To Be A Warrior

Chapter 13: Getcha Head In The Game

Thankfully Abel's always been good at adapting.

The sound of someone clearing their throat behind me gets my attention. It's just loud enough to be heard over the music playing in my ears. I take out an earbud and glance over my shoulder.

"Oh. Hi, Tom."

"Five," He says, his face neutral. "Are you trying to wear yourself out before training today?"

A small smile appears on his face when my eyes grows wide and I curse under my breath.

"You forgot, didn't you?" He asks, clearly amused.

"No," I say defiantly, but then I sigh a moment later when he raises a brow. "Okay, yes, I did. We can still train though. I haven't been doing this for very long."

"Are you sure?"

I half-shrug. "Why not? I'd think you'd jump at the chance of making me fight when I'm lacking energy. Makes it more realistic or whatever."

"Maybe so, but I would rather you have some chance of taking me down."

"You sound a little cocky. I might have to restrict your Peter time." I put the dumbbells back in their spot, wiping off my hands. "But yeah, I think I'll be fine."

He hums, leaning against the doorframe. "How's your head?"

"Fine."

"Is it?"

I tilt my head to the side. He is talking about what happened yesterday, right? "Yes? Uh, is yours?"

"If I thought I was anywhere near unstable, I wouldn't offer to train in the first place," He deadpans, and my eyes widen at how insensitive I must have come off as.

"No, I didn't-I wasn't... sorry. I-well, I mean, you know I'm fine. Was healed up before I even got back into the gates."

"I'm surprised Jane didn't notice."

"She had other, more important things to deal with," I reply with a shrug. "I mean, you were out with me on that decoy run. We haven't seen a horde that large since... I don't even remember, when we saved Jaime from being executed? Although they were all huddled together by a wall, not a mass group that came together on its own, so..." I trail off before quickly changing the subject. "Enough remembering about yesterday. Time for you to kick my ass, because we both know that's probably how training is going to go."

The humorous, yet also curious look he gives me is something I've rarely seen from him. "You sound almost excited about it."

"It'll keep the boredom away for an hour." I say, heading outside to the training grounds, Tom following beside me. "I've already done my kitchen shift, so I'm basically free to do nothing all day. It's not really a bad thing, but when everyone else is busy... you get bored, ya know?"

He nods, understanding for reasons both the same and different as mine. "Sometimes it's hard to be alone. It's easier when you're around others. They help-"

"Distract you?" I finish.

"And entertain you."

"Yeah, having you slam me into the ground is very entertaining," I say with an eyeroll, and he huffs a laugh.

"We don't have to train today if you don't want to." It's a first for him to suggest such a thing, since he usually pushes for me to practice even when I don't want to. He shares certain qualities with his sister, one of them being to constantly push oneself to strive to be better. It's something I both admire and despise about him.

"Then what would you do? I doubt we have the same hobbies."

He raises a brow in interest. "Why do you say that?"