Chapter 24
Fuck, he’s going to murder me.
In cold blood, just as I was so close to making rank and getting my own mobile weapon, I was about to have my life snuffed out, because I threw a fire bomb into a barrel of warheads.
Thanks for the great advice, Breaker. I hate it.
It was fine. This was all going to be fine. I’d been sparring with Sebastian of all people. There was no way Elio was faster and more skilled than Sebastian when he was ranked below him, right? And with all those muscles, he was probably way slower, too.
This was what I told myself as I entered the split second between his first move and his fist connecting hard against my cheek.
Scratch that—he was not only exceptionally fast on his feet, but he hit with the force of a comet exploding on the hull of a space station.
I stumbled to the side from the sheer momentum of the blow, taking a knee to stop myself from completely toppling to the floor. My entire world warped, and I took a three count before I knew who I was again.
Holy fuck.
I wanted to say I’d been on this mat for long enough to take a single punch, but Elio hit to kill. I told myself I was going to ignore the searing pain—the power of manifestation was clearly a lie, for the record— and it was with foolhardy resolve that I forced myself back up to my feet.
“Come on, that was only one hit,” he said, while letting me have a moment to recover. He looked rather impatient for the person who literally just put me in this position. “I know you’ve got more in you than that.”
Wow, a vote of confidence from the guy who took me to a secluded mat to kill me. What a fucking compliment.
“That was the only time you’re going to catch me, so I’m trying to let you enjoy the show.
” I squared up again. The only thing that would have been dumber than actively provoking him would be to let the wolf know I was completely and utterly terrified of him.
I wouldn’t say that counted as a strategy, but it felt better than rolling over and sobbing.
This wasn’t the first time I’d had to face off against someone bigger and stronger than I was, but back then, we were just kids, and I had Vann with me as back up.
The strength differential wasn’t nearly as extreme and none of the other kids were any more trained to fight than I was.
I had ways to get around sloppy guards, but they were chaotic at best, and nothing about his defenses were sloppy.
I couldn’t depend on using my environment to my advantage, nor could I use the element of surprise after having just shown him half the cards in my hand in the simulator.
I’d just have to figure it out as we fought.
No big deal. If I didn’t make bad decisions, I wouldn’t make any decisions at all.
This time, he let me come to him, and I used everything I’d learned to try and get around his defenses while predicting his offenses. I didn’t know if I was guessing right, or if he was letting me move in on him, but I didn’t have the time to second guess myself and ponder on his intentions.
I dodged his next swing, then I cut in, and took the only opening I’d seen to throw a punch of my own.
Elio caught my fist like it was nothing, then with a near untraceable sleight of hand, he shifted his grip to my wrist and pulled me in close before slamming his knuckles into my other cheek.
The metallic taste of my own blood exploded in my mouth at the same time I hit the floor with a loud, violent thud.
My vision blurred then reset, and stars speckled in the wave of darkness, this time more nauseating and disorienting than the last. His fingers were in my hair, and I was hoisted back to my feet before I was able to get my body to listen to me again.
Elio dug his fingertips harshly into my scalp, then he tossed me to the side without effort, and I hit the mat again, shoulder first with the impact reverberating up through my muscles and bones.
Blackness was pulsating through my scrambled vision as Elio stood over me, a swirl of both disappointment and satisfaction painting his fiery eyes. His tall and muscular body cast a shadow over my small frame, truly taking on the form of a demon who blotted out the sun.
I tucked into fetal position, my hands protecting my head, scared and vulnerable and still reeling from the aftermath of a concussion. I needed to come up with a strategy, but I couldn’t think of any way to take down a monster in this scenario.
“That can’t be all you’ve got.” He scoffed down at me with a tinge of annoyance. “Get up. Show me those moves you’re so proud of.”
Against my better judgment, I obliged. I blinked through my slow-to-focus vision, and leveraged myself onto my hands and knees, that wobbled under me as I shifted my weight around aimlessly looking for a sense of balance.
I waited until the world stopped spinning, then I spit my blood onto the floor in a heap of mucus, saliva, and self-destruction.
I stared at the oozing red glob on the mat until the glossy sheen appeared in steady focus.
I caught my breath through a wet cough, then I lifted myself back to my feet.
I must have had a death wish, because the first thing I did upon righting myself was take position back into my fighting stance.
“You hit like a girl,” I said mockingly, because I found myself so hilariously ironic in this post head injury haze, apparently. That mess of blood oozed down my chin and dripped stains onto the blue mat below.
Buckling was what he wanted me to do, and I wasn’t going to do anything he wanted me to.
That was probably also the concussion talking.
Elio smirked. “I’m trying not to kill you. What can I say?”
He initiated our next scuffle, and this time I recognized the way his weight shifted on his heels. He had none of Sebastian’s sophisticated refinement, yet he was precise in a way that was deadly instead of disabling.
I juked to the side in anticipation, managing to narrowly miss a hard, fast punch.
He came for me again, and I dodged again, high, low, a sweep of the legs, and a swing of a fist. I found his rhythm, and with the desperate desire to survive, I focused on nothing but dodging and evading every blow.
The longer I managed to play keep-away, the more clearly I could see a shift in both his movements and his expression.
I couldn’t say if it was anger, hatred, frustration, amusement, or some combination of all those things, but I was definitely getting under his skin.
If I could just wear him out and get him so wound up that he could no longer think clearly, I might just stand a chance.
Maybe I wasn’t the strongest person here, but I’d be damned if I didn’t have endurance that could rival or exceed any man’s.
On nimble feet, I dipped beneath another jab, then swayed to miss a downward strike. I was keeping up now. I didn’t see any way to fight back, but I wasn’t taking any hits myself either. I could do this. Eventually he’d back off.
This was just a sparring match.
The thought entered my mind at the same time I miscalculated his next move, and my attempt to recalibrate wasn’t fast enough to avoid the downward slam of his elbow into my shoulder, sending me straight to the ground again. I started to get up, but a hard kick to my ribs sent me tumbling away.
I heard a scream, and it took several seconds before I realized that was me.
Fuck, that hurt.
I gripped my side, as I struggled to breathe through what was either bruised or broken ribs. I didn’t have the time to assess my injuries properly as he paced over to my side.
“Get up.” He demanded for the third time, the words colder than deep space.
I sucked air into my lungs through my mouth, having too much blood clogging my sinuses to breathe easily. Then slowly, despite knowing I didn’t stand a chance, I struggled, I stumbled, and I forced myself upright again.
Elio cocked his head back, but at six-foot-four, he didn’t need to in order to look down on me.
“Now fight back. Stop dodging, and fucking hit me. You beat me in a simulation, so show me what you can do when it’s real.
” His order read like a threat, but they always did.
Words meant nothing to me right now. “You can’t be this pathetic. ”
I responded by spitting more blood onto the mat, and wet heaving through the dagger-like pain of what I was now confident were broken ribs. I’m sure I looked very intimidating.
What a fucking mess.
In this world, outside of the safety of VR, he would always be physically stronger than me.
That was just a fact of life. In all my belief in myself—all of the “I can, too” and “I’m just as good as any man” thoughts and feelings—reality was that even if I could outperform some men physically, I was never going to outperform this one.
I could work harder than everyone on the field, and I’d still be lucky to not be last. Point for point, even if I did everything he did, training, fueling myself, lifting weights—my capacity for strength had a biological limit that couldn’t touch his, and I would always resent that.