8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The next day started much as every day did. The monotony of the academy was one of the things that I struggled with; my Portlock life was wild and varied and no two days were the same. Being away had made me realise how much I relished the chaos.

Physical training that morning was particularly tough and I had to work at keeping my fitness within the realms of a normal human. I was dying to outperform Thorsen but I held myself back.

After a sweaty session with grumpy Sergeant Wilson, we practised takedowns. We were being tested on them soon, and I wanted to be perfect without relying on my supernatural strength and speed. Sidnee and I worked with each other for a while, then the supernat recruits and I practised together. It was so much easier to keep an extra jolt of power hidden among ourselves, plus it actually levelled the playing field since we all had supernatural strength and speed on our side.

Sidnee paired off with Margi whilst I went toe-to-toe with Danny. The raven shifter had a solid mass that was perfect to use against him, but sometimes when he planted his feet it was like trying to move a rock. We were both grinning as I tried – and often succeeded – to get him down.

I offered him a hand after my latest throw down. He took it and I hauled him up to standing. ‘Great work,’ he said, clapping me on the shoulder.

I flashed him a grin. ‘Thanks!’

Danny blinked. ‘Fangs!’ he murmured urgently.

I hastily closed my lips over my teeth. The fuckers hadn’t gotten the memo that we were messing around and must have slipped down whilst I was wrestling with Danny! I focused on calming down and pushed the excitement I’d been feeling down to a low simmer. My teeth snicked away just as Marks called together to pair us up. I got Thorsen. Yay.

‘This is a test,’ Marks murmured for my ears alone. ‘Can you keep your cool?’

I nodded firmly and faced Thorsen. You bet your ass I could keep cool; I was going to beat Thorsen fairly and in front of lots of witnesses. I wanted to grin, but I kept it locked down in case my fangs screwed up again.

Predictably Thorsen was smirking malevolently at me. ‘You’re going down, little rabbit. I’ll have you cuffed in ten seconds flat,’ he boasted. He wasn’t quiet with his smack talk and several of the other ped recruits heard him.

I rolled my eyes. ‘My girl Sidnee had you on the mat in five,’ I taunted. ‘I think I’ll be okay.’ I sent him a wink designed to rile him.

That made the muscles in his jaw flex and his eyes narrow. His history suggested that he made mistakes when he got angry. He was tall, muscular and outweighed me by thirty kilos, but if the academy had taught me anything it was that winning wasn’t about strength and size; it was about technique, keeping a level head and thinking on your feet.

If I could be cold and calculating under pressure, I’d stand a much better chance of not making a rookie error that would have me sailing onto the mat. Thorsen hadn’t learned that yet so I had the advantage – particularly if I could get him raging. It wouldn’t even be a challenge because the man was as tumultuous as a volcano when it came to me.

When we were told to start, Thorsen lunged at me with a speed I hadn’t anticipated. I barely stepped out of his way in time or he would have taken me down. I berated myself, checked my ego and focused.

This time I approached him at normal human speed and he sidestepped. We circled each other. Thorsen’s face was growing redder; by not being on the mat in ‘ten seconds’, I was humiliating him. He would lose his temper again soon and then I could totally prod him. This could be my chance for the instructors to see him deliberately hurt another recruit, but I’d have to let him follow through and actually hit me. That sucked, but I’d be fine.

First, I had to push him over the edge. ‘Ten seconds?’ I taunted softly, my lips barely moving.

The next time he charged me, I stepped aside but planted a hand on his back and used his momentum and a well-timed leg sweep to shove him to the ground. He went down hard with a loud oof. I deliberately didn’t follow through with the cuffs but pretended to fumble them, then listened attentively to the instructor’s patient explanation of what I’d done wrong. Meanwhile, Thorsen had climbed to his feet, his face purple and vibrating with rage. Perfect.

Marks had us go again and I noted Thorsen’s tightly closed fists: this was the time. Ugh, it was going to hurt. When he lunged at me, I faked a stumble that put me in the path of his fist and it connected hard with my nose.

