Chapter 53 Zion #2
“Ahm… Hello? Are we not going to talk about what just transpired?” Jayla asked, chewing a golden baked good covered in sugar powder.
“Is no one really going to say anything? Because, I mean, come on! Gedeon just told us he would spank Zion. I need it to be on stage at Vice—it’d be the best show we’ve ever had. Nothing could beat that.
“And since when has this been happening? I thought Gedeon would never agree to it. He’s arrogant and likes his things obedient.
Well, I believed so in the beginning. Kali showed differently.
Can’t say I don’t enjoy watching her fight him because, let’s admit it, it’s freaking entertaining, but to see you”—she pointed her half-eaten croissant at me—“get nailed by Gedeon? Now that would be freaking amazing. I bet our profits would skyrocket, and we’d have a line outside from how many would want to see it.
You have to say yes. Oh, oh! I just realized. ”
She stuffed what remained of her pastry into her mouth and rushed to kneel in front of Kali. “We have to make sure it happens. Please, please, please! Let’s forget all about training for the next few days. I need this to come true. I’ll do anything. Just please say yes.”
“Have you finished your babbling?” My ears had begun to ache from Jayla’s incessant prattling. “Because I will put you down to train beside them. And I won’t go easy on you.” Maybe exercises would shut her up for the time being.
“Not in the slightest. I have too many things to say about this. And you like me, don’t deny it.
Life would be too boring without me.” She placed a hand on her chest and the sleeve of her green sweater peeked out from her red jacket covered in golden flakes.
“And no, there is no way I’m joining you.
Ava beat the shit out of me yesterday in group training.
I already dread getting back up.” Groaning, Jayla stood up and trudged back to the bench.
“My legs won’t keep me upright, but I have to somehow drag myself to Vice later tonight. And speaking about Vice—”
“Jayla, I swear I will put you through worse than Ava did if you don’t shut up,” I warned her. She was here for one reason alone and it was not to test my patience.
My knuckles lingered on Kali’s cheek, so soft and smooth. The moisture from her deep breaths tickling my skin was grounding, telling me she was here and not in the city.
“Fine, fine, don’t be an ass like Gedeon. I’ll be quiet.”
“She won’t be,” Kali murmured, her voice distorted from how her face was pressed to the dirty ground. “She never is.”
“You know it,” Jayla quipped. “That’s why you love me.”
Eislyn gave up the position I had put them in and sat up, cross-legged. “Why are you here, then?” she asked Jayla. “You should take a hot bath. It will loosen up your sore muscles. You’ll injure yourself from overworking.”
“Because I’m bored. And we have an overload of baked goods,” Jayla supplied.
We had to get Kali to eat somehow. And pastries always worked, especially filled with sweet cream.
“So Malaya and I decided to have an early lunch.” She took another flaky croissant from the lunch box that was carefully balanced against Malaya’s round stomach, her dark blue coat covered in sugar powder.
Kali had mentioned Malaya was about eight months along by now.
“Enough rest. We’re moving onto your glutes.” I indicated for Kali to roll. “On your back, arms at your sides, your knees bent.”
She blew a frustrated breath, but picked off the tiny rocks that had stuck to her cheek and did as she was told.
“Now lift your hips up, then your lower back, then your upper back. Like a wave. Then lower everything down in reverse,” I instructed. “Exhale when you go up, and inhale when you go down.”
Eislyn joined her, but with one leg raised straight and raised a few inches off the ground.
Kali groused, “How are you so good at this?”
“It took some time.” Eislyn switched her legs. “This is child’s play for me now.”
Refastening the button that had popped on her coat along her swollen belly, Malaya asked Kali, “Why didn’t you join the training groups? Jayla said Ava was teaching newcomers.”
“Because I don’t want them to pity me,” she gritted out. “They can spare their sympathy, for all I care.”
That was exactly the reason everyone was here.
Kali had seen something in Malaya to save her, so I’d gotten Jayla to convince her to come here together with Eislyn, so Kali could train surrounded by people who had or were recovering from their past lives.
Because once life had knocked you down to the bottom of your personal hellhole, you could try to claw your way out, but you were never going to be the same.
And I didn’t trust everyone who participated in group training. We had a rat among us, and I wasn’t chancing our luck. A small group with the prattling but harmless Jayla, heavily pregnant Malaya, and trustworthy Eislyn was working well enough, and I could monitor Kali’s progress myself.
“That’s enough,” I said, and passed a couple of steel bottles to her and Eislyn. “Drink some water while you take a break.”
Kali re-tied her high, messy bun to hide the loose strands, bringing my attention to the deep purple bruise marring her neck and the bluish ones dotting her upper arm, and unscrewed the bottle’s cap. “What happened?”
“What do you mean?” I scratched my chest harshly, savoring the tiny prickles shooting up my nerves. I had to do something to placate my boiling insides. The hues of her bruises had coaxed my fury to rise back to the surface. And pain had always steadied me. Only not necessarily mine.
“You’re different.” She lifted the hem of my dusty t-shirt she was wearing and wiped the sheen of sweat off her forehead. “Less insane. Calm.”
“Is it good?”
“It’s…unsettling.” Her eyebrows dipped into a deep vee. “What’s wrong? What did you do?”
“Someone.” I grinned and laughed at her groaning.
Kali didn’t know yet that it was because I’d finally gotten through to Gedeon, because she finally resembled herself today, and not the shell she’d been the last few days.
Things had changed. “Now stand up. We have five days to teach you the basics of balance training, or Gedeon will give us a different lesson.”