A puppet, I’ve decided. That’s what I am to the Commander and his followers. A puppet to bend and mold into his version of the man he believes everyone should be.
It takes me one blink to steady the rise in my chest. I say nothing, only adjusting my stance as the air inside the mask warms. Part of me wants to sic my power on him; allow it to fill his veins before I unleash every bit of rage and torment racing through me. Watch him fall to his knees with tears streaming from those cold eyes.
“I said attack!”
I move only because disobeying will ensure my dismissal. I go for the midline and aim to make him shift his feet. He doesn’t. He slides right, my elbow hitting air. The mat catches my balance fine and I reset as the sting of heat runs across my chest and away.
“Again,” he says.
I go again with a feint and a step to the left. His forearm meets mine a second before the shock of contact travels through bone and lights my wrist, fizzling the nerves. He breathes evenly as if I’m a pesky bug he’s killed a thousand times. A foot sweeps my leg without warning and the floor slaps my shoulder as rough material rasps my cheek from the mask.
“Up.”
And I get up.
One breath to subdue the small white flare in myshoulder and another to keep the arm as stable as I can. He launches and I can’t afford to step back, so I don’t. I pivot and throw an elbow into his ribs as I bring my other hand across, the hit landing on his cheek in a way that does something small to my chest—I wish it didn’t feel like relief.
Because the only relief he could ever give me is by dying.
He snatches my arm and twists, forcing me to drop to one knee as a hot lance of pain slices my neck. “Better,” he says without warmth. “Not enough.”
We forgo words after that. He moves me where he wants me, and I try not to let him. My lungs burn and the slit of my mask burns from the sunlight, so I rely on sound and instinct to defend myself. The ring of bodies working around us is full of grunts and cheers, distracting me from the fight. Sweat runs along my spine and pools at the small of my back as my uniform sticks to every possible crevice. I’m so uncomfortable.
I block a high strike and he drops low, a fist landing in the bruise along my ribs from three days ago, dragging the air from my lungs in a noise I don’t recognize as mine. My vision fuzzes at the edges for a second but sharpens again when I bite the inside of my cheek to anchor myself.
“On your feet,” he demands as I fail to stand fast enough after the hardest fall I’ve endured yet. His voice doesn’t lift, it thins. “Now.”
My legs tremble as I rise and will them to hold. To stay upright because there is no version of this where I don’t.
“You’re at your breaking point.” Duh. If it wasn’t obvious I wanted to kill him before, it sure is now as I glare daggers. “This is what I’ve been trying to drag out of you.Thisis where I find out if you’re worth carrying or cutting.”
Something shimmers at the edges of my awareness—an opening I can exploit. His guard is just a hair low, and I reach; not for his skin, but for the edge of him, a tendril of emotion tounbalance him. For a breath, it’s electric, and I plant a thread of doubt there. Finally, an advantage I can use?—
Instead it snaps back. A white-noise roar fills my head, static behind my teeth, as a pressure I’ve never known drowns all thought. I stagger, my timing shredded. He doesn’t notice the inner turmoil—or he does and couldn’t care less—as his elbow finds my side and the air whooshes from me in an embarrassing animal sound.
It takes a few moments to reorient my head, but when I do, I’m pissed.
I lower my center and drive into him. He yields half a step, and my shoulder shrieks as it hits at the wrong angle. I almost scream when his hands grip both my shoulders and the world flips as he puts me on my back. Again. Fuck that hurts. I need to lie very still for a while, and maybe I’ll have a chance of standing.
He crouches, his breath touching my eyes as he leans close. “Even after weeks of training, you’re still inadequate,” he says as if it’s a new revelation. “I don’t trust you, Ashford. But according to my men, you’re worth keeping, so maybe I will keep you on the team. Just to watch you fail.”
He strides away, muscling through the gathered bodies. Eyes shift away from me. No one offers a hand, and I don’t expect one. I’m so close to leaving here, and that’s the only reason I find the will to rise. The yard spins around me like I never stopped falling, and I make myself walk it off as my heartbeat settles into something of a normal rhythm.
When I finally make it to my room after hours of tests, my shirt lifts to the pattern of new bruises blooming like they always do—round where a knee landed, long where I hit the floor. I clean the cuts with the alcohol I hid in my pocket one day and it offers a comforting bite. My homemade salve coolsthe throbbing skin as my shoulder relents on its incessant twitching for the first time since this morning.
Whatever the hell they want from me, clearly getting stronger isn’t going to happen in five days.
I am not their kind of fighter. But I don’t need five days to make myself impossible to leave behind and not worth the trouble to cut—I’ve already proven how useful I can be with our last mission. I think the Commander just threatens to send me home at this point with no intention of doing so. I’m physically mediocre, but mentally everything he needs with him when looking for the escapees.
So I allow my shit performance today to float away with all my other worries. I’m not going anywhere.
The mask slides free, and I lie back very slowly as my body protests.
You’re at your breaking point. I scoff. He thinks he knows me. He thinks he can break me by pushing where he’s pushed a hundred men before, but he doesn’t know what I’m holding inside. He doesn’t know what I’m willing to do when the cost cannot be measured by the weight of my punch.
That will be his mistake.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
