Chapter 10 Chapter 10
"Hands up! Protect your vitals!" Miller shouted. He stepped in and caught me with a hook to the stomach that sent me to my knees, gasping for air.
"Get up," a voice said from the shadows.
I looked over, coughing, and saw Oris. He was standing near the edge of the tarmac, arms crossed, just watching. He was the one who gave the orders, the one who’d eventually be the final test, but his presence was enough to make the air feel heavy. He didn't look sorry for me. He looked like he was measuring me.
I pushed myself back up, wiping the sweat and a bit of blood from my face. I thought about Nikolai. He wasn't here, and he hadn't sent a single word since he dropped me off, but I could feel his hand in everything. He’d put me here for a reason. He’d told me to learn, and I wasn't going to let some trainer see me quit.
"Again," I spat at Miller.
For hours, we went at it. He taught me how to use my elbows in close quarters, how to drive a knee into a groin, and how to use my smaller stature to my advantage. I wasn't strong enough to overpower a man, so I had to be faster. I had to be meaner.
By midnight, my brain was just as fried as my body. I’d head back to my room, skipping the common areas because I didn't want the other girls to see the state I was in.
Some of them looked like they were here for the "finishing school" side of things, but I knew better. This place was hell.
I’d sit on my bed, the silence of the room ringing in my ears. I’d pull out the laptop and force myself to review the business notes from Rodney’s class. Assets. Liabilities. Equity. The words started to blur with the combat moves Miller taught me. In business, you find the weakness in a contract. In a fight, you find the weakness in a joint. It was all the same game.
I’d open the box with the noise-cancelling headphones and put them on just to get some peace from my own thoughts. I wondered if he knew how hard this was. I wondered if he cared. Part of me hated him for throwing me into this meat grinder, but a bigger part of me was grateful. For the first time in my life, I wasn't hiding in a basement. I was standing on my own two feet, even if they were shaking.
By the end of the second week, something shifted. I wasn't just taking the hits anymore. On Friday night, when Miller went for a clinch, I anticipated the move. I slipped under his arm, drove my elbow into his ribs, and actually heard him grunt in pain.
I saw Oris tilt his head slightly from his spot in the shadows. He didn't say anything, but I felt the shift. I wasn't just a girl being beaten on a mat anymore. I was becoming a weapon.
I walked back to my room that night feeling a different kind of tired. It wasn't the exhaustion of being defeated; it was the ache of progress. I looked in the mirror, pulling back my hair, and saw a girl I barely recognized. The fear in my eyes was being replaced by something cold and sharp.
He wanted me to learn. Well, I was learning. And I was going to make sure that when he finally decided to show his face again, he wouldn't see the broken girl he bought. He’d see the one no one could break.
EIGHT MONTHS IN
Eight months. That’s how long I’d been inside the walls.
The tarmac stretched wide and unforgiving beneath my boots. Blackened from years of impact, stained darker in places where blood had soaked in and never fully washed out. Either way, it punished you if you misstepped.
I liked that. Pain here made sense. The walls didn’t echo sound the way concrete did; they swallowed it. Every strike landed dull and final, like the world itself was refusing to react.
“Again,” Vale said. No amplification, no raised voice; he never needed to yell. I adjusted my stance, my feet finding their marks without thought. The weapon in my hand wasn’t ceremonial; it wasn’t polished. It was meant to be used, abused, and replaced if it failed. So was I.
I moved. The sequence flowed cleanly. Step. Pivot. Strike. Counter. No wasted motion, no hesitation. My body did what it was told before my mind caught up. The man across from me went down hard, skidding across the tarmac until friction tore his sleeve and skin with it. He swore, but I didn’t flinch. Vale glanced at his tablet.
“Faster,” he said. I nodded once and reset.
Eight months ago, the open space would’ve destroyed me. No corners, no shadows, no place to hide, just the sky overhead and the walls close enough to remind you there was nowhere else to go.
The first time they brought me out here, I froze.
The tarmac had felt too much like exposure. Too much like kneeling in the rain with nowhere to look but down. My hands had shaken, and my breathing had gone shallow.
My boots slapped against the ground as I launched forward again, the blade flashing. The impact jarred up my arm, but I absorbed it, rolled with it, and used the recoil to turn the next strike into something sharper.
Oris lifted a hand. “Enough.”
I stopped instantly. Sweat rolled down my spine, soaked into the fabric clinging to my back, my muscles burned, and my lungs worked steady and deep. No panic, no dizziness. That meant progress.
I stepped back and wiped the blade on my sleeve and waited. He studied me the way a mechanic studies an engine. Not admiration but evaluation.
“Your endurance is up,” he said. “Your reaction time has improved, and you're recovering faster,” he said.
“I don’t like wasting time,” I replied.
“That wasn’t always true,” he said with a smirk.
I didn’t answer. Eight months ago, time had been something to survive. Something to get through; now it was something to use.
He dismissed me with a nod. I walked the perimeter once, slow and deliberate, letting my pulse settle. The walls loomed close, taller than they needed to be. Thick and Impenetrable. They weren’t there to keep people out. They were there to keep us in.
I headed back to the dorms; I had learned to avoid the common areas when heading back. I didn’t want to run into anyone, especially Mara.
Once in my room, I showered quickly, scrubbing grime and sweat from my skin. The water ran hot, steady, and predictable. I dressed in fresh gear and checked my inbox; nothing, still nothing.
No message, no summons. Nikolai Ferro had put me here and disappeared.