The pain exploded, as did a torrent of blood. Not even slightly faking, I cried out – it hurt like a motherfucker. But Marks had seen it and he was furious .

Danny pulled out an honest-to-goodness cotton handkerchief and held it to my nose. ‘Thanks,’ I muttered, my voice muffled.

‘I promise it’s clean,’ he said, trying to inject some humour into the moment.

‘Thank goodness for that.’ I also tried for levity. ‘But honestly, how old are you? Eighty? Who uses handkerchiefs in this day and age?’

He looked amused. ‘People concerned with the environment.’ Touché .

‘Take her to the bathroom,’ Marks instructed Margi. ‘Get her cleaned up. Come back if she needs first aid.’

‘Sho-nuff, sir. You can count on me, sir!’ Margi said brightly.

‘You!’ he roared at Thorsen. ‘With me!’

Margi and I trotted off. I kept the handkerchief to my face the whole time, mostly to hide the fact that I’d already stopped bleeding. We went into the nearest bathroom and I lowered Danny’s snot rag. Margi winced. ‘Good gravy, that must have hurt.’ She blew out a breath. ‘He broke your nose.’

‘He what ? That fucker!’

She studied me. ‘You’ll have to straighten it – and quickly – or it’ll heal wonky.’

‘Motherfucker.’ I looked in the mirror and saw that she was right: my Greek nose was looking distinctly aquiline. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I grabbed the part that was hooked and pulled it straight. Pain exploded again and more blood spurted out. ‘Ow!’ I complained.

‘Lordy,’ Margi breathed. ‘That looked painful.’

‘Like you wouldn’t believe,’ I bitched.

Margi turned on the tap and I blinked when a stream of water flowed not straight down into the sink like gravity would dictate, but directly to me instead. I stood still as she carefully cleaned me up then turned off the tap and sent the water back to the sink. The now-bloody water drained away.

She turned to me and frowned. As a result of her ministrations, my face was cleaner but my clothes were utterly soaked. She hummed a little and the water droplets were pulled directly from my clothes and danced down the sink. Nice.

I looked at myself in the mirror. My nose was healed, the blood was gone and I didn’t even have any bruising. Sometimes being a vamp was a pain – I wanted to look brutalised, at least for a day or two, otherwise it looked like Thorsen had only given me a damned nosebleed.

When we returned to the mat room, Thorsen and Marks were still absent. Sergeant Wilson had hastily been tagged to fill in and the dour-faced man had everyone doing drills.

Annoyingly, soon after I returned so did Thorsen and Marks. Thorsen’s body language appeared contrite but his eyes were still on fire when he glanced at me. He’d had his wrist slapped and it’d had precisely no effect on him whatsoever. Marvellous.

Marks checked me over and looked relieved. I showed no signs of the blow other than the remaining blood on my gym clothes. He called us over and gave a crisp lecture about maintaining our professionalism and not allowing perps or our fellow recruits to push our buttons.

I couldn’t believe it! It looked like that bastard Thorsen was going to continue his classes with no more than a telling-off, like he was a toddler that couldn’t control a tantrum. Ugh. I’d have to devise a better plan, one that showed him going out of his way to hurt someone – preferably one of the supernats, since we could take it.

‘You okay, Bunny?’ Jones asked quietly. ‘That looked like a real hefty punch.’

‘He didn’t pull it, that’s for sure,’ I agreed darkly. ‘But I’m okay.’

‘You’re a tough cookie.’ His gaze was admiring, maybe a little adoring, and he was looking at me like I’d look at a puppy. I gave him an awkward pat on the back. Whoops. It looked like my kindness to Jones had landed me with a bit of an infatuation. I’d have to make sure to let him down gently because I was all fixed for a boyfriend.

Thinking of Connor made my heart twinge. God, I missed him more than scones and jam. I couldn’t finish the course quickly enough.