Chapter 11 Spencer
“Don’t fucking start with me,” I say, not even bothering to break on my set at the bench to look and see who it is. I’m almost positive it’s Rick since he didn’t come down yelling. Either way, I’m not in the mood for him or Zander at the moment.
Nothing else is said, but the sound of fists on the heavy bag a few minutes later lets me know it is, in fact, Rick.
He’s usually pretty good about leaving us be, so I go back to my set and let him do whatever he wants.
I move from the bench to the treadmill and then to the free weights, not paying attention to the time, just trying to work through my frustration.
I don’t trust Jade; I can’t. We know next to nothing about her, and what we do know, while tragic, also points to her being dangerous.
She’s been here for less than twenty-four hours, and while she seems harmless enough to us, I can’t shake the feeling that she’s hiding things from us.
Again, she’s been here less than a day, so of course, she is, but I still can’t shake the unease.
That’s not what’s frustrating me, though.
No, the frustrating part is that, trust or not, I still want to protect her.
Some part of me wants to look out for her.
The girl who can drop bodies, but couldn’t make an egg.
Who gave up a chance of freedom to keep others safe. She’s like a walking contradiction.
She already has Zander wrapped around her little finger.
Which isn’t crazy, considering what a flirt he is, but this feels different.
I don’t think she will be a passing thing for him.
Even Rick seems different with her. He’s not as closed off as usual, and in all my years of knowing him, I’ve never seen him open up to a girl.
Sure, he has girls around, but never in his home, never in our business, and while he might not have chosen for her to be here, he no longer seems to be fighting against it either.
Since Froggie’s orders are to keep her safe and watched, I can hide behind that and brush it off, but I know, and it’s confusing as fuck and honestly just annoying. But, like it or not, Jade will be around for a while, and I can’t do a damn thing about it.
I’m mid-set on the free weights when the stairs creak above us, pulling my attention to the doorway.
Rick’s no longer at the bag, but he sits up from his spot on the bench to look as well.
I didn’t even realize how quiet it was in here until now.
Usually, we work out with the sound system, but I was too deep in thought to bother when I came in, and it seems Rick didn’t bother either.
No more than a minute later, Zander comes through the doorway.
I expect him to come in still upset. Hell, I half expect him to come in swinging at me. He’s not one to get mad with us often, but he sure can hold onto it when he does. I know he sees my unease with Jade, and it’s just a matter of time before we end up trading blows about it.
When I see the smile on his face as he comes through the doorway, I’m almost sure he’s lost his mind. I see Rick’s eyebrow climb in confusion as he watches him from across the room as well.
It only takes a moment before it makes sense, though.
As he moves farther into the gym, I see he’s towing Jade behind him.
Their fingers intertwined, a small smile on both of their faces.
It’s easy to miss her with how small she is.
Even behind Zander, who’s the smallest of the three of us, she seems tiny.
Everything about her screams that she needs protection, yet according to Kratos's information, she could be the biggest threat in the room.
Talk about a mind fuck.
He passes all the equipment and pulls her right to the center of the mats in the far corner, not once looking at Rick or me as he goes. Jade, on the other hand, looks around at everything. I’m not sure if it’s out of curiosity or survival instinct, maybe both?
“All right, Doll, show me what you got,” Zander tells her, coming to a stop and turning to face her. Rick and I have all but abandoned our workouts in favor of watching them, but neither of us moves to go to them. Jade looks at me and then Rick before her eyes settle back on Zander.
“You want me to attack you?” she asks, and her words hint at humor as if she thinks the idea is ridiculous. I hate to admit it, but she’s right; it does seem ridiculous.
She stands perfectly still in front of him. His back is to us, so I can’t see his face, but I’m almost positive he's about to burst. Zander is easily excitable, and the thought of his new infatuation being a badass probably has him ready to bust a nut and shriek like a schoolgirl simultaneously.
He gives her a nod, and that’s all it takes.
In the moments that follow, a lot of things happen and if I weren’t paying such close attention, I probably would have missed most of them.
Jade’s posture shifts as she drops into a fighting stance, her smile melts away, and the look in her eye is so intense the only way I can describe it is murderous.
But that’s where my ability to track her movements ends.
Suddenly, she’s on him.
He’s flat on his stomach, face down on the mat, with his arm bent back behind him.
She straddles his hips from behind, holding him down.
Her other hand is on the back of his head, holding his head down to the mat.
He wiggles a bit but can’t seem to move, and after a second, he goes from playfully trying to putting in a real effort, and he still gets nowhere.
As quickly as it started, she releases him, sitting back on her heels next to him on the mat. Her eyes refocus, and while she no longer looks like she’s going to kill him, her smile doesn’t return.
He rolls over onto his back as soon as she releases him, and I swear, he’s got hearts in his eyes as he looks up at her. I can hardly hold back the groan that threatens to escape because, of course, Zander is excited by this instead of worried about the possibility that she could kill him.
I look at Rick, and as if he can feel my eyes on him, he looks over at me, his brows pinched in thought. At least he seems to understand what this could mean for us. He stands from the bench and walks over to the mat, and I decide to follow him.
“What are you trained in?” he asks, stopping at the edge of the mat. She turns to look at him before looking down at her hands, now resting on her legs in fists.
“Just about anything I could get my hands on.” Her voice comes out low, but it’s easy to hear with how quiet the room is.
“Alright.” Rick nods before walking over to the long row of metal cabinets on the back wall behind the mats.
He throws each door open as he walks the length of them, revealing weapon after weapon as he goes.
We have a vast collection, from knives to swords, nunchucks to Bo staff.
Most of these things we train with and at least one of us can use, though we each have our strong suits, and there are a few things we just never got the hang of.
Although this collection is smaller than the one at our house, Rick has been collecting since we were teenagers. It was one of the few things he and his father both got into. His parents just weren’t aware that we’re able to use most of them.
Jade tracks his movement as he walks the wall, and I watch her. With each cabinet that opens, her eyes grow wider until I feel like they might actually fall out of her head. Finally, when he gets to the end, he stops and turns back to face her.
“What can you use?” He asks her as he gestures back to all the weapons now on display.
And while I know what he’s doing is necessary, clever even, I can’t shake how uncomfortable it makes me.
Yes, we need to know what she can do, and yes, it’s best to have all the information, but we just gave a potential threat access to just about every weapon we own. It’s like a psychopath's wet dream.
She takes a moment to rake her eyes over all the cabinets again before she briefly looks at each of us.
“I could kill someone with just about anything,” she says before she pushes to stand in a fluid motion that makes her seem more like a dancer than a girl who was sold for sex all her life.
I guess when you have to survive, you learn to be whatever you need to be, and I’m sure she can adapt to most situations.
She walks past the first three cabinets, which contain all of our hand-to-hand combat weapons, and stops in front of the gun cabinet.
“I can use everything but these.”
Everyone is quiet for a moment as we let that sink in.
“You can use all of those?”
“You can’t shoot a gun?”
Zander and I speak at the same time. Both questions are valid, but I still glare at him because who cares if she can’t shoot a gun when she can use every other weapon? If Zander feels me trying to burn a hole in his head, he doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he stays focused on Jade.
“It’s not exactly like people let you have a gun when they purchase you,” she says it like a joke, but as I turn my attention back to her, I see the simmer of anger just below the surface.
“I get the idea of a gun, point and shoot. I’ve just never done it.
As for the rest of these, I have used something close to each, so I imagine using the actual weapon wouldn’t be so different.
” She goes to the first cabinet and pulls out a Bo staff, spinning it around in her hand like it’s nothing special.
I keep myself where I am as I watch her, even though my body screams at me that this is dangerous.
“This isn’t so different from the broomstick I trained with.” She tests the weight in her hand before swinging it around her body a few times.
She puts it back and steps away from the case, and my shoulders sag in relief. Her eyes dart over to me, and I know she caught it. Her face falls as she turns back to face Rick and Zander by the cabinets.