Dark Paradise (The Story of Us Book 4)

Chapter 7- Fixing What He Broke

Spencer's P.O.V.

I'm not an idiot. I know that may seem a little hard to believe in light of recent events, but it is the truth. My behavior can be attributed to many different things wrong with me but my intelligence isn't one of them. I personally choose to blame it on the fact that I am emotionally stunted. That will happen to you when you go 12 years without having a single friend. Well unless you count that child molester and murderer that used to strike up conversations with me before Riley's dad killed him.

It also likely didn't help that after I joined the BAU, I did everything I could to hide the person I used to be. The person Amanda had helped me to be. I told myself that it was because I was ashamed of that kid. The 17-year-old who held the record for fastest body shot and the 15-year-old who had once drunk out of a flask that had been roofied and had Amanda's fingers shoved down his throat because she wasn't sure how many roofies they had put in it.

I'd like to think that it took me this long to figure out the truth but as I said, I'm not stupid. I've always known that I hid who I was because I hated myself for making Amanda leave. I tried to tell myself that it was because of the person I became that I said those awful things but I know now more than ever that the boy who said those awful things was who I always was. That was my fight-or-flight instinct kicking in. Kill or be killed. I chose to hurt her before she could hurt me. Except she would've never hurt me whereas I hurt her again and again. Just as I did with Morgan.

This is why I am once again in the gym at Quantico so I can attempt to make things right. Just as I knew he would be, Morgan is down here, all alone, practicing his punches against a punching bag. I approach him slowly, not meaning to sneak up on him per se but I know I have when I speak and he jumps. "Your gait is too wide," I tell him. Once he gets over the near heart attack I apparently gave him, he frowns.

"What?"

"Your stance, it's too wide. The majority of your muscle mass is in your upper body so you need to distribute your weight differently than you are so it's harder to knock you off balance." Derek stares at me a moment before scoffing.

"Two weeks ago I didn't even know you knew how to fight and now you're offering up advice? How'd you even know where to find me and why the hell are you here?" He goes back to his punches and I sigh, biting back a snarky comment being as his hostility is my fault. Once I know I have my temper in check, I speak.

"I knew you would be down here because this is when you'd always meet up to spar with Amanda. You forget that I dated her for years and knew her schedule better than my own." Perhaps it was the mention of someone we both loved and lost or maybe it was the fact that I didn't fight back like he assumed I would, but Morgan stops and turns to me.

"She taught you how to fight, right?" He asks and I nod, watching as a smile forms on his face. "I can tell, the style is exactly the same. You probably gave her a damn good run for her money."

"I didn't actually," I reveal. "See Amanda fought differently than everyone else, specifically because of a children's book."

"What do you mean?" He wonders and I chuckle.

"Ever heard of Percy Jackson." Morgan seems to ponder the question before nodding in confusion.

"The one about the Greek Gods right?"

"Yup. Well in the second series they introduce Roman demigods with the main character from the first series getting magically sent to the Roman camp. Now he has retrograde amnesia but he has the muscle memory of years of fighting so when they throw him into a fight with the Roman demigods at camp for some game, he's just tearing through them because they've never seen someone fight that way. Amanda loved those books from the moment they came out and thought that was the best thing she had ever heard.