Chapter 13 #4
For a second, Tam actually looked bothered – like he'd been concerned about me, which was stupid; I'd messaged him to explain and promised I'd be back as soon as I could walk for long enough to come down here – but then the expression relaxed into his customary smile.
"Always happy to have new clients. I'll put a plan together, send it along through you, and your prince can get in touch to settle up.
" And then he trailed off, looking at me thoughtfully.
"And I do want to talk about that little incident you had in the alley. "
Great. I didn't. "I'm sure Elethenn can tell you all about it," I said. "I'd rather hit things."
"Oh, he'd rather hit things," Tam drawled. "Then why don't we start you warming up while we talk? You told me you don't have long today. Don't want to waste time by standing around being pouty. Hit up the holo simulator. I'll get your friend started."
I shrugged my bag off my shoulder, tossing my sweater aside and jogging to the centre of the ring where he'd set up the usual holographic projector.
Dreyko had been fiddling with the settings when I'd come in using Tam's clunky old wristband.
"Tamcer," he sniped, jabbing a bony finger at the flickering display, "the lag on your band is awful.
You have celebrity client credits now. There's no excuse! "
Across the space, Tam scoffed. "It still works. And my celebrity client is leaving the station soon, so unless he wants to cut a sponsorship deal..."
I tossed him a look over my shoulder. "I'm sure my ketaari manager will tell you that you can't afford me," I said in my driest tone, and Tam laughed, pleased and grinning that massive fucking smile of his.
"Ah, there we fucking go," said Dreyko as the holo trilled a promising little song. "I set it the way you like. All glitter, all the time."
I did like that mode, because it made the grind of working through the series of targets less miserable.
In this mode, each time I landed a hit, the target exploded in a satisfying burst of shimmering light, like confetti, and another one would appear.
"If you ever decide to head out on your own," I said, a little irritated for a reason I couldn't quite put my finger on although it had something to do with Tam, "you tell me. You understand me."
He laughed and headed off, leaving me to warm up.
I settled in, jabbing at the targets as they slowly expanded the area over which they'd appear so that I had to keep my peripheral awareness up and my response time tight.
Beneath the shimmery sounds of targets exploding, I could hear Tam rumbling to Elethenn, although I couldn't make out any words.
Out of the corner of my eye, though, I saw Elethenn move into one corner with a full-weight bag and sink into a series of patient strikes.
Tam stood off to the side, speaking almost conversationally, his head tilted in interest.
The holograph buzzed at me in irritation. I'd missed a target and it had blinked out before I had the chance to strike.
"Get your head out of your ass, Sashen," Tam barked, and with a jolt I recentered myself, and Tam pushed himself off the wall and came over to stand by me.
"So," he said, after watching me for a few moments and using his tail to poke at my legs until I shifted into a better position, "you got jumped. "
I guess we were going to talk about it. "A sephear and a paledrian." I jabbed at a target in the upper left quadrant and it shimmered in the air, vanishing. "Trapped me in an alley in the Graves."
"When you're done warming up, we're going to go through that fight, beat by beat," Tam said conversationally. Then, in that same easy tone, "I heard you killed one of them."
I missed my hit, twisting off balance before I jerked myself upright again. "You heard that? We – I didn't think any media sources had picked it up, not outside of Xitera." Hearing him say the words so plainly made my stomach clench, breakfast suddenly sour in my gut.
"I tend to catch wind of things that shake down in Radiant Ward," said Tam, seemingly unbothered.
"Especially if they involve my client. Especially if they involve my client killing someone in a fight.
The fact that it isn't a tabloid headline yet is good, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that staying true, kid.
I don't care how many palms your prince greases.
Some people – idiots, mostly – tell me you're famous and famous sells. But it's true, huh?"
My mouth was dry. I shook my fists, hard, settling back into a ready position.
"Yeah, Tam, it's true. I killed someone.
" The words tasted like ash in my mouth.
Tam prodded the machine and the targets began to appear in different colours: the darker the colour, the harder I had to strike to make them vanish.
The lighter ones needed a gentler touch.
It was all about control, which I didn't fucking have.
The next words punched out of me, hoarse, raw. "I – I caved their fucking face in."
