Chapter 39

“Not bad. Do it again.”

Aleda groaned. “I’ve been doing this crap for an hour! Can’t we at least try something else?”

“First of all, this ‘crap’ will probably save your life one day, and second, it’s only been fifty-three minutes. Not an hour.”

She shot Ryan an evil look and ran through the drill again. Today he had decided she ought to learn ‘dynamic killing’. Whatever the crap that was. Mainly it seemed to involve the same things she’d been learning for three months now, except that the training dummy had gotten off his a*s and started moving around.

Admittedly, it was fun to knock him off his feet. Turnabout was hilarious play.

Only when it worked, though.

The next time he came at her, she misjudged the angle. Instead of getting knocked to the ground, Ryan caught her shoulder awkwardly and sent them both flying across the cement. Aleda landed some feet away. She picked herself up with care and took a quick inventory of her extremities. Nothing broken, fortunately, including her training claws. Landing without the long claws snapping off or causing her wrists to shatter was one of the first things they’d taught her.

There was a slight stinging sensation on the left side of her face, however. She brought up a hand to touch the skin and came away with a crimson drop of blood.

Ryan went to her immediately. “You scraped your cheek. Sorry about that. Here.”

Before she could protest he had bitten through the pad of his thumb and raised it to the cut. His thumb traced a path of electricity across her cheek, the skin tingling before the pain faded completely. He smiled. “All better. Ready?”

Aleda stared after him for a moment. He had already moved back to his place in the middle of the floor. It took her a moment to remember what she was supposed to be doing. What had that been? Well, obviously it was the same electric sensation as the last time she’d been healed, but that was a stab wound. This was barely a scratch. And it’s not like–

“Leda! Where’d you go?”

She started at Talia’s voice breaking through the fog in her head. “Wha-? I, er… Sorry. Spaced out for a sec– …Why are you looking at me like that?”

Talia shrugged in exaggerated innocence. That infuriating grin was still on her face. “I really couldn’t say.”

Ryan shifted his weight impatiently. “Can we move on, please?”

Aleda nodded dumbly and went back to her starting position. She fumbled through the next run as well, landing awkwardly on her hands and knees. A quick glance told her that she hadn’t even managed to knock him off balance. She shook her head as she picked herself up. No wonder Ryan was making her practice this so many times—she was a mess! An absolute mess. Couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t even make her training dummy lose his balance. She had to snap out of this. Otherwise she’d never get done with this, and she’d never be able to ask that favor of him. After all, he was nothing but her training dummy.

The next time she tried, Ryan landed on the cement all by himself.

 

 

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An hour later she had finally had enough. They had moved on to slightly different techniques by then, and while she appreciated the break in monotony, she was still far from mastering them. Ryan promised to drill them into her muscles the following week—an offer which Aleda accepted with all due sarcasm. Her muscles were a tad too sore to allow much in the way of pleasantries.

It also didn’t help that it was his fault.

However, she couldn’t be too short with him that day. As much as she hated the concept, she had a favor to ask of him. She lingered downstairs even after he had freed her from the training claws, watching him out of the corner of her eye while he changed from the ragged shirt he wore for training back into his street clothes. She had to time this just right, if she wanted to get him to agree to this. The intriguing play of muscle under dusky skin had nothing to do with it.

She took her opportunity just after he pulled on his sweater.

“Hey, Ryan?” she started timidly. He looked up questioningly. She swallowed and tried to ignore the disconcerting effect his eyes were currently having on her. “Are you going, er … ‘out’, today?” she asked.

 “Every day,” he confirmed.

“Well, do you think that maybe… I mean, I know it’d be different than the shopping center, but I already went once…”

Ryah sighed. “What are you trying to ask me, Aleda?” he asked impatiently.

She bit her lip and glanced toward the stairs to the living room before pulling him to the far corner of the basement. There was no way she could risk Papá hearing any of this. Talia looked up in interest.

“Papá found out I was hunting last week,” she said as quietly as possible.

He nodded. “Talia told me.”

“And now I can’t even go outside after dark. Since I can’t go hunting with you tonight, I was wondering if, well…” she trailed off, embarrassed.

He smirked humorlessly. “You want to hunt now.”

“Well… yeah.”

“Not a chance.” He turned from her and walked over to pick up his jacket.

Aleda ran to catch him. “Wait!” she called, too loudly for her own comfort. “Why not?”

Ryan caught her by the arms and pulled her back to the wall, dropping his voice to a harsh whisper. “Do you really think I want to take you into the middle of a nest?” he demanded. “This isn’t some silly suburban strip mall. You’d be out in the middle of nowhere and I’m sorry to say this, but I can’t distract a dozen demons at the same bloody time!”

“Hey!” she protested. “I can handle myself! Or is all this training as useless as it feels right now?”

He let out a frustrated growl. “You’re learning, aye, but you’re not a hunter. You’re like to be killed!”

“Typical,” Aleda spat. “You’re just as bad as Papá. Can’t let poor little Aleda out of the house or she’ll hurt herself.”

“What do you expect!” he retorted. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe he cares about you too much to put you in danger?”

Aleda stared at him for a long moment. His grip on her arms had tightened with his words, but the protest died in her throat. Her voice had fled. 

He looked down, broke the trance. A moment later he released her. Dropped his hands back to his sides. Aleda wrapped her arms around her stomach self-consciously. Watched him walk back to his leather jacket and pull it on. He looked back at her one last time before disappearing up the stairs. Talia followed, shooting her a sympathetic glance. Then they were gone.

She would not be hunting.

…It was exactly what she had wanted.

