Guardian

Chapter 16

"Let's see what you've got," Lilith said. They decided we would work on my hand to hand combat skills first and head outside to work on everything else in the afternoon when it was warmer. Lilith had a gym in her house. Figures she would with a house this large. But she didn't want me working on anything supernatural inside.

"You said everything you know is basic self-defense, right?" Holden asked.

"Yeah," I replied, tightening my ponytail.

"Face that way," Lilith said, pointing to the wall opposite her. I obeyed. I felt two arms wrap around me. "Try and get out of this," she said.

I took a deep breath and acted without thought. I grabbed one arm from around me and pulled it over my shoulder. I widened my stance, one foot going between her two, and bent at the waist. I threw my body weight over my head. Lilith landed on the ground and I rolled over her body, landing on my feet and turning back to face her.

"Damn, you got taken out by a human!" Holden laughed from where he sat on a stack of mats.

Lilith stayed in the ground, a look of confusion on her face. "Where the hell did you learn that?"

"I don't know. I just did it," I replied.

"There's no way you learned that at some soccer mom self-defense class," Lilith said.

"I never learned how to do that. I just did it."

"Try it again. You probably caught her off guard," Holden suggested. Lilith stood up and wrapped herself around me, tighter this time. I pulled her arm over my shoulder and executed the move the same way, rolling off her body to stand up.

Before I had a second to process, there was a pair of strong arms around my waist, holding me tight and lifting me up. I panicked. I couldn't see who it was and I couldn't plant my feet to get any kind of leverage.

Then the arms were gone. I dropped to the floor. "What the hell!" Lilith yelled as we both got to our feet. "Where'd you send him?"

I looked around and Holden was no longer perched on the mats. It had been him. Of course, it had been, there was no one else here. "I don't know," I replied. That took her back.

"You're stronger than I thought," she said. "Have you made anything else happen since yesterday?"

"Uh, yeah. I made something fly across the room last night," I said.

"Oh cool," she replied. "What was it?"

"My pants," Holden's voice rang through. He leaned one arm against the doorframe and looked to me. "You poofed me outside."

"Sorry," I said, looking down. "You scared me."

"I was the only other person here," he reminded me. I turned away and looked down.

I saw Holden and Lilith share a glance out of the corner of my eye. "I'll give you guys some space," she said, leaving the room. Holden closed the door behind her and meet me in the middle of the room.

"What's wrong?" he spoke softly, reaching for my hands. I sighed. There was no reason to lie.

"Memories have been coming back. Still none with you, but I remember being taken." I was walking home from Ava's house. It was dark but it's a small town and I'd made the same walk a million times without incident. I was near the woods by my house and someone came up behind me. I never saw who it was but I heard him. You figured out things you were never supposed to think about, Veronica, the voice had said. I focused on the words themselves in my mind, not the voice that spoke them. There was no doubt in my mind that he was who took me that day, but Holden didn't need to know that yet.