“Lift up your guard.” Correcting Kyle’s position was quickly becoming the most fun I’d had in ages. “Keep your feet spaced and your weight evenly distributed.” The more slight adjustments I made the more determined he got. The more determined he got, the more he got this cute little smushed up look on his face. Then it went from cute to just plain funny. Now I’m just poking the bear, or the wolf, to see what he was going to do next. Sykes who was his sparring partner had picked up on what I was doing about fifteen minutes ago judging by the slight smirk on his face. “You’re lifting the opposite shoulder …”
“By the gods will you stop it woman!” He exploded at the same time that Sykes exploded into laughter.
“Dude, I didn’t think you would make it past five minutes.” He laughed.
“I had ten minutes, I’m impressed that you managed for as long as you did.” I laughed along with him.
“Wait … you’ve been playing me” he said dropping his fists by his side with a huff of exasperation. “That’s … that’s just mean.” He looked so crushed for a moment that I nearly felt bad. Then he dived for me, I twisted to the side and dodged behind Sykes with a giggle.
“Hey, no hiding behind me, I’m having no part of this.” Sykes laughed spinning round trying to catch me. I darted around to his front with Kyle chasing me and we entered into some strange game of chase between the three of us.
The past two weeks had been weird. Initially everyone had gone quiet and withdrawn. I didn’t share classes with any of the nine who had lost their lives. They were second and third year students so I didn’t know any of them. Plenty of people did though, and there was a strange mixture of the older students mourning and the first years trying to step around them and not kick up any trouble. In the first few days several fights had broken out. The headmaster’s speech had everyone ready for a fight and there was no one to fight but each other. It had however had a positive side effect on my training group. At first everyone had a weird combination of a thirst to train and fight and the guilt of wanting to just get on with life. Now that the school was getting somewhat back to normal people were falling back into everyday routines and my training group had thrown themselves into their training. All of them could now run the full fifteen miles in the morning run. We did conditioning two days a week in combat class with the other group and then fight training for three days a week when we were training alone. I’d even heard that some of the girls were sneaking into the gym on their free days to train even more. I was proud of them. It was a terrible situation but they were throwing themselves into their training to take their mind off the tragedy. Maybe that wasn’t the healthiest behaviour but I suppose they could have chosen much worse. Caleb had snuck in to our training session about five minutes ago. I couldn’t decide if he was trying to scope out the competition or if he was actually considering joining us. Once I’d managed to give the guys the slip I set them back to sparring and jogged over to the side lines to join him.
“Trying to steal some trade secrets?” I laughed.
“I can’t believe how far they’ve come in two weeks, this is incredible.” I couldn’t decide if he sounded upset or impressed.
“Hmmmm, I think it’s more that recent events have inspired them. Don’t get me wrong they are doing really well but I don’t think we would have reached this level this quickly.” We stood and watched them all spar and even I had to admit it was pretty impressive. Don’t get me wrong they
wouldn’t be entering any MMA fights any time soon but when it came to the class competition in one week time we were going to wipe the floor with the other team. “Do you want to join us?” I offered sensing that we weren’t the only ones that were feeling the need to fight.
Caleb raised an eyebrow at me as he regarded me. “I would actually very much like that but I wouldn’t want my group thinking that I was defecting.” He smiled as he spoke to make a joke of it but I could see how that would actually make sense. “Once this competition is over though I would be very interested in joining you in some training if you’re still up for it.”
“You mean after my team wipes the floor with yours?” I goaded him. Caleb had the good grace to laugh. Because we shared the gym during class time I had seen where the other group were up to with their training. They didn’t do any extra sessions and they had assumed that we didn’t either. They actually thought that the strength training that we were doing was all the training that we did. The smack talk coming from their side of the room was actually starting to get a bit hilarious now. I didn’t know how my group were keeping it together once it started. Most of them could barely throw a punch at this stage and they couldn’t work as a team. They each thought that they were better than anyone else and the result was just chaos.
“I’d argue with you but I think we both realise that there is little point. I was thinking we should bring the competition forward to this Friday. No use putting off the inevitable and I’d like to get my group on your training regime as soon as possible.” Caleb reasoned. It was a good idea. Hopefully if we got everyone on the same schedule then by the end of the year they would be at the same level only having a few weeks difference in their training. It was going to take some major attitude changes though and I didn’t think that some of them had it in them.
“That’s a good idea. When you thinking?” I asked.
“If we move it to Friday’s training session, we can announce it in class tomorrow and my group get one more training session to prepare. You guys will have, what, about sixty three training sessions between now and Friday?” I threw back my head and laughed.
“Awww bitterness doesn’t suit you Caleb.” I laughed shoving his shoulder as he laughed along with me. It was strange, technically Caleb was my teacher but he didn’t feel like it. He felt more like a comrade, maybe even with the potential of being a friend. “Seriously though, Friday sounds good. I’ll wait until class tomorrow to tell my group so that everyone finds out together.”
We stood for a while longer watching my group train. I couldn’t help but feel proud of them. They really had come on such a long way since that morning when they ambushed me on the front steps to crash my morning run. As we watched, Britt executed a perfect hip roll and threw Aeryn to the ground. There weren’t any hard feelings though. Britt helped Aeryn up and they both talked through the move and then Aeryn tried it out on Britt to learn as well.
“They’ve gelled together so well.” Caleb said observing.
“They have a common goal. Makes the group dynamic easier.” I explained.
“The competition?” Caleb questioned, frowning as he already seemed to know that wasn’t the right answer.
“No, the same goal nearly every woman has had that stood up for herself since the beginning of time. They want to be taken seriously. They don’t want to be seen as less than, just because they are women.”
