Page 65 of Trust

Cash takes my hand, wraps my fingers around the handle, and adjusts my grip. “Thumb here. Index around, not too much pressure. You’re not swinging it like a sword. You’re controlling it, holding it close.” His fingers reposition mine. I try to fix my attention on the technique, not the touch.

We switch to footwork, practicing stances again with my weight on the balls of my feet and my knees bent. He guides me through shifting forward, pivoting, sliding, the blade steady the entire time.

“You’re not charging anyone,” he says. “You’re reading them. Reacting. Waiting for the opening.”

I’m clumsy at first, off balance, but I stick with it. The more we run through the drills, the more the flow settles into me, strengthening the connection between hand and foot and eye. I’m neither strong nor fast, but I pick up patterns easily.

“You’ve done this before?” Cash asks, only partly joking.

I grin. “Only in my head.”

“If you’re ever close, and you can’t run or throw, you stab,” he says. “There are places on the body that shut everything down if you hit them right. You don’t wait to find out if it worked. You stab, and you get the hell away.”

I tip my head in acknowledgment and stand taller. The air thickens again.

He picks one of the knives from the towel and gives it to me hilt-first. Then, without warning, he grips the back of his shirt and yanks it forward, peeling it over his head.

My brain blanks as I take in a body even Hercules would envy: broad and massive, built with the kind of power that doesn’t only look dangerous, but is. Every inch of him is sculpted, every muscle put there with purpose. His torso is wide and solid with abs etched in clean lines that ripple with every breath. His arms are thick and veined, flexing effortlessly as he tosses the shirt aside, strength coiled beneath the skin, ready for action.

Nearly all of it is covered in ink. Skulls woven into intricate patterns, symbols and ornamentation flowing together as if they belong to the body as much as the muscle underneath. The tattoos start at his wrists and wind upward, climbing over his forearms and shoulders, spreading across his chest to his collarbones. He looks less like someone wearing art and more like someone made of it.

I know I should turn away, be cool, but my eyes are drawn to the lines of him. I can smell the salt on his skin, the faint tang of sweat and soap and a scent entirely his own.

I don’t know if I’m breathing right anymore. I don't know if I'm thinking anymore.

A corner of his mouth lifts slightly as he waits patiently for me to stop ogling him. “Focus,” he murmurs, and steps closer.

He takes my wrist gently and lