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“Good,” he croons, his hands now on the floor by my head, holding himself up. “Climb up my body and trap my arm.”

He waits patiently while I do both those things.

“Now trap the foot on the same side as my trapped arm.”

“Trap it? How?”

Khaos talks me through exactly what to do until both his left arm and left foot are in my hold.

“As hard as you can, bridge up and roll us over in that direction.”

Finally familiar with a move, I push my hips off the floor, then twist them to the right. The momentum takes us both all the way over to the floor except reversing our positions, with Khaos on his back and me on top.

Beaming up at me, he nods and says, “Hit me now.”

“With what?”

“Anything you want.”

Even though I have much better reach here, I only pretend to punch Khaos’s face. Once, twice—

“Get up.”

“What?”

“While I’m on the defense and distracted, get up.”

I scramble backward onto my feet and stand, fists up in front of me, eyes locked on the man just pushing to a sitting position.

Well, I never imagined I’d be able to do that.

A whole new wave of power washes over me.

Grinning, Khaos claps his hands a couple times.

“Congratulations, you just defended yourself.”

“What would I do next?”

He shrugs. “Run, scream, make it really fucking difficult for your attacker to try again.”

Relaxing my stance, I ask, “If I run, couldn’t he just tackle me from behind?”

“If he wants to and is fast enough.”

“Can we practice that scenario?”

“Running?”

“No. If I got caught from behind.”

After another moment where his eyes glaze over, like he’s deep in thought, he nods at the space next to him. “Lie on your stomach.”

Face down, I feel Khaos part my legs with one of his, then half my body becomes weighted down by half of his.

Turning my head to the side, I lock eyes with him.

“What would you do from here?”