Chapter Twenty #4
The hours had passed in our old bed, and I’d found myself more comfortable than I had been in months, falling asleep easily to Charlie’s scent that was written into the pillows.
Everything— the old bed, the soft sheets— felt so comforting.
It felt good to be back here, though I was still wary of this being the place I was meant to be.
In the morning, I checked on the progress of the Firebirds before I decided to do some training myself.
I headed down to the arena, picking up my bow to fire off some shots.
I’d kept that too because it wasn’t technically mine.
It was my grandpa’s, and belonged to my dad. I was just using it for now.
The arrow hit the bullseye. It was the only perfect shot I’d managed to make all day, but at least I was making progress. I laid the bow on a nearby table, moving to wrench the arrows out of the target so I could try again.
Daddy had promised to teach me archery as often as he could, but I still wanted the extra practice. The door to the training room creaked open, and I heard Oberi bark as he ran across the area, wagging his tail as he came to me.
“Hey, boy.” I scratched his ears. “What are you doing here?”
The answer came when Charlie entered. He heard my voice and stiffened. “I’m sorry. I can come back—”
“Don’t leave,” I said. “I’m just practicing archery. The arena’s big enough for the two of us.” Please let that be true.
“I just wanted a quiet place to think. The hospital’s really loud today, and Casey needs to rest.” He crossed his arms.
“How’s he doing?” I questioned, wondering why I was asking.
“Great. He’s gotten a lot bigger.” There was no accusation or resentment in Charlie’s tone. He didn’t blame me for not being around for Casey.
I blamed myself. I’d abandoned him.
I pushed Casey out of my mind, because I couldn’t stand to think about him lying alone in that incubator all by himself, and went to nock another arrow.
“You’re really invested in archery,” Charlie said, coming closer. Not close enough for us to touch, but certainly closer than we’d been since I’d given birth.
“I’m trying to find a way to fight,” I offered. “This is the one way I know how.”
“You’re not safe if you’re in a fight. You should stay out of whatever happens,” Charlie said.
“But I don’t want to sit back and stay out of it. I want to do everything I can to help the people I care about.” I blew out a breath. “Besides. I don’t want to be a sitting duck when the Warden comes for me. Might as well learn how to do something, even if it doesn’t work.”
Charlie let my words settle into him before he offered, “I can teach you.”
“Huh?” My head jerked to the side. “Teach me what?”
“How to fight.”
I stared, then gave a small laugh. “I’m not going to be winning boxing matches anytime soon.”
“Basic self-defense is good for everybody to learn. I can at least teach you that much.”
The moment was crystallized as I carefully said, “You don’t have to do that.”
Charlie shook his head. “I took away your ability to defend yourself, so I should help you get back that ability in whatever way I can. You deserve to feel safe at all times.”
I didn’t know what my dad had told Charlie when he’d been climbing that mountain, but I felt he’d come back a changed man. Did my dad rough him up or something? Or did something big happen to change his point of view?
“Um… okay.” I felt the stupid, dead butterflies in my gut begin to flutter again, lightly lifting their wings. “We can try.”
The door to the arena opened again, and Chancey stood awkwardly in the gap. “Oh, shit. You two are here.”
“That’s a greeting,” I teased, though I wasn’t sure if I should. Very few of our friends… or, former friends… were on great terms with either of us.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just came by to lift some weights.” Chancey wandered over, though cautiously. “Whatcha working on?”
“Charlie wants to teach me self-defense,” I offered, though it sounded ridiculous to say out loud.
“Just the basics. Only what I think she can reasonably do,” Charlie explained. “I want to adjust the techniques so they can accommodate her. Though it might be a bit of a challenge.”
“If you’re teaching her how to fight, I want in,” Chancey offered. “You’re gonna need help adjusting things to suit her.”
“You sure?” The edge of hope in Charlie’s voice was heartbreaking to hear. He’d missed Chancey, too— terribly.
“Yeah, man. I ain’t doing anything important.” Chancey gave a grimace Charlie wouldn’t see, though his eyes watered.
I was pretty sure this was the first time they’d spent time together since everything had happened. Charlie and I weren’t the only ones who were making progress.
“But how can I defend myself if everyone is stronger than me, and I can’t walk on top of it?” I asked. “It’s not like I can win in a fist fight. I’m physically weaker and smaller than most people.”
