anytime soon—at least not hand-to-hand combat. I’d have to find some kind of
advantage over him, but first, I needed to get him to let his guard down around me.
In order to do that, I had to stop fighting him.
But sure to Holly’s word and much to my shock and confusion, there was a pair
of hot pink boxing gloves with gold tiara prints on them, pink wraps, and my old
iPod sitting on the leather couch in the gym. I rolled my eyes at the color and
pattern of the gloves, but I could deal with it. At least, I finally had a pair!
Holly was beyond excited for some reason. She said she couldn’t wait to see me
in action and see what I could do. As I wrapped my hands and wrists, Holly hooked
up her phone to the stereo system and started playing “Eye of the Tiger” by
Survivor. She turned around and practically beamed like it was the best idea she’d
ever had. I rolled my eyes. What the fuck did she think this was, a Rocky movie? As
soon as I was done with the wraps, I marched over and shut the song off midway
through the opening guitar solo.
“I fucking hate this song.” It was overplayed and overrated.
I switched Holly’s phone out for my iPod and put on the song I was dying to hear
—“Break Stuff” by Limp Bizkit. As soon as the sound made its way to my ears, I
was ready for breakage. I cracked my neck and rolled my shoulders as I strapped on
my gloves and made my way over to the bags. I got light on my feet, keeping my
knees bent and my weight steady. I breathed easy, my gloved hands at face level,
and focused my sights on my target. And with one deep breath, I moved for
destruction.
Hooks, jabs, crosses, uppercuts, elbows, kicks, knees—you name it, I did it. I
tore into the bag like there was no tomorrow. Sweat dripped from my brow in a
matter of minutes while my heart force-fed adrenaline through my veins. The bag
flew in a manner of all different directions, each attack stronger than the last until I
could no longer catch my breath. I tore myself away and gradually paced in front of
the bag like some kind of animal stalking its prey. My conditioning was for shit, but
I would fix that in a matter of days.
When I was finally calm enough, I went back for more. I must have hit the bag
for thirty minutes straight before I finally collapsed on the floor in a sweaty,
exhausted mess. Nearly all of my attacks were twenty-five percent less capacity of
what I was capable of. My kicks were slower and lacked my usual finesse, and my
punches didn’t have anywhere near the same power I knew I could bring. I had so
much work to do, but apparently, I had all the time in the world since I technically
controlled when we were leaving the island.
For the rest of the month, Holly and I worked habitually on the bags, lifting
weights, stretching, and making me as strong as humanly possible. Darren was
certainly enjoying the results because I wasn’t just letting him fuck me anymore—I
was fucking him back. When I could forget the fact that his men were currently
hunting down the love of my life, my mom, and my brothers, and when he wasn't a
total controlling douchebag, he was almost tolerable.
He didn’t push me on my emotional detachment or my ever-growing
desensitization to the prospect of death. Though I wouldn’t consider myself the
chattiest with him, I tried to keep things light and civil, and it seemed he was on
the same page as I was. Darren actually tried to spend as much time with me as he
could, almost as if he was trying to get our “relationship” back on track. He was
attentive, affectionate, and surprisingly sweet, though he would never let me
escape the reminders that he was in control. I knew what I was giving up the
moment I pushed that makeshift Molotov cocktail off the ledge of that window, and
I was slowly coming to terms with those consequences. Even though Darren
controlled every aspect of my life, at least I could finally control my bodily
movements.
I could feel my depression leaving me now that my body was back in shape. I had
stretched myself back to the limber noodle I was, finally completing a no handed
cartwheel, my scorpion kick, and my butterfly kicks. I was nearly ready to leave the
island; I was so confident. But for some reason, Darren seemed to want to test me
further.
One day after warming up on the
