepting it gratefully, I drank it down, burning my tongue in the process. So engrossed in enjoying every last drop, I didn’t realize she was still standing in front of me until she cleared her throat.
I glanced up at her and saw a flash of uncertainty cross her face as she stared at my blade. “Last chance to turn back.”
For the second time today, I noticed how the sunlight haloed her head. It made her appear angelic and fragile. This was the first time in a long time that I had thought of her as anything other than fierce. Everything had changed the night I’d killed Sherry. College. Job. Girlfriend. None of that stuff sounded appealing anymore. And that was the problem, because I knew what did—a reckoning.
I picked at the handle of the mug in thought. “Oh yeah, hiding for the rest of my life with a five-hundred-thousand-dollar bounty on my head sounds like fun.” My stomach churned and acid rose in the back of my throat. Something told me I wouldn’t be able to quit my new day job quite so easily.
There was a small part of me that felt like if someone did relieve me of the dagger, it would be comparable to lopping off a body part. It was a part of me now, whether I wanted it or not.
Larna turned to me, her lips set in a hard line and her eyes dark with concern. “Yeah, I don’t want to turn back either.”