“It’s not about who’s stronger. I’ve beaten the crap out of a lot of guys who were stronger than me, because I knew what to do,” Charlie said.
“He’s right,” Chancey offered. “I’m an angel, and I’m stronger than Charlie, but when we get in scraps he’ll kick my ass any day of the week, because he knows how to fight well. It’s about using your opponent’s weaknesses against them.”
“I’m still in a wheelchair. That puts me at a disadvantage,” I pointed out. “I can’t run away, so I have to incapacitate my enemies or kill them to stay safe.”
“You’re thinking in black-and-white terms, considering a fight winning or losing,” Charlie objected.
“When you’re struggling to survive, it doesn’t matter who wins.
All that matters is getting through to the next moment, and buying yourself one more minute.
The longer you stay alive, the greater chance you have of someone coming along to help.
It doesn’t matter if you come out on top.
What matters is you keep fighting long enough to stay breathing.
Even if it’s just one more second, you keep buying yourself another shot at life. ”
I supposed if I didn’t have my powers now, learning this stuff would at least keep me alive. Magic or not, some dipshit was always trying to kill me.
“Sometimes, if you put up a struggle, the guy going for ya will consider you too much work, and leave you be,” Chancey put in. “Bad guys like easy targets, not ones that fight back.”
“But… I didn’t always fight back every time.” Dark memories flooded my mind, and though I tried to push them down, they rose up like a crashing wave. “I had to let John do whatever he wanted just to stay alive.”
Oberi gave a low whimper. I reached out to pat his head, and he licked my hand.
“Not every situation is going to be the same,” Charlie said. “You did the right thing back then by not fighting back, because if you had tried, he might have killed you.”
“Exactly. Fawning might’ve been the best thing to do in that situation. The point is to live on to fight another day, in whatever way you can,” Chancey said.
“But the next fight that comes along might be different, so you’ll have to pick a different strategy.
There’s always another guy, Ava,” Charlie added.
“You get rid of one, another’s waiting there to take his place.
You have to promise yourself no matter what it takes, you’re going to outlive the guy trying to harm you, even if it means others get hurt. ”
“Or if it means you get hurt in a way less than what he’s trying to do to you,” Chancey added.
I nodded. “Okay. So what can I do to defend myself?”
“The goal is always to de-escalate and escape. You wound them badly enough so you can get away, if possible,” Charlie started. He moved closer. He took one of my arrows and said, “If someone gets close to you, you take one of your arrows and hit them here and here.”
Charlie pointed to the artery in his neck, then his eyes. “The throat is always your best choice. Eyes are a close second. They can’t see you, they can’t follow.”
“It’s going to be hard for me to reach their face if I’m sitting down,” I argued.
“Then go for the gut. Either here between the ribs”— Charlie lifted up his shirt to show me— “or a gut wound. You fuck up an internal organ, they’re bleeding out and not getting back up. If all else fails, you stab at the groin. You cut a man’s balls off, he’s not coming after you.”
“Other good points are the nose and the ears,” Chancey added. “It’s hard to give chase if your nose is broken or your head’s spinning because your eardrums got busted.”
“Try it on me.” Charlie placed the arrow in my fingers, then clasped his warm hand over mine. My heartbeat thrummed as he slowly moved the point to a place between his ribs, then to a soft spot on his side close to his liver.
“That’s what you’re aiming for.” He knelt down, raising my hand so I was pressing the tip of the arrow against the artery in his throat. “You don’t have to apply much pressure for this to burst. You slash this, you kill me. You could end my life right now without even trying.”
His vein pulsed against the arrowhead. I swallowed and said, “They could knock the weapon out of my hand, or take it away. And if they’ve got supernatural strength, like an angel or a vampire, I’m done for.”
“Angels and vampires still have weaknesses, like everyone does.” Chancey extended his arm, showing me his wrist. “You put pressure onto these points and twist, they’re gonna drop whatever they have. Try it on me.”
Charlie handed Chancey the arrow. He swung it slowly at me to demonstrate. I grasped his wrist and twisted it, pushing pressure onto the points he’d shown me. He gasped in pain then dropped the arrow, rubbing his wrist. “Damn. Little sloppy, but you learn quick.”
“So I stab them, and the threat’s neutralized?” I asked.