Tam hit the machine again so that the sequence sped up. "First time you killed anyone?"
I didn't say anything, sweat beading the back of my neck as I struck ferociously at the targets, my elbow throbbing as I threw a particularly hard hit with my right fist.
"Probably is. You prefer kissing to killing, I hear." I didn't even bother glaring at him. "First one's a bastard. Did you mean to?"
I felt my face spasm, and I missed my next hit. Had I meant to? Had I intended to kill the sephear when I kicked them, after I'd had them down on the ground?
Or had something inside of me taken over?
"I don't know," I gasped out, lurching back. I'd missed five or six targets in a row. I swiped at my hair, shoving it off my forehead. "Maybe? But I also –"
"Get back in it. Lock in, Sashen," Tam said, moving to stand behind me as he paused the simulation. He shoved me forward a little, forced me into position, and then tapped the simulation back on, and I tried to shove everything else from my mind.
I coiled the muscles of my shoulder, striking fast and hard. Quick bursts of energy, carefully calibrated. Dark target, hard hit. Pivot, light target, softer strike. Twist, turn, evaluate, jab.
Behind me, Tam grunted as I blasted through another rapid sequence of targets. "Good," he said. "One more round."
I could do that. There was respite here, and I fucking needed it.
I hit the holographic targets, one after the other, until I couldn't think of anything but the shimmer of light, the heaving of my chest, the rapid thundering of my pulse.
And then, when the final target exploded in a shower of blue sparks, I sank down to a crouch, gasping for breath, my head tipped forward to my knees.
And the thought uncoiled from deep in the back of my mind where it had been growing in the shadows: I hadn't thought I wanted to kill the sephear, but I'd come here to learn to do just that.
Maybe I had wanted to. Maybe I'd needed to, to show myself I could.
To make myself feel strong, capable. Deadly.
What kind of person had to kill someone to feel safe?
My breaths tightened, and then I was wheezing, crouched on the cold gym floor, overcome by crashing waves of hot and cold.
"It's alright," Tam said from behind me. "You did what you had to do."
"I didn't have to," I heaved.
"Sure you did. Who knows what they would have done next? It's better to hurt someone who's out for blood than stand around and wonder if they might go easy on you." And then, "They were probably a dick anyway."
In terms of words of comfort and reassurance, they were pretty shit – and yet they seemed to work anyway. I rocked back, sprawling out on my back and staring up at the ceiling overhead as Tam peered down at me, his hands on his hips.
"I don't fucking know, Tam," I said, really making myself feel how my lungs expanded beneath my ribs. Allowing the heat of exertion to flush my skin, almost like a warm bath. "I just – I lost control. It was like I wasn't even there. It was like I got possessed."
Tam studied me, his body towering above mine.
"That can happen," he said slowly. "It's like – that time you couldn't move, right?
This is the other side, and trust me: it's better to split your knuckles without realizing than to have someone split your skull because you're not at home.
It's alright. It's good. You're making progress. "
"Yeah but –" I stopped, licking my lips, still sprawled out on the floor.
It felt solid and certain beneath me, which was good: nothing else did, not really.
"What if I just – snap? What if it happens when it shouldn't?
" I couldn't bring myself to say that there was something in me that must be wicked, something dark and dangerous and I was terrified that, now that it had been let out once, it might have grown a taste for freedom.
"There's an old gaanith saying," said Tam, blinking down at me as his spiny ears flared behind his head, haloing his silhouette like the fins of a fish, "that if you get trampled by a fairin, you've got to get right back in the killing pen.
If you don't, the fear will keep you from the pens forever. "
I blinked up at him. "Huh." Was this a getting back on the horse situation? "And what does that mean?"
"It means you can't let yourself get scared now. We've got to keep at it. We've got, what, a few weeks left? We'll keep training. The more you train, the more you're in control – but if you let the fear keep you out of the pens, then who knows what'll get trampled."
It didn't make much sense to me, but Tam seemed to know a lot more about it than I did.
And what was the alternative – become pliant and passive if someone came for me again?
And did it really matter if I lost control a little when I was being attacked?
Didn't anyone who attacked me deserve whatever came their way?