“I. AM. NOT. A. COWARD.” The girl, Amika, shrieks. I see the move before she makes it, and so does Vadim. Amika leaps at him with a war cry, her body bouncing slightly off the grass as she surges forward, her fist clenched and ready to strike.
Amika misses Vadim’s face by a mile. He easily sidesteps her attack. Grabbing her wrist midair, he twists it behind her back,using the momentum of her lunge to slam her hard into the ground.
Ouch, that has to hurt.
Amika cries out, a mix of pain and frustration as she wiggles and writhes beneath her captor.
“Let me go you fucking egghead.”
Vadim chuckles.
“You gonna calm down, princess?” He taunts her. Amika growls and swings her free arm back at him. He catches that one with ease as well, locking it behind her back with the other one.
“You’re going to regret this.”
“No,” I step forward. “You are if you think you can fight with all that pent up anger.”
“Pakhan.” Vadim instantly releases Amika as if she is hot coal and stands, his shoulders tightening as he comes to attention before him.
Then he is flat on his back.
I suppress a small chuckle when Amika takes Vadim’s legs out from under him.
“First lesson,” I smirk down at him. “Never turn your back on an enemy. Even in training.” Vadim takes my offered hand, shooting Amika a freezing glare.
Damn, polar ice caps that one. I can feel the frost from here.
“Second lesson,” I turn my attention to Amika. “Getting angry will get you killed. Taunts and digs can only hurt you if you let them. I doubt he is the first to call you a coward and he certainly won’t be the last.”
Amika’s eyes widen as she stands and dusts herself off. “Yes, ma’am.” She comes to attention before me. The entire training session has stopped, their eyes on me.
“He’s beating you so easily because you’re telegraphing your moves.” I notice several times how easily predictable she was when she moved. “You’re dropping your shoulder before youstrike, and your emotions play over your face like a newbie at VIP poker night.”
“Vadim is bigger than me,” she nearly whines. I raise my eyebrows at her statement, my eyes narrowing at her.
“And you think that’s what?” I harden my voice. “Unfair?”
Amika lowers her eyes to her feet and scuffs her shoes in the dirt, looking uncomfortable.
“Size doesn’t matter, Amika,” I tell her. “What matters in a fight is using every tool you have available against your enemy. If he’s bigger and brawnier than you are, then he is slower. So be quicker. Move your feet more, wear him out before striking at him.”
“Fighting is like seduction,” I continue. “Watch him. The way he moves. The way he talks. Does he have light steps that will tell you how quickly he moves or heavier ones to tell you how slow? If you pay attention, everyone has a tell, even Vadim and Roman. Find that tell, that weakness, and then exploit it without exploiting yourself.”
Amika’s throat bobs. “I’ll never survive out there. I’ll lose.” It is a whisper on her lips. An admittance to herself more than to me. I think the same thing once.
“As long as you have something to fight for,” I assure her. “You’ve already won.”
“Not much of us have anything to fight for,” a boy toward the back speaks up. “We’re poor. Homeless. Our parents either died or gave us up. Many of us used and abused. What is there to fight for.”
“Justice.” It is a simple word to give him, but a powerful one all the same. “You are fighting to end the very thing that put you here. You’re avengers. People who understand what it means to be powerless and feel victimized.”
“We are victims,” Amika spits.
“No,” I smile at her affectionately. She reminds me of Maleah, who once told me the same thing I am about to tell her. “You’re survivors. You did what you needed to do. Every day you go on living, you survive. Look at all of you,” I sweep my hand in front of me, gesturing to the crowd. “Look at how far you have come. You could have easily given up. Given in to death and pain and sorrow. Another nameless kid on the street. Another drug addict or prostitute. Another no one. But you chose to live and learn and survive.”
“What do you know of survival?” A man in the back I don’t recognize spits. He wears a black shirt with the wordtrainerprinted across the front. “Posh bitch from a posh home. You don’t know anything about suffering or survival.”
“Watch your tone, Malich,” Vas hisses. He steps forward, hazel eyes turning a burnt gold with his pent-up ire.
