By the time Dusk shows up, I’m huffing and puffing about my predicament. He listens to me rant for approximately thirty seconds before insisting I practice punching the heavy bag instead.
“Since you can’t make a proper fist anymore,” he claims, but I know he just wants me to let some frustration out by hitting something.
It works for a bit, enough to satisfy Dusk to leave me alone so he can run his errands, and then it royally backfires—quite literally. Iaccidentally put too much of my weight behind one punch, sending the bag swinging, fast and hard. Thanks to centripetal force, it slams into me before I can even react, and I’m knocked right onto my ass.
I lay on my back, staring at the Abyss’s false sky, as the bag keeps swinging in the background on its rickety chain, mocking me.
Everything hurts. For a moment, I wonder if my tailbone might be broken—but then I decide I’d be certain if it actually were. So, I get up, pat the dust off my pants, and check to make sure nobody saw me... I’m in luck, it seems.
“At least there aren’t any witnesses this time,” I mutter to myself, beginning to walk it off. One of my guards is likely still hiding somewhere in the distance, but I'm pretending they don’t count. “Small wins, Kae. Celebrate the small wins.”
Running on a flat surface around the dome turns out relatively okay. I only trip three times within an hour. Jumping hurdles, however, is a miserable failure that nearly ends in a sprained ankle.
Fairly upset that I didn’t even make it halfway through the day, I lay down on a bench inside the dome’s hallways, an icepack on my forehead and a towel over my face.
I get five minutes of peace, maybe, before I’m rudely interrupted.
“Kae?” Even if I can’t see anything more than his hulking shadow, I recognize Abaddon’s deep voice immediately.
“You’re early,” I grumble, not budging from my position. “We’re not supposed to meet until three.”
“What happened to you?”
“Picked a fight with the stairs. Lost. Picked a fight with the punching bag. Also lost. There’s a trend, you see.”
“How badly are you injured? Do you need a healer?”
“Eh… I’ll survive.” Groaning, I sit up and take the items off my head—just in time to see his eyes widen slightly at the sight of me. I can’t say I blame him. I’m covered in various shades of black, blue, purple, and yellow. It’s unsightly. Hideous, really. “Raphael’s muscle enhancements are justincredible,by the way. I’m sure they’ve been rigorously tested in clinical trials.”
“Your adjustment was not meant to be this challenging,” he says flatly, either completely missing my sarcasm or ignoring it. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be an apology or an insult, and I don’t particularly care to sort it out at the moment.
“Well, sorry to disappoint. Shit happens.”
I might have an unusually high pain tolerance, but I’m not sure. I’ve never quite figured out if it’s just me or if it’s a universal product of thejoysof womanhood.
But, hey, at least I was able to get a long prescription to have birth control down here—I can’t imagine attempting all this while feeling like someone’s repeatedly punching me in the abdomen. And stabbing me. And twisting the knife...
The King surveys me again for a moment before saying, in complete seriousness, “You should not injure yourself so much. It isn’t good for you.”
“It’s not like it was intentional, Abaddon.” I can’t keep my eyes from rolling. It’s better than shouting‘No shit, Sherlock’at him, at least. He wouldn’t even understand the reference. “Where are we training today?”
Continuing to give me the same blank, appraising stare, he suddenly pulls out a plastic-wrapped sandwich from seemingly nowhere.
“Here,” he says, shoving the meal into my hands. “Eat it as you follow me.”
I cock an eyebrow, wanting to laugh at the absurdity of his reluctant empathy. For the life of him, he just cannot behave normally, with normal emotions.
Still, though, I quietly accept his little peace offering.
I usually skip lunch, but gaining what must be twenty pounds of muscle cranked my metabolism to… maximum. And then some. I’m unbearably hungry.
I only realize halfway through eating that I’m not exactly sure what kind of meat is on it. Oddly enough, though, I don’t really care anymore.
Abaddon leads me out the far side of the training yard wall, taking us up to a small back door that I’ve never bothered to investigate. Beforeit, he stops, turning to look at me. “It would be much more efficient if you would let me fly you there.”
“If I could fly and you couldn’t, would you want me flying you around everywhere?”
“That is a strange question?—”
