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"I thought the whole point was that you won."
"And you upped the stakes. In or out?"
"You'd leave everyone who belongs here, Cole and his men, untouched, unharmed, still alive?"
"Yes."
"And I go with you where?"
"I refuse to tell you that. Please remember we have all the guns. I don't have to meet any rules. I don't have to have a contest. I don't have to leave anybody alive. But I won't kill you here."
Didn't mean she wouldn't kill me somewhere else. But I was running out of time and options.
We were agreed.
We stood in the center of the room, flanked by her guards standing watch from the walls, backs to plaster, holding up their guns at some kind of military parade rest. There were no referees and no judges. Only the two of us, facing off.
It was Cole who called out the commands. Facing each other, we both bowed deeply, eyes to the floor, showing the respect that said the other person wouldn't start fighting ahead of time, wouldn't take the moment of diverted vision to strike first.
I was surprised when Kie didn't take that chance. I hadn't thought she possessed honor.
Neither Cole nor I knew what style of martial art Kie had studied. TaeKwon-Do is Korean, so the commands Cole would ordinarily give would be in that idiom. Likewise, I had no idea what nationality Kie was or if she'd been born in the States. Maybe she spoke an Asian language. Maybe like me, she only spoke English. If her martial art wasn't Korean, the Korean commands would make no sense. Cole chose to give directions in English.
Attention.
Ready stance.
Begin.
We were both instantly in motion, circling each other, looking for an opening. I hadn't been to class in a while but everything came back at once as if I'd never left. I remembered how to split and widen my vision so I could take in the room around me, scanning for potential hazards, things that could trip me up or block my path, people who might get in the way or actively interfere.
At the same time, the majority of my attention was on her, watching as we began circling each other like alley cats about to break into a full-on cat fight. My feet were still bare, which was natural for TKD. The floor under them was sun warmed.
Fighting was natural too. Sparring. Even with someone I didn't like.
There was nothing natural about what was going on here today, though.
I threw a punch, a feint, testing her reaction time and her response. She moved away from it like she was Gumby, her limbs made of something insubstantial that didn't need to take up space in the real world.
I frowned, tried a kick. She just wasn't there again.
Shit. She flowed out of nowhere and made first contact, tagging me with the back of her hand, a little slap to the temple, just her fingers like a mother might tag a child who wasn't listening.
It was a brag. She touched me first.
It was also a bad thing. I watched as she moved. Best guess, she was trained in one of the "soft" Chinese styles, Kung Fu or the like. I'd fought a visiting student at my school several years ago in Seattle. He'd been a guest, come to class for the hell of it, and I thought he’d studied a Shaolin style of Kung Fu. Whatever it was, he actually said the point of some moves was to "flow like seaweed." Which sounded absurd and like a quote from a badly dubbed Bruce Lee movie.
But it was nearly impossible to make contact with seaweed as ii flowed. He’d definitely won our sparring match. His name was Dan and he didn't appear to be unbeatable at the outset. He had curly brown hair and a slim, unimpressive body.
He won a lot.
Dan hadn't been trying to kill me.
I let Kie come close to me. Watching how she moved, I looked for tells. She didn't have many of them, but she did look where she wanted to hit before she did so. That would help. For now all I wanted to do was dance and watch her.
We kept circling. I slowed my automatic dance, the forward and back movement that kept my weight from resting too long on one foot and made me less likely to be on it when someone tried to hit me.
The second time Kie struck, it wasn't a backhanded finger tap. I saw her eyes lock at the last possible second and when she punched at my solar plexus, I had enough time to deflect but not completely block. The blow landed on my ribs and it hurt but it didn't slow me down or knock the air out of me. I was slightly turned, as if brushing past her in a crowded hallway, and I let my momentum carry me farther, snapping out the arm I'd blocked her punch with and connecting a backhanded punch to her temple.
