Page 26

26

Rinse and Repeat

M y admiration of our instructors’ demanding, unwavering discipline had evaporated about forty-five minutes ago. In the open clearing next to the treehouse, sweat dripped down my face in annoying, tickling rivulets, and I couldn’t stop myself from glaring at Yolanda. I really, really wanted to stop. My anger seemed only to delight her.

“ Vamos, vamos! ” she barked at me. My appreciation for her pleasantly exotic accent had also vanished somewhere around the hour mark. “I don’t train quitters.”

I snarled and hit the targets she held out— one-two-three , then again, and again, and fucking again . My shoulder muscles burned like they might actually be about to catch fire.

“Who said anything about quitting?” I bit out at her as I followed through with another jab-jab-uppercut. Her long ponytail swung as she received the brunt of my blows with an ease that suggested she could do it all day long.

Me, Layla said, but only to us, never to our teachers. I’m so ready to quit, it’s possible I might not’ve ever wanted something so much in my entire fucking life.

Only, there was a reason Layla was whining to us and not them. No matter what she said, she wasn’t a quitter. None of us were. And right then, that was feeling like a massive problem for my arms, legs, back, abs. Hell, my ass muscles ached.

It’s been, like, three-and-a-half hours of this, Layla continued. Do our workouts really need to be four hours long every single day?

Yes, Brady said into my mind while he grunted aloud. He, Griffin, and Hunt were cycling through complicated kicking and striking combinations, hitting Homer’s moving targets first, then Armando’s, then running to the back of their short line to do it again—and all over again.

Tell me you don’t love the burn, Brady said.

I don’t love the burn, Layla answered drily with a wince, hanging upside down from a pullup bar, doing sit-ups. Yolanda had ordered her to do five hundred repetitions.

I don’t believe you, Brady said over the rapid smacks of Griffin’s flesh connecting with the targets. You love this shit almost as much as I do.

No. What I love is being able to walk without looking like I have a stick shoved up where the sun don’t shine ’cause my ass hurts too much to relax it. I love being able to laugh without my stomach feeling like it’s about to crack in half. I think they might actually be trying to kill us.

“You know,” Yolanda said in a loud voice in Layla’s general direction, “if you want to be the best at something, you have to give it everything. You can’t hold back any single thing. You give, give, and give.”

I would have worried Yolanda could somehow hear us talking, but it didn’t take a mind reader to interpret the blatant discontent scrunching up Layla’s face. My friend hissed as she crunched up for another rep.

When she was upside down again, Layla asked, “Who says I’m not giving it my all?”

Yolanda just arched a brow as she held up the targets for me to keep going. “It takes complete dedication to become a master at anything. And we were told you all want to become masters of your bodies and minds, sí ?”

“ Sí ,” I answered even though she wasn’t specifically addressing me.

“We’re loving this,” Brady said with a grin. When he executed a flying kick then spun smoothly to deliver a roundhouse kick, Armando grinned back with an encouraging, “ Bom, bom .”

Since he wasn’t currently torturing me, I enjoyed his musical Portuguese. He tacked on a translation for Brady, saying “Good, good,” in case Brady hadn’t already gotten the message, which he had, judging by the pleased smile that continued to tug at his lips.

“Twenty-five more,” Yolanda told me. “Then we’ll take a short break.”

Obediently, I cycled through twenty-five more complete exercises, then sagged.

“Twenty more.”

My stare snapped to her. “What? You said that was it.”

She smiled for a second, then dropped it like the act it had plainly been. “I changed my mind.”

If she tells me to do more after I’m finished with the five hundred, Layla said as she hissed though another crunch, I will rearrange her face.

I scowled at Yolanda but didn’t bother complaining. What was twenty more in an endless succession of them? But I did pull out some extra oomph to put into my next strikes, and I didn’t bother hiding my real smile when she stumbled backward with one of them.

When we all stood around taking our five-minute break and guzzling water, Layla asked our teachers, “Why do you guys care so much?”

As one, Homer, Armando, and Yolanda turned toward her.

“What do you mean?” Homer asked, using a crisp towel to dab at the sweat on his brow. He even sweated elegantly. “Why wouldn’t we care?”

Because you work for a man who only wants to kill us? Layla told us before answering him. “Well, it’s not like we’re planning to start competing or fighting or anything. We just love martial arts, honing ourselves, that kind of thing. But it’s nothing official.”

Homer studied Layla long enough that anyone even remotely self-conscious—which she wasn’t—would have squirmed. She just stared back at him, anticipating.

Eventually, Homer said, “The five of you don’t strike us as people who do things halfway.”

“We aren’t,” Brady chimed in. “Not at all.”

