Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Delgado handed her a bottle of mineral water. “Take a deep breath,” he said.
She gasped out a curse that would have made him smile if his heart hadn’t been pounding. “You’ll learn,” he continued. “You’ve just got to put some weight behind your punches, that’s all.”
Rowan took a long hit off the water bottle and looked up at him. “I’ve never… seen anyone… move that fast.” Her chest heaved.
“I’ve had a little more practice,” he said. “Good thing I caught you. I didn’t expect you to flinch. Sorry about that.”
When he’d told her combat training was necessary for operatives, she’d seemed a little less than enthusiastic. Their third session was going much as he’d expected—Rowan had never even been taught to punch a man properly.
The big underground dojo was full of people, some practicing on heavy bags, Jack Morris taking four of his team through a tae kwon do lesson in one half of the hall, others performing katas or practicing with partners, one operative from Blake’s old team going through some knife forms in a corner.
Delgado scanned the room again and looked down at Rowan, who was struggling to get her breath back.
His pulse thundered in his throat, but for an entirely different reason.
Christ, she’s completely helpless. His heart sank. How am I going to do this?
He’d taught plenty of green recruits, but never one that he wanted to protect so badly. “Wait until you’re ready.” Take your time. I’m not letting you go anywhere alone until I’m sure you can handle yourself, but that day might be a long time coming, angel.
She’d settled into a steady schedule of classes and shifts in the infirmary, training sessions with Ms. Kate and Henderson, and now workouts with Del. Jilssen was chomping at the bit to do some more tests, but Del had vetoed that.
She hadn’t reacted well to the first episode of being swabbed and measured, and the electrodes had turned her an interesting shade of white.
He’d cut the session short over Jilssen’s protests and gotten her out of there.
No amount of scientific advancement was worth setting back all the careful progress.
Rowan took another pull off the water bottle. Sweat gleamed on pale skin, her hair was yanked carelessly back in a ponytail, and the Spandex shorts and tank top clung to her. She seemed absolutely unconscious of the admiring looks she received from most of the men—and some of the women, too.
He noted who watched her and for how long, and noted as well those who looked hurriedly away when they saw him watching.
Rowan handed him the bottle. He took a pull, too, and then set it down. “Let’s try something else. Make a fist and mean it. Right hook, right here.” He held up his hand.
She balled up her fist and gave him a halfhearted punch, barely tapping his palm.
“You can do better. Hit me, Rowan!”
He startled her, his clipped yell slicing through the noise. She had drawn back her hand, and promptly jumped, punching him with hysterical strength. Then she stopped, as if horrified at herself. “Oh, God. I’m sor—”
“Do it again,” he barked, and she stared at him as if he’d grown another head. “Come on, little girl, hit me!”
“Don’t yell at me,” Rowan started, but he grinned and moved in on her. She didn’t like her personal space invaded and backed up involuntarily. He pressed forward, a spooky darting rush guaranteed to frighten.
Rowan let out a half-yelp and punched at his hand. Another solid strike. Delgado stopped. “Good,” he said, his tone softening. “Like that. See? Punch me like you mean it.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Pretend I’m a Sig, Rowan. You won’t hurt me.
” Besides, if you did, I wouldn’t mind. He flashed her a smile calculated to unsettle her—the smile that his eyes didn’t echo.
He moved into her personal space again, backing her up toward the wall.
“Come on, Rowan, hit me again. We’ve got to get you over this. ”
She wound up and hit him again, flinching right afterwards.
“Don’t flinch, Rowan. Hit me.”
“I can’t—”
“It’ll take time, but you’ve got to learn. You want to let Sigma get away with it? Huh? Do you?”
That made her angry, sure enough. Her eyes glittered, her lips thinning, and he thought privately that if she ever truly looked at him like that, his heart might stop.
She punched his open hand, another good solid strike.
Then something broke inside her, and she hit him again, her lips peeling back from her teeth.
Again, and again. She broke into a wild flurry of punches with both hands, tears blurring in her eyes.
She made a low hurt noise as she punched, a noise Delgado recognized from the attack on her house.
Bingo.
Finally. Come on, angel, take it out on me, get rid of it.
