Till Deceived Do We Part

My arm tensed, pulling on the restraint. Sweat beaded on my forehead, dripping down my sports bra. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling, but when was sweat ever comfortable?

A dribble of blood from my head dripped down my back, but I ignored it. Some sweat seeped into my eyes, stinging, but I ignored it. My restraint arm, my bandaged arm, throbbed, but once again, I ignored it.

My body dived down, my foot swinging and connecting with his shin. His body flew backwards as he added more momentum than I gave him. He landed, his restraint arm tensing, before using his free arm to spring to his feet. I had done the same, and by now, my chest was heaving up and down, as was his.

Flint and I stared at each other, from across the ring. It was always a deadly thing to spar Flint, but now we spared with no ref, with no Zane to break us up... it was even worse. But oddly enough, no one had won yet. Usually if it was a one on one fight, we’d do three rounds. First one to two wins. This time, however, we had been going at least half an hour, and no one had won. We each had our fair share of close calls, but nothing that equalled a victory.

Since my arm was still out of the game, we agreed to each tie an arm behind our back. So here we were, one arm fighting... and doing a damn good job about it. I was waiting for Jake to come in and give us shit for beating each other up, but so far, nothing had happened. My bet was Jake wanted me to get a little more beat up, maybe he was hoping it would knock some sense into me. Somehow, I doubted that would happen. I wasn’t about to change anytime soon.

“You know what I’m beginning to think?” Flint finally said, lunging to my left. I went the same direction, only because I knew he was fainting, and as I thought, we both ended up on opposite sides.

“What?” I asked, flipping and shooting my good arm out as a punch, my body landed without the punch connecting, but I didn’t wait to do a butterfly kick. A butterfly kick is done by doing a large circular motion with both feet in succession, which ends in you being airborne. Basically, you jump with one leg, while you kick with the other, then you land on the kicking leg and you jump while kicking out the other leg, only to land with the first kicking leg. And you do this all while spinning. In reality, it’s simpler than it sounds.

My foot connected with his jaw, which sent him to his knees. I aimed another kick, but this time he grabbed my foot and twisted. My arm shot out to catch me while I used my other foot to land another kick to Flint’s jaw. He tumbled back before springing to his feet. I followed his motions, but a little slower. Damn. I just kept hitting my head, but I guess it was good practice, for when we went after Zane, I was sure to be attacked. And most of the time, the bad guys tend to aim for the head. It’s the most practical place to hit... and the most inconvenient to get hit in.

“Zane is always here when one of us wins. I think he tends to distract us.” I laughed at that. I hadn’t thought of it till now, but it was true. But the laugh soon died out, as an ache reached me. Zane was a part of the base more than anyone. We needed him back. “Tie?” I glanced at Flint. He could have attacked at me while I was laughing, but he didn’t.

“Tie.” His eyes watched mine for a moment, reading them. Making sure I meant my words, and once he was satisfied, he backed off. I soon followed him out of the ring, grabbing a water bottle and a towel. “You think he’s still with him?”

“Either that or he’s cooling off.” Jake was currently with Boris, trying to get some information out of him. His top priority was to find out who was working with Boris, and who knew about the hit, and if he had been the one to place it. I was forbidden to talk to Boris, which annoyed me. Jake wasn’t even hurting him yet, he thought trying the nice approach would work better. Personally, I’ve never seen it work, but who knows? Maybe I just can’t pull off nice.

“We need to get Zane back. I’ve become too accustomed to talking to you.” Flint shot me a glare as he took a swig of water.

“My thoughts exactly.” Flint’s thoughts... now that was a scary concept. A concept I was about to venture into.

“Something big is going to happen.” I finally said, after a brief hesitation. Something was up, my gut said so. And I needed to know if it was just me or not.

Flint’s eyes lifted to mine, studying them. On most occasions, he doesn’t do it so obviously, but what was the point? Usually we didn’t talk. Usually we didn’t search forests together, and most certainly, usually we didn’t agree to a tie. We would fight till exhaustion knocked one of us out. But not today, and I had a feeling, not anytime soon.

“Such as?” I shrugged. “I hate the unknown.” He finally snapped. “We’ve been trained to read the signs and know what’s going to happen. We’ve been trained to feel that gut feeling before something big happens. And I feel it, damn it! But I don’t know... I don’t und...” he let out a vicious snarl before throwing a punch to the punching bag. His eyes snapped back to mine as soon as he turned. “What’s going to happen? You feel it too... but why can’t we tell what’s going to happen? Why can’t we put together the pieces?” Well, that answered my question whether I was the only one.

“How should I know? Maybe there aren’t enough pieces to pick up, or maybe it’s like those puzzles where you have to use sheer force to shove the piece in place, even if it means it’s out of place. Something’s up, that’s all I know, that’s all I care about. And with Zane gone, it can’t be good. What we need to do is get out there. In the open.”

“Are you stupid?! You’ll be dead before you can count to five.” I shrugged.

“Maybe so, but like you said, there’s a chance this may be about revenge. Or maybe it’s a spur of the moment thing, but what I do know is they could have killed me already. But they didn’t, so why would they now? They know we’re struggling, so why end it? Why end our pain?” Flint seemed to take what I said and roll it around his mind for a while. At least I got him thinking, which meant my thoughts weren’t too idiotic. That’s always a bonus for me.

“So,” he said simply, meeting my eyes once more, “you want to play bait?”

“Bait means to entice someone... so yes, in a way. I want to see how they’d react, how they will react.”

“You do anything without Jake’s consent, and I’ll beat you myself. I’ll talk it over with Jake, since you don’t seem to be on his good side.” His eyes narrowed as my mind reached the finally thought.

I knew Flint would bring it up. I knew it the moment he asked to spar, and though I hated the very thought of discussing my thoughts and feelings towards Dane to Flint, I needed someone to blow steam on. And Flint was openly asking me to hit him, so what could I do? I wasn’t about to turn down something that my body needed very much.

“Drop dead, Flint.” I tossed the towel in the hamper and headed for the door. Flint followed, not that I doubted he would.

“You first.” Was his response as we went through the door. “You screwed up big, Drake, bigger than causing Raleigh’s death. You lost the trust of Jake. And his trust is worth way more than some simple fling with some pansy.” Anger entered me immediately. Did he think I didn’t know what I had done? Did he think I didn’t care that Jake didn’t trust me? Of course I cared. Jake was like a father, and it stung that I no longer had his trust. And how dare Flint call Dane a pansy!

I spun on him, my anger reaching its boiling point. Flint stopped and regarded me with a cool composure, something he was a lot better at than myself. My anger tended to rule my emotions, whereas he barely lost control of his emotions. That only led to me hating him more. What type of human doesn’t lose himself every so often? Though I suppose seeing Flint break a few times was good enough, I just doubted it would happen again.

“Dane is not a pansy. What I have with him is none of your damn concern, so leave it at that. Yes, I screwed up, but again, it’s none of your damn concern, so leave it at that!”

“Close your mouth Flint, don’t entice her. Andrayka, hold your temper. Both of you, to the main room.” Jake was gone as soon as he appeared, leaving both myself and Flint staring at where he had been. Judging by his tone, it wasn’t anything good.