Caleb nodded his head in agreement. “Doesn’t account for the guys motivation though.” He said nodding towards my three who were currently
railing on the punching bags working through a new set of punches that I had shown them.
“Well that’s just common sense, they picked the winning side.” I laughed. This time it was Caleb that playfully shoved me as he guffawed out a laugh of his own.
“I was thinking that once the whole class is back to training together that maybe we should think about splitting them into squads. Problem is that it would probably mean splitting up your group and I’m reluctant to when they all work so well together.” Caleb said watching intently.
He had a good point. If I had it my way my group would stay together and train as an elite group. “Hmmm, it is a good idea but I think you would be better to keep the class together for a while and see if any natural groups or leaders form.”
“Natural groups would train and fight better together.” He gave me that quizzical look again. “You’re good at this you know.”
“Don’t look so surprised, I’m a natural badass remember.” He was right though this stuff weirdly just made sense to me. Fighting had always come to me more easily and training others seemed to also be within my natural wheelhouse.
“Maybe,” he said. “If you have some free time this week we should get together and work on a training schedule.” Caleb then furrowed his brows and shook his head. “Urgh, that weirdly sounded like I was asking you out.” The laughter that burst out of my mouth that time was loud and uncontrollable. He just looked so upset by the thought. Maybe I should have been insulted but it was just too funny to take offense to.
“There’s no need to sound quite so horrified about that.” I wheezed trying to get my laughter under control. “Tomorrow afternoon would work for me.” I offered. Caleb had not quite seen the situation as quite as funny as I had and his expression was flickering between horror and embarrassment.
Once we finished our evening training session everyone went back to their own rooms for showers before dinner. The rest of the group would be eating in the cafeteria but we planned on staying in tonight. Liam had something cooking in the oven and we were planning on just watching a movie and then going to bed. I was sat crossed legged on the bed finishing off some homework when Sykes came out of the bathroom wearing some grey joggers and drying his hair with a towel. There were still a few drops of water running down his chest and I couldn’t help but lick my lips as I watched them make their way down his skin. I heard him chuckle and when I finally met his eyes I knew that he had been watching me check him out. I wasn’t embarrassed though. He was my mate and I was allowed. Plus Liam and Kyle were both still in the bathroom. I still felt a bit weird when we were all together but it was starting to just become normal for me. Sykes threw his wet towel through the closet door and I knew without looking that it would have landed in the laundry hamper. This was one man who definitely would not tolerate a wet towel on the floor. “What you up to?” He asked peering down at the books in front of me.
“Just finishing off my demonology homework.” I said nudging the textbook with my pencil with a huff of disgust.
“Has this particular textbook done something to offend you?” He said nudging it further away with one finger out of solidarity.
“Normally I would be fine with this sort of stuff. I’m not a huge academic but I’m not stupid. But this stuff,” I said nudging the textbook again with my pencil. “It’s all new to me. I don’t know anything about this.”
Sykes took the pencil off me, pushed all the books and papers to the bottom of the bed and then pulled me against him. I snuggled under his arm and sighed in contentment. “I think we’ve been a bit selfish.” He finally said.
“What are you talking about?” I said peering up at him. From this angle all I could really see was right up his nose.
“You’ve only been here for three weeks and we’ve pulled you into this life without really stopping to see how you’re handling it.” He pulled me closer to him. “This has got to be hard for you. With classes, training and us, you’ve had no time to really sit down and process all of this.”
Liam and Kyle both came out of the bathroom and joined us on the bed. Kyle cuddled up against the other side of me and Liam slid onto the bottom of the bed, pulling my legs over him and propping his chin up on one hand. The other hand running up and down my thigh. It feels nothing but comforting and I sigh in happiness. They fill me with so much contentment when we are all together like this that I feel like I could take on the world. “I can’t help but feel a little sad. You’re right, my entire world was ripped away from me and now that I’ve settled in here a bit and I don’t feel as angry anymore I realise that what’s left underneath is just a feeling of loss.” I feel a little silly admitting it but the past three weeks have made me realise that I can still be a badass woman and actually have feelings as well.
“Kitten, it’s okay to mourn the life that you lost. It doesn’t lessen anything that we have together or what your life here has become.” Liam squeezed my knee reassuringly. “I wish I knew what to say, I wish I could promise you that one day you would get to go back to see Alfie and all your friends again. But I can promise you that we will always be here for you, even if it’s just to help you with your homework.” He grinned up at me and I couldn’t help but smile down at him.
“Although, maybe limit your history questions to Kyle and me” Liam said, “Sykes is terrible at history.” He laughed as Sykes playfully shoved him off
the bed just in time for a timer in the kitchen to go off. Apparently, dinner was ready.
Liam jogged over to the kitchen and turned off the timer before opening up the oven and pulled out two trays of food. It smelt amazing. We all walked over and between us set the table and poured out drinks while Liam dished out the food. There were chops, potatoes and something that looked a bit like asparagus all roasted together with some kind of herby butter. It was simple but it tasted amazing.
“What were you and Caleb talking about in training?” Kyle asked.
“We’re moving up the competition to Friday.” I answered shovelling potatoes into my mouth. “Apparently we are so far ahead of the other group that we’ve got to the point that there is no point delaying the inevitable.” We all laughed because it was so true. “No one else is supposed to know though so when it gets announced tomorrow morning in class look surprised.”
“You know, when I was in the library yesterday I overheard some second years talking about it. Apparently, the whole school is betting against us.” Liam said pouring himself another class of water from the pitcher before topping up mine as well.
“Maybe we should invite the whole school to watch.” I said putting down my cutlery and thinking about it. If we were going to make changes it needed to be school wide not just one year. Besides, I couldn’t have the other students talking smack about my group.