Rowan uttered a low, hoarse scream, her fists almost blurring. Delgado blocked the strikes with little effort, and waited until she wound down.
She finally stopped after one last punch, her head down and her ribs heaving with deep ragged breaths. Delgado glanced around the room.
Everyone was studiously avoiding looking at them. It wasn’t uncommon for people to go a little crazy during a sparring session, especially shell-shocked green recruits.
Delgado waited. Eventually Rowan’s breath evened out. She still looked at the floor, tears dripping off her chin. It took everything he had to stay still, to wait until she moved. The next move had to be hers.
Finally, she looked up, her chin trembling and her eyes huge and vulnerable. “Justin?” She sounded as if she’d just awakened from a nightmare, thready, uncertain.
“Rowan.” He couldn’t put all the longing he felt into that word. Couldn’t even begin. Be gentle with her now, Del. “Let’s hit the showers and get something to eat, what do you say?”
“I… I’m sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed you.” That was a lie. She’d needed that, would need more of it in the weeks ahead. The shell of shock and calm she’d been in wasn’t healthy anymore.
And she’d let her guard down with him. That thought warmed him clear through, even though it had been a foregone conclusion.
He was the only emotional contact she had here.
The only other person she might have conceivably broken down with was Henderson, and the old man had maintained a careful distance, waiting for Delgado’s clearance.
“I—” Tears welled up again.
Delgado moved a little closer. He hadn’t even broken a sweat, even though his heart was pounding wildly. He slid his arm cautiously over her shoulders. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”
She leaned into his body, her gaze dropping to the floor. Accepting his protection, though everybody in the dojo was politely ignoring whatever was happening between Delgado and his neophyte. It wasn’t so strange, after all—a society of psychic people were necessarily concerned about privacy.
He chose little-used hallways to get her back to his building, and they took the lift up to the third floor. Once inside the safe haven of his room, Rowan broke away from under his arm and bolted for the bathroom. The sound of running water from the shower did little to muffle her sobs.
It hurt to keep his distance, standing at the window and listening to her cry.
It was sheer torture, in fact, especially since he had been so careful, so gentle.
She was stubborn, determined not to break down, staving off all her grief with fierce pride.
The toughness she was so determined to display was one more thing to admire.
Just use some of those interrogation techniques you’re so proud of, Henderson’s voice snorted in his memory.
Delgado leaned his forehead against the window and looked down at the barren garden beneath its coat of winter gray.
The weather had turned ugly, snowstorms coming.
Some of the Society who had weather-sense were predicting heavy snows and an ice-storm, and everyone was uneasy.
Part of that uneasiness was the recent upswing in casualties.
Sigma was getting serious. It helped that Henderson had managed to get all the telem rigs fixed; the burr in the flux phasing had been responsible for a lot of Sigma’s tracking them down.
Things were holding steady, but everyone was still jittery.
And the other part of the uneasiness had to do with Rowan’s quiet, numb misery.
She was adjusting, true, but her grief was beginning to affect the whole complex.
Henderson had finally quietly asked Del to do something about it.
She refused point-blank to see any of the counselors; no amount of gentle cajoling or outright pleading would convince her. She only wanted to talk to him.
That was satisfying, but…
She turned the shower off, and he heard her moving around.
She hadn’t mentioned him sleeping on the chair again.
She hadn’t mentioned Sigma. But her nightmares were a twice-nightly occurrence now, with her waking up, shaking and sweating, and Delgado trying to calm her down, electric prickles racing over his skin.
It took a level of control he hadn’t been aware he possessed to keep himself at a distance.
He’d begun to pick up on her emotional state whenever she was in the same building, let alone the same room, and she was emitting high-level waves of distress that made even him tense.
She progressed quickly in her classes, but she was at a complete standstill otherwise.
So I’ve got to. He watched the garden below. I wanted to avoid this. That was a lie, too. He wanted her to come to him of her own free will. He didn’t want to manipulate her.
But something had to be done. And he was responsible.
“Justin?”
He turned away from the window. His breath had fogged a respectable patch of glass. “Hey.” Now it was time to push her a little, see how she reacted. “Better?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, all in one rush. “I just—”