Homer gave him a nod of recognition that Brady lapped up like he’d earned some kind of prize.

“Well,” Homer said, “neither are we. If we’re going to train you, we’re going to train you to the best of our capabilities, no matter what your intentions are for the future, or what said future holds.”

The way he said it made me think he understood as well as we did that our futures might indeed be brief—if Magnum got his way anyhow.

“If you show up for us,” Homer continued, “and you’re all in, then we’ll show up for you the same way.”

“We’re all in,” Griffin said, and I peered at him.

The moment he felt my gaze on him, he tilted his entire body in my direction. I didn’t think either of us would last much longer without touching each other.

“Yes, we are,” I said, for everyone else—though I was privately referencing the magnetism between Griffin and me.

Armando started rolling his shoulders, stretching out his arms and bouncing on his feet.

“Uh-oh,” Layla muttered under her breath before she thunked her head on my shoulder. “Dude looks like he’s prepping to kill us.”

Armando laughed, a bright, uncommon sound, and his eyes crinkled at the sides. “No, just some sparring.”

He turned to remove his zero-drop shoes, his back muscles flexing with each of his minor movements.

You know what? Layla said, mostly to me I thought. I don’t think I mind tussling with that man. Is he fine or what?

He looks like he could take any opponent down in one-point-five seconds flat, Brady said with equal levels of admiration.

“You are very close to each other, sí ?” Yolanda asked, startling me from my thoughts and those of my friends.

I looked over at her as Hunt nodded and said, “Yes. We’ve been friends all our lives.”

She studied us with open curiosity. “I can see that. I hope it will serve you well.”

What the fuck does that mean? Layla asked.

Dunno, I said, but it did sound a bit like she might be sympathetic to our plight.

“Come,” Armando called out. “Break is over. We fight.”

I think I’m in love, Brady said, before adding, “I’ll go first.”

I was already chuckling at Brady’s eagerness to have his ass whupped when I heard a single bark. Whipping my head toward the treehouse’s porch, where Bobo stood just as I’d asked him, I saw him looking down the path that led to the houses.

“Someone’s coming,” I announced, though by then everyone was already looking that way.

“Stretch,” Armando told us while we waited. “No waste time.”

I leaned into a soothing stretch for my shoulder until none other than Magnum fucking Chase waltzed into the clearing with an ease that suggested he owned it. Knowing him, it was possible he did. It seemed like he pretty much owned our faux parents and everything they did.

He wore jeans that looked ironed, a light sweater that draped as if it were made of silk, an important-looking watch that gleamed on his wrist, and a charismatic smile I wished I could peel from his face with acid.

“Hi, everyone,” he said cheerily.

I had to suppress a shudder that threatened to tear through me. Turned out I disliked a pleasant Magnum even more than a menacing one. At least when he was threatening us it was obvious what we were dealing with.

“Hello, Mr. Chase,” Homer answered. “We didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I happened to be in the area and thought I’d drop in to see how the training was going.”

As if a man as conniving as him did anything by chance.

“Well then, it’s good timing,” Homer offered. “We were about to end the day with some sparring.”

An already annoyingly perky Magnum seemed to perk up more at that. “Excellent. That’s the most fun part.” He then looked at the five of us expectantly.

It was only then that I realized my friends and I were standing around openly staring at him, our postures tight and angry—and he was supposed to be a longtime family friend we adored.

Not the man who’d orchestrated everything in our lives only to study and murder us, study and murder us, rinse and repeat.

Fuck. Him. Hard .

Any qualms I’d had about wiping him from the face of the Earth: gone.

My previous exhaustion: gone.

I was jittery with the desire to pounce and attack until his bloody corpse lay on the ground.

But we couldn’t fuck up. Not now, and especially not with him.

Before I could overcome the disgust of being near him, I forced myself to paste a smile on my face that said I was happy to see him, not that I was in that very moment fantasizing about clubbing him to a bloody death with a fallen branch.

“Hey, Uncle Magnum,” I heard myself say like the words didn’t make me want to gag. “How’ve you been?”

I had no idea how we were expected to interact with him and hoped that was a safe bet. “No hugs today unless you wanna smell like you’ve gone ten rounds with these beasts of instructors you sent us.”

Magnum studied me for a beat too long, long enough for me to worry we weren’t huggers. But then he smiled again.

“Aw, then you’ll owe me double hugs next time.”

If I’m forced to hug him, Layla warned, I’ll be stabbing him in his cold, black heart. Just so you all know.

Only if I don’t beat you to it, Griffin said.

Magnum drew closer to me, and I felt Griffin move to my back.

Cool it, Griff, Hunt cautioned.

Griffin remained where he was.

Magnum’s gaze traveled from me to him and back. “How’s the training been going?” He glanced at our teachers for a moment. “How’ve they been treating you?”

