Despite her objections, Gus insisted on walking Ash back to her room. He lingered awkwardly by the door, as though expecting something more and when she thanked him and said goodnight, he pulled her in for another kiss. But the adrenaline she'd felt after firing the gun was gone, replaced by a nagging guilt. She told him she was tired and extricated herself from his arms, closing the door before she could see the disappointment on his face.
After he was gone, Ash buried herself under the sheets. She didn't have any experience in these sorts of things, but she was sure she should've felt differently after kissing someone she respected as much as Gus.
It was another restless night and, in the morning, Ash woke feeling as though she'd been tasered. Her head hurt, her limbs dragged like lead weights and all she wanted to do was stay in bed. But it was their second day of battle training and she knew she couldn't hide in her room all day.
Once again, all of Phoenix house was gathered on the training field. Gus and Eli were already arranging people into groups. Gus smiled and waived, but she kept her head down and pretended she hadn't seen. It went that way all morning, with Gus trying to make an approach, and her running away. She felt like a magnet stuck in an empty box with a metal pin. Everywhere she turned, Gus was there, trying to stick to her.
Eventually, he got the message and ceased his hopeful approaches. But the puppy dog eyes he kept sending her afterwards were worse. She'd never been in such a position before, and she hated it. She never should've kissed him back. And now, she might lose someone who could've been a potential friend—something she didn't exactly have an abundance of.
Eli was his usual businesslike self all morning. In the last twelve hours, he'd managed to get Gunner to produce over forty chains of different lengths, each custom fitted to the height of each Phoenix house member. He began the lesson by pulling Gus to the front to the group and asking him to demonstrate his technique with the chains from the night before. Gus stepped to his mark confidently, but turned white when he realised Eli was the one who was going to fire Miki's gun at him.
Eli drew the gun with much more confidence than Ash, and fired three successive shots. Gus, who'd only been expecting one, deflected the first on a downwards swing, missed the second, and only just nicked the third, which came so close to his arm the Phoenix crowd stepped back and gasped.
When it became clear he hadn't been injured, the crowd cheered Gus for his bravery. While Gus accepted the praise with enthusiasm, his gaze kept returning to Eli. There was something nerve-racking in the way Eli had fired Miki's gun.
Ash seethed. Everyone seemed to have forgotten the chains were her idea, and as morning drew into afternoon and more people began picking up the technique and praising Gus for his ingenuity, the angrier she got.
When Eli switched their focus to close combat sparring, Ash used it as an opportunity to blow off steam. She threw herself into each drill with such tenacity that her first opponent, a girl about her size and weight, went away crying, clutching a blood nose.
Eli shook his head. "You weren't supposed to hit her hard."
"I didn't do it on purpose."
He gave her a long look that said he didn't believe her in the slightest.
"If she can't hack a blood nose, there's no way she'll survive a real fight," she said.
Eli gave her a reproachful look and partnered her with a bigger, much older boy, who looked robust enough to take a hit.
He wasn't.
"You didn't need to groin him," Eli said. "This is a practicespar."
"It was an accident."
Eli's jaw tightened. "Well, since nobody wants to partner you now. You'll have to fight me."
Ash appraised him. He was a whole shoulder and head height taller than her and although he wasn't as sturdy as Gunner, his muscles had the leathery texture of someone who'd been bruised so many times, his bruises had thickened and leathered his skin. "Real fights don't happen like this," she said. If she'd encountered someone like Eli in the streets of Outer Band, she'd have avoided a one-on-one.
Eli's lip curled. "Then you've never been in a real fight before."
She was suddenly filled with the overwhelming desire to smack the condescending smirk from his face. Never been in a real fight? Who did she think she was? Some kind of toff?
She faked a punch to the face and another quick jab to his sternum, hoping to catch him off-guard. Her hands had always been lightning quick. And even if they weren't powerful enough to do any real damage, they usually served to distract her opponent for long enough to exploit a weakness—eyes, shins, stomach, between the legs. But Eli wasn't like the other orphans she'd fought. He called her bluff, barely reacting to her first punch, and blocking her second as though she were a wayward fly.
She'd lost her element of surprise. And now it was his turn to retaliate. She cringed and waited for the blood nose she knew was coming.
It never came. She ended up standing there, feeling disturbingly short-changed. Eli's arms had gone slack and his curled expression had relaxed to the point of seeming bored. After all that talk, he'd probably decided she wasn't worth fighting at all.
"Come on," she said, putting on her best sneer. She'd learnt at the orphanage, if you can't break someone physically, you can always break them mentally. She herself had lost a handful of fights because she'd lost her head. "Changed your mind about fighting me?" The words came so naturally, she could've spoken them in her sleep.
Eli didn't reply, just stood calmly, his expression a signature mask. She'd have to go deeper if she was going to get a reaction.
"Gonna back out like you always do when things get tough? she said, remembering the argument she'd overheard him having with Miki. "Why did you come back to the island anyway? Did you finally feel guilty for letting your people down?"
Still, Eli didn't answer, though she thought she caught a slight narrowing of his eyes. She must be getting closer,she thought.
"Why did you leave in the first place? What did you do that was so terrible you couldn't face your own people?"
Eli's arms twitched, and the muscles of his jaw strained against the skin. It was working, so she carried on, the adrenaline she often felt during a verbal spar kicking in. "I bet it had something to do with Heather. Is she the reason you got burned? Did she give you those scars?"
Eli took a jerky step towards her and his arms rose to a fighting stance. Good,she thought. Let it out.
He didn't.
She was struggling for material now and heads were beginning to turn in their direction. A few younger children tapped each other and pointed. She knew what they were thinking. After what she'd done to the two other children, they wanted her to lose. They wanted Eli to give her a blood nose.
Ash let her peripherals roam over the dry, dusty field for something, anything that would help her win. She was used to urban fights—being able to use buildings, walls, doors, furniture, anything to give her the upper hand. But on the dry, dusty field, there was nothing. Except maybe ...
She kicked the ground, sending dust and rubble into the air. Eli shielded his eyes and for a split second, there as an opening. Using her speed, she drove into him, hooking her foot behind his legs and pushed with all her might. But he didn't go down as expected. In a flash, he'd caught her arms, shifted his legs so they were behind hers, and used the exact move she'd planned to use against him, back on her.
She was falling so fast she barely had time to brace for impact. She closed her eyes, expecting the bite of earth when Eli pulled back on her arms and lowered her into the fall. Before she could register the fact that she was uninjured, the weight of his body was on her, his arms and legs pinning her to the ground.
"Yield," he said. It was a statement, not a question.
But Ash wasn't finished. She assessed her position and identified one weakness in his hold. He hadn't pinned her arms far enough from her head and at a stretch, she might just be able to ....
Turning, she bit him on the arm, just below his elbow. The skin crunched between her teeth and she tasted salt and blood.
Eli hissed and released the pressure from her left arm just enough for her to slip her hand out and reach for the knife in her ponytail. She pressed the sharpened flint blade against his neck, pushing until the skin was as taut as a tomato. "Yield," she said. It was an order, not a question.
Eli's temple ticked. Then, he nodded. "Very well." He rolled away from her knife. The Phoenix members around them quickly returned to their sparring, pretending they hadn't been watching. But Ash heard one of them mumbling under their breath, "Rat."
Eli touched his neck. His finger came away tinged with red. His forearm pooled a cookie cutter of blood, scalloped around the edges in the shape of teeth. Ash turned away and cringed. Now that the adrenaline of the fight was gone, her anger over not getting credit for the fire-twirling chains seemed juvenile. The Phoenix members formed a wide berth formed around her and it was Gus's turn to avoid her gaze.
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