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To give him his due, I was all right. Physically. Physically, I didn’t have a scratch. My mind was a blank, and my emotions were frozen behind a barrier of nothingness that kept them from overwhelming me, but physically? Physically, I was perfectly fine. I searched for the words I knew I needed.
“I am not okay,” I said, and the arm across my shoulders tightened.
I tried again.
“I am not okay.”
“Yeah, you are,” he said, and I felt the wall of nothingness start to crack.
“I. Am. Not. Okay,” I said, a third time, and, this time, it was my voice that cracked, and then I started shouting. “I. AmNot. Okay!”
And I turned beneath his arm, and slugged him as hard as I could. He grunted, and I slugged him again, and again, and I would have kept on hitting him, if he hadn’t picked me up by the collar of my gown, and held me out at arm’s length.
“You will be,” he said, keeping his arm rigid, while he opened a door in the corridor, with his other hand.
“Put me down!” I said, frustrated enough to try a kick, which missed when he shook me.
“With pleasure,” and he tossed me through the door. “Welcome to the gym.”
If I hadn’t had to pick myself up from the floor, Mack wouldn’t have made it through the door. As it was, as soon as I scrambled back to my feet, I ran at him, closing the distance between us, just as he stepped into the room.
He blocked my first flurry of blows with easy expertise.
“That’s quite a temper you’ve got.”
“You almost killed me!” I said, bouncing back, as he moved towards the end of the room.
“I did kill you.”
“Like that makes it any better!”
He reached the edge of the clear space whose floor was covered with mats, and stooped to take off his boots. I didn’t give him the chance. As soon as he was bent and focused on the laces, I struck him hard in the side, using one of the moves he’d taught me. He toppled, and I followed after, completely unprepared to have my legs swept from under me.
“You got a problem with me?” he asked, using the leg he’d swept under me, to pin my head to the floor.
I scrabbled at his boot.
“Darn right, I have a problem with you, you sadistic son of a bitch!”
“Then we’ll take it to the mats. Best of three. Winner names the penalty.”
“Penalty?”
“For whatever indiscretion we’re fighting over.”
That got through to me.
“What are we fighting over?”
“You not being all right.”
“So, we’re agreed on that.”
“We are.”
“Then why...”
“Because you needed to hit something.”
That much was very true. But I wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen next. Mack didn’t give me a lot of time to think about it. He reached across and finished taking the boot off the foot that wasn’t pinning me, and then he changed feet, and went to work on the other one. When he was done, he let me go, and moved onto the mat.
“Come on,” he said, beckoning me with a slight ripple of his fingers.
I got up, still feeling hollow inside, and moved cautiously onto the mat after him.
“If we’re agreed...” I began, but Mack didn’t let me go any further.
He came at me with several sweeping blows that would have felled me if I’d stayed in one place. I danced back, unwilling to take him on, and not at all sure why I should.
“Why are we fighting, again?” I asked.
“You started it,” he said.
“Then I can stop it?”
“Nope. Now, we go three rounds, and discuss the outcome when you wake up.”
“You’re very sure of yourself.”
I must have stayed in one place for too long, because his fist caught me in the ribs, and I felt something crack.
Seriously?
“Mack!”
He grinned, and came at me again.
“We have a regen tank on board.”
This time, I moved my feet, and managed to get out of the way of the next hit. There was a sharp pain in my chest, but I tried to ignore it. I had no idea what rules he was playing by, but I got the feeling they weren’t going to be fair. Regen tank, indeed!
A dagger through the heart hadn’t been enough?
“You know there’s a limit on how many times I can grow things back.”
The man had reach, height, and weight on me—and I already knew he had a lot more fighting time under his belt, too. What the hell was he playing at? I left the ground before his next leg sweep could take me off my feet, and then ducked another round house. Regen tank, hey? If I was really trying to hurt him, what would I do?
His voice interrupted me, as I was trying to think.
“You’re nowhere near the limit.”
Smart ass!
I moved in, threw two swift jabs and darted back out again, but the pain in my chest was getting worse, and I was finding it hard to breathe.
“Give it up, girl,” Mack said. “You are way outclassed.”
And I decided, then and there, I was giving nothing away. The arrogant sonuvabitch wanted to win? Well, he was just going to have to do it under his own steam. I was going to make him work for it... at least, that was the plan.
We didn’t make three rounds. Mack either got bored, or decided to take pity on me, because he took less than a round to put me down. The pain in my chest blossomed into full-blown agony as he landed a second blow, and I felt blood bubble into my throat—and then I caught a fist in the face, and was out for the count.
Bastard.
