“Oh,” I said.
“Listen, don’t worry about it. You’ll be safe. Let’s focus. I’m gonna come behind you and grab your wrist. You're gonna try and get away,” he said.
He stepped behind me, grabbing my wrists. I pulled my arms away from his arms, jerking and pulling, but he gripped tighter.
“Stop for a moment,” he said. I did. “Now rotate your inner wrists toward my thumb, then pull through my grip. Not away from it. Pulling away only makes them grip harder. First, I want you to try to pull your hand through my grip, without rotating your wrist. Then rotate and pull.”
I tried to pull my hand through his grip, but I felt the bones on the side of my thumb and pinky not sliding through. I rotated my wrist, putting his thumb against my inner wrist, and then pulled it right through.
“Did you feel the difference?”
“Yeah, before I rotated, it felt like my bones were ledges keeping me in place,” I said.
“Exactly. Alright, let’s try again. This time, you have to do it quickly before I think to tighten my grip,” he said.
He let go and bounced around me, and then grabbed my wrists. I quickly rotated and pulled them through his grip and turned to face him.
“Good girl,” he said.
My eyes widened slightly at him. He flashed me a smile.
“Alright. Next up, I’m gonna grab you from behind,” he said.
He moved behind me again and bear hugged me, pinning my arms to my side. I thrashed, tried to kick, and pinch, but he held on tighter.
“You don’t need to be stronger than them, you just have to make yourself hard to hold,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Drop your body weight, go limp. You were kicking, that’s good, but I knew they were coming, and you can’t make a force behind a kick like this, but stomping onto my foot? Lastly, useyour head. It’s one of the most powerful weapons you have. Throw it—”
I threw my head back, hitting his chest, then stomped on his foot, before dropping my body. His arms dropped from around me. I turned around to look at him.
“Ow…” he said,
“Sorry—”
“No, don’t apologize, you did exactly as I said to do. I just wasn’t ready for it at that moment,” he said. “Now, if they don’t pin your arms, which would be dumb, but if they don’t. You can bend their fingers backward and use your elbows. Elbows are some of the deadliest weapons a human has.”
“How will I remember this when I need to?” I asked.
“You will, because we’re gonna practice them over and over again.”
And we did. We alternated between him bear hugging me with and without my arms free, as well as getting out of a wrist grab. An hour went by fast, while we—no, I—practiced how to get out of less-than-ideal situations. By the end, he actually had to put forth effort to keep me held.
“We need to go and get some kitten milk and probably an actual bed for her today. Oh, and Sunday Supper at my Titi’s,” he said.
“Oh… okay,” I said.
“Is that okay?”
“Yes, totally fine,” I said.
“I also believe she wanted to do a more formal checkup on you as well,” he said.
“Yeah, I think she may have mentioned doing that,” I said.
As soon as I stepped inside the house, Lucy was making little crying noises. I went and scooped her into my arms and carried her to the kitchen to make a bottle for her. Within a minute, shestarted to purr. I kissed the top of her head. She finished her bottle by the time Quinn walked back inside.
