Her opponent peels off his hand wraps. He throws them into his faded green duffel, too busy glaring at Amber to notice me as he snatches it up. I slip behind the door as it flies open, careful to stay downwind and out of view.
“See you around, Hunter,” she calls after him. He flips her off as he goes, and I can’t help sympathizing with him. Her triumphant smile crumbles when she sees me staring back at her through the glass.
As I enter the room, she takes a step back, clutching the bright yellow sun embroidered on the collar of her gi as if it’s a talisman against the cold. The training room is uncomfortably warm, the air thick with the smell of aggression. Instinct makes my fingers itch, and I resist the urge to summon a frost.
“How did you get in here?” Her eyes dart to the door, calculating the distance as it closes behind me.
“Wasn’t hard.” I pull the key card from my pocket just enough for her to see the flash of its silver edge. There are no security cameras inside the sparring rooms. No panic buttons. And I know, maybe better than anyone, Amber’s far too proud to scream. Her gaze leaps back to the door, then the window. If she wants out of this room as badly as I think she does, she has no choice but to go through me.
She flexes her fingers to conjure a flame, but the wraps around her knuckles stifle the flow of oxygen to her hands.
“What are you doing here?” She scowls at me as I kick off my shoes and slide the towel back from my head. I should be asking myself the same thing. I haven’t eaten anything solid in months and I’m only tendays out of the box. If I’m lucky, she’ll let me live long enough to crawl quietly back to my dorm room. If I’m not, she’ll report me to Gaia. Either way, I’m probably screwed.
“Came to pick a fight.”
“Looks like you already found one.” She juts her chin at my fading bruises.
“I had a disagreement with a Guard.”
One touch. That’s all I need.
I step out onto the mat, praying Amber doesn’t take off her hand wraps and cook me. “What’s wrong? Afraid of being alone with me?”
She drags her eyes from the door. “Not even a little.” She adjusts her stance, rolling her shoulders as I inch within striking distance. She throws a quick test swing. “What are you really doing here?” she asks as I dodge it. I’m slower than I should be.
“Just came to talk.”
“We have nothing to say to each other.” She throws a punch to my ribs that doubles me over. I suck in a sharp breath. I was hoping she’d go for the face. “Whatever it is you’re up to, you’re going to get us both in trouble.”
“Only if you kill me,” I say through a wheeze.
“Don’t tempt me.” Her catlike eyes narrow as if she’s actually considering it. “You think I don’t know you’re only a few seasons away from a promotion? Well, guess what. So am I. And I’m not giving up my shot at Arizona for you.” Her wrapped knuckles fly at my face. My head snaps back, my eyes watering at the explosion of pain in my teeth.
Woozy, I watch her hands, braced for the next hit. Her knuckle wraps... they’re getting in the way.
I wince, prodding my bloody lip. “What’s in Arizona?”
“None of your business.”
My focus slips to the sun on the collar of her gi. “Can’t be that important, or you would’ve won it already.” She’s strong. Fast. The most skilled fighter in our region. If she’d wanted to be in Arizona that badly, she would have fought for a relocation years ago. Yet here she is, hovering just below the leaders on the board, stuck in the mid-Atlantic with Fleur, Julio, and me. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were holding back.”
Amber drops, sweeping my legs out from under me. In half a heartbeat, I’m ass-side down on the mat. She kneels over me, two fingers pressed to the groove of my throat, applying a steady pressure that steals my breath and sets my pulse racing. “I’ll show you holding back, you arrogant son of a—”
Amber gasps. A current surges through me, electric and disorienting. She leaps to her feet, wobbling a little as she backs into the wall. The stray hair that’s come loose from her braids sticks up around her face, charged with static. “What did you do?”
I get up fast, flooded with adrenaline, the wooziness gone. Amber stares wide-eyed at my lip where she hit me.
I run my tongue over the spot where her fist connected, over the scab that’s already closed the wound.
Our eyes catch.
We made contact, skin to skin. It should have sucked away my strength. Instead, it made me stronger. I was right. The stasis chamber isn’t the battery. It’s only a receptacle, a holding station for our energy.Weare the batteries. And every battery has two sides: a positive and a negative, an anode and a cathode, a charged end and one that receives that charge.
Amber and I formed our own circuit—a closed loop.
She leans against the wall. Presses her fingers to her temple. “What the hell just happened?”
I touch my rib where she hit me. It’s not even tender.