I chuckled, surprised I was able to. “Like they don’t think we’ll need to be able to walk tomorrow.”

Brady stepped forward. “Like they’re trying to kill us.”

From behind Magnum, I caught Armando’s reaction—he jerked, then tried to pretend he hadn’t.

Brady laughed and palmed Magnum on the back. “You know us well, Uncle Magnum. We’re eating this shit up. Guess we’re gluttons for punishment.”

“Not me,” Layla said. “I’m not.”

Laughter circled our group, and I felt my body relax, even if it was all fake.

“What, Lay, can’t keep up with the others?” Magnum teased.

You’ve gotta pull this off, Lay, I immediately told her. If I was wrestling with the urge to twist his head till his neck went pop , then so must she be.

Lay was our nickname for her.

Eventually, she smiled and chuffed a laugh, even running a hand through her bangs, currently tinged a pale powder blue. “Better be careful there, Uncle Magnum, or I might feel the need to prove myself and challenge you to a round.”

While Magnum threw his head back to laugh, Layla glared at him like she had laser vision and was trying to burn him up.

Our instructors were observing her. There was no way any of them missed how her look only turned friendly again when the billionaire looked back at her.

Shit. Our instructors were too sharp for us not to be busted. The question was: would they give us up?

When theirs and Magnum’s backs were turned, my friends and I shared a loaded, anxious look. But then everything proceeded more or less as expected.

Yolanda played a berimbau, a stringed percussion instrument commonly used to accompany capoeira, while Armando kicked our ever-loving asses in his personalized melding of its constant dancing with crazy effective sweeps, strikes, and kicks, some of which I recognized from karate and kung fu, making me wish I were as proficient as he was. Hell, I wished I were as skilled at any martial art as he was. The man, small and light as he was, was an obvious beast in the ring, on a mat, on the grassy floor of a forest clearing—anywhere. He leapt and twisted and turned so quickly and with such agility that none of us stood a chance against him.

An hour or so later, when training was finally over for the day, my friends and I plopped onto the ground and looked up at our instructors and Magnum, who were speaking together off to the side.

Why does he even care if we get good at fighting? Griffin asked via the group chat. I’m really convinced after this that he does. But why? I don’t get it. Why would Magnum give a shit?

I don’t get it either, Brady said.

I’ve been wondering about that too, Hunt added. Maybe he thinks this’ll somehow draw out some of our other powers? We’re at a disadvantage since we’re the only ones who don’t know what they are.

I’m really fucking over all the disadvantages, I said.

Ditto, girl, Layla said. Dit-fucking-oh.

Magnum approached, our teachers a few steps behind him, and I had to coach my body not to react when, boy oh boy, I wanted to launch at him, claws first.

“All right, guys, I have to go. Rich texted saying he wants to borrow the Aston Martin tonight, so I have to get home to talk him out of whatever trouble he’s planning on getting into.”

Griffin chuffed a rasp of a laugh. “Good luck with that.”

Magnum smirked as if we truly were all friends, and we all knew no one was going to be talking Rich out of anything. In a time when I wasn’t certain of much, I’d bet Rich wouldn’t admit to the drag racing. He’d lie through his teeth.

Unless.

Unless of course the drag race was all part of the plan.

And why wouldn’t it be?

Everything about our lives seemed to be planned down to their minutiae—it’s just that we weren’t in on any of it.

After more promises of owed hugs I hoped to fuck we’d never have to deliver, Magnum left the way he came, and our instructors stood around us.

“We’ll see you again here, tomorrow at four,” Homer said. “And soon we’ll start meeting at the institute. Better equipment.”

Tersely, I smiled up at him. The last place I wanted to go was the institute. We’d only just escaped the cursed place.

We said our goodbyes, and when the three of them walked off down the path toward the houses and their cars, Armando was a pace behind them. He flicked a lingering look at us before swallowing markedly enough that I couldn’t miss the action despite the growing distance.

Then the path curved, and the forest swallowed them whole.

“Well, that wasn’t encouraging,” Griffin said.

“Nope,” I replied. “Don’t race tonight.” The plea spilled out of me before I realized it would.

When Griffin looked over at me, his eyes were troubled. “I have to.”

“No. You don’t. Not really.”

“And let Rich win?”

“That’s not the game we’re playing right now.”

“No. We’re playing a game we can’t win.”

As that sentiment sank into my bones, Hunt promised, “We’ll go over the car with a fine-tooth comb. We’ll check everything before Griff drives.”

“Everything’ll be fine, Joss,” Brady said, and I nodded numbly in response.

I’d never been so sure of anything in my life: everything would not be fine.

It already wasn’t.