shock and disgust.
Instantly, she reached for her hair thinking it couldn’t look that bad since she’d pulled most of it into a ponytail. There were just a few loose curls around her face, but surely it wasn’t disgusting.
“Wait over there and say nothing,” Quinlan said, pointing to the wall closest to the door.
“She’s just a kid…” The man tried again, but stopped when Quinlan glared at him for a prolonged moment.
“Hey, pal,” Sabrina fired back. “I’m going to be eighteen in a few weeks. Cool it with the ‘kid’ talk.”
She couldn’t imagine why her age was giving the guy fits. Maybe he couldn’t imagine someone of her size taking on an opponent like Quinlan. But that was the beauty of the foo. If executed properly, it lessened the impact of size as a factor in fighting, giving smaller, quicker opponents a decent chance. Granted, Quinlan was probably equally skilled in the art. He’d been doing it for way longer than she had, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t hold her own.
Sabrina made a mental note to point out the fact-exactly how long he’d been doing it-as soon as she had him on his butt. It would be both a skill and an age jab.
Dressed in his typical workout outfit-dark loose cotton pants and a dark T-shirt-Quinlan stepped on to the mat.
“Just like old times.” Sabrina smiled, enjoying the anticipation of the sparring to come. She couldn’t wait to see the shock in his face when he realized how far she’d advanced in the past two years. Not that he would be likely to show it. But she would be able to see. It would be there in his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to hide it completely.
She lifted her chin in the direction of the man at the door who was looking at the two of them with a decidedly pinched expression on his face and his arms crossed over his chest. “Who’s the dweeb?”
“He’s observing.”
“What’s his problem?”
Quinlan didn’t turn around to check on him, but instead remained focused on her. “Are you ready?”
“Sure.” She lifted her arms in a ready position and didn’t wait for him to make the first move, but rather moved forward in an immediate attack. He blocked her first strike, but the second landed in his midsection with a little more force than a practice session warranted. She heard a brief whoosh of air, and smiled as she jogged back out of range.
“Sorry. Was that a little too quick for you old-”
The blow ripped across her face with stunning ferocity. It turned her head, and she could feel the blood welling in her mouth as the inside of her cheek was cut against her teeth.
“What in the hell?” she whispered. She wiped the blood from her mouth and tried to swallow the bile in her stomach caused by the sheer shock of what he’d done.
“Practice is over, Sabrina,” he told her, his voice monotone. “This is a new game. It’s called Submit. As soon as you say the word, we’re done. But know that you’ll be judged on how long you can continue to fight without saying it.”
She looked at his face and tried to understand what was happening, exactly what he was saying, but her mind was still coping with the fact that he’d hit her. He’d hit her. Hard.
“Are you ready?”
A chill ran through her body and she found herself wanting to call time-out. Time-out, like a kid would do in the middle of a kickball game when things weren’t going according to plan. But she wasn’t a kid. She was training to be an agent, a field-op. For an agent in the field engaged in physical contact with an opponent, time-out wasn’t an option.
“Are you ready?”
She nodded and held her hands up. He moved fast. So fast that the only thing she was able to process was how much he’d been holding back those times he’d sparred with her. His leg swung in an arc and came down on her shoulder with enough force to numb it. He followed with a punch to her stomach that almost knocked the wind out of her. She staggered back and tried to focus on what she knew her body could do, but this was the first time she’d had to execute the moves while suffering actual pain.
She moved forward to attack, but he countered her moves easily. She tried a side kick, but he blocked it. She tried to swing her elbow against the side of his face, but he stopped it, and her close proximity to him left her vulnerable. Taking hold of her right wrist he captured it and swung her arm around her back. Then with his feet he tripped her, sending her to the mat facedown.
He pushed her arm higher along her back until she couldn’t hold back the squeak of pain.
“Submit.”
She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She thought she’d come so far only to be shown in seconds that she wasn’t even close. She wanted to ask him why it had to be him. Why couldn’t he have sent someone else? Because the pain was nothing compared to her humiliation. But none of the words would come out. All she could do was breathe.
“Submit,” he prompted again.
“Go to hell,” she moaned.
She felt him loosen the angle on her arm slightly, but then he took her pinky finger and began to bend it back against her hand.
“Say it.”
He was scaring her, she thought dazedly. He wouldn’t do what he was threatening. Not to her. No way.
“Say it,” he growled.
“No.”
The first thing that registered was the sound of the bone snapping. The second was the horrible rolling pain that started in her hand and overtook her whole body. Before she could scream, he had another finger in his hand.
“Say it. Now.”
Sabrina couldn’t speak if she wanted to. She couldn’t think, she could barely suck in oxygen, she couldn’t even cry. Only his name penetrated. Quinlan. Her mentor, her only friend. They’d played cards a few nights ago. She’d teased him and made him laugh. And now his knee was digging into her back, her mouth was full of blood from where he’d hit her face and if she didn’t say what he wanted her to say, he was going to break another finger.
The betrayal was crushing.
“Sabrina. Submit. Say it.”
She clenched her teeth and shook her head. The second break didn’t hurt half as much mostly because she wouldn’t let it. Something was happening to her on the inside. She thought of her mother and remembered a woman with flowing hair and smelling of soft perfume, bending down in front of her daughter to tell her that she just couldn’t handle her little girl. She’d been hoping for a friend, and instead she’d gotten another freak. Just like her father. Sabrina had felt betrayed then, too.
She recalled at age nine her father telling her that he was needed on an assignment and would be gone for several weeks, but that she was old enough and smart enough to look out for herself. The first night alone in the empty house, she’d been so afraid. So afraid that she’d actually missed her mother for the first time in years.
Sabrina felt the anger of those events rise up and merge with the anger she was feeling now. She wanted to rail at Quinlan. She wanted to tell him he could break all of her fingers, but it wouldn’t matter. She was tougher than that. She was stronger. Nothing would break her. Not her mother or her father. Not him.
Nothing had. Nothing would.
He didn’t give her any warning before he broke the third finger. Her body jerked against the pain and in response she felt him loosen his grip. She turned her head so that her cheek was resting on the mat and saw that her left hand was free. It had been the whole time, but with his knee at her back, containing her, he’d been safe from any attack.
Not that she could have mounted one anyway. She’d been too lost in the fog of what he’d been doing to her to concentrate on what she could be doing to him.
“Say it,” he said again.
She lifted her hand and made a motion as if to bring him closer. She muttered something knowing it was too soft for him to hear. She felt him lean over her to get his ear closer to her mouth.
“Q,” she whispered when he was close.
“Say it,” he whispered back.