 

 

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Talia jogged after her brother to her car. “Ryan! Hey, Big Brother, don’t you think we should at least cons–”

“I’m not taking her into that mess,” he growled. He climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the car door. Talia ducked in on the other side and turned the ignition.

“Yeah,” she said.  “But…”

“Don’t you have to get to work?”

 

 

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Aleda picked the training claws up off the hard concrete and dropped them in the corner with the rest of the other assorted crap they stored down in the basement. She walked up the stairs with a sigh, and flicked off the lightswitch at the top. Mom looked up from her sheet music when she emerged.

“Aren’t you going out with Talia today, honey?” she asked.

“He had better things to do.”

 

 

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“There you are! Find a new nest?”

“Still working on the last one.”

“Four days? You usually clear these in one!”

“It’s taking me longer this time.”

“Tsk. I never thought I’d see the day.”

Ryan barely grunted in response. Didn’t deserve a proper response. He closed his bedroom door and dropped onto his bed. He stared at the ceiling a few minutes, then rolled over and dug out the bits of wood from under his mattress. He grabbed his trashcan, too, pulling it over from where it normally sat next to his bed and putting it directly in front of him. Grabbing one of the rougher pieces of wood out of his pile, he checked it over and carefully began slicing it down with his claws.

 

 

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Aleda threw the textbook across the floor in disgust. She couldn’t concentrate on this rubbish. It was all useless anyway. Nobody cared what the cosine of 4x was. Nobody ever needed to know what the fekking cosine of 4x was. She leaned back against her bed and rubbed her eyes. She had been staring at math problems for over an hour. There was nothing else to do. She had tried watching television for a little while, earlier. It hadn’t worked. She had started flipping channels trying to find something to watch and had landed on an episode of Passions. That was about when she had gone upstairs to work on homework.

That had been her entire week.

School. Home. Sit out on the back deck because she could, until sunset, then inside for dinner and homework. Go to bed early because, again, she frankly didn’t have anything better to do.

At least the week was over.

Just a few more months of the same to look forward to, now.

She looked up at the clock on her dresser. Nine-thirty. Well, that was close enough. She stood up and kicked the rest of her homework debris away from the bed. Once she had changed into her pajamas she dropped onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling, wishing she were tired enough to fall asleep.

 

 

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It was freezing outside. It was early, and it was freezing, and waiting out on the porch for somebody to answer the door was not the highlight of his day. He shifted his weight impatiently and ran a hand through his hair. Alejandro answered the door this time—his wife was already playing at that violin of hers, even at this early hour. For a moment it looked like Aleda hadn’t made it downstairs yet, but she walked out of the kitchen a second later with a half-empty mug of hot cocoa.

When she saw them, she turned and walked through the basement door without saying a word. Ryan followed, preparing himself for another few hours of tension and awkwardness. Hours of reminding himself that the harsher he was with her now, the better chance she’d have if something happened. Watching her get better and better at all the moves and tricks that he and his sister could think up to teach her, even while he could see the uncertainty still in her eyes.

It was hard. He wanted her to learn, and he wanted her to hunt as well as him or his sister, but the thought of her actually going out on her own to clear a nest put knots in his stomach.

None of it showed on his face. He was careful about that. Aleda had enough to worry about already. He concentrated on aiming for all the right places and not striking so hard she’d be hurt. He’d heal her if she was, of course. There was no doubt of that. But he would rather not have to.

He was running out of things to teach her.

For the last few weeks he’d just been running her through simulated fights, though he changed up their starting positions every so often and called it different things to convince her that he was showing her something new. But it was always the same. He would attack, she would dodge, and somebody would end up on the cold, hard concrete. Then they’d switch places and start again.

He moved them closer to the wall, with a vague thought of showing her how to use it as a prop. Show her how to use it as a defense, and as a platform to spring back from. There were things she wouldn’t be able to do until she was stronger, and until there was no ceiling overhead, but there were still some uses. He had her stand with her back to the wall. It reminded him of their Saturday-night hunts, and reminded him not for the first time that they had not gone out the week before.

He leapt at her, his hands reaching out to grasp at her throat. Barely a moment before he reached her she ducked and spun out of the way. His fingers slammed awkwardly into the concrete. Behind him, four pieces of wood pressed sharply into his back. If she were any stronger, he would have been pinned to the wall.

She pulled her hand away. He turned and grinned. He hadn’t even told her what to expect. All he got in return was briefly-narrowed eyes. He nodded imperceptibly to himself and told her to try it again.

He watched her from the corner of his eye.

She was mad at him again.

He had a pretty good idea why, this time. It was nothing new, though. In a way, it was almost comforting in its familiarity. All it meant was that the tension and awkwardness was accomplished in silence.

When they were finished for the morning he changed back into his regular clothes. She had shredded the shirt he had brought along for the training. He would have to go to the thrift store sometime in the next week and buy another one. A bundle of wood jabbed into his ribs when he put on his jacket. He had tucked them into an inside pocket before leaving the apartment that morning. Should have turned them around the other way. They were kind of sharp.

He turned to her after Talia walked upstairs.

“What are you doing for lunch?”

She stared at him incredulously. He waited. “Are you… Lunch? Seriously?” she asked. He nodded once. She threw up her hands. “Fine. Why not. It’s not like I have anything better to do on a Saturday.”

“Wait,” he said, “You’ll be needing these.” He picked up the training claws and handed them back to her. She took them with a groan and wrapped them together. He pulled the bundle of wood out of his jacket. “And these.”

Ten pieces of wood. Each about six inches long. One end notched and perforated, with just enough space to slide something through. All the rest was razor sharp.

“They ought to fit on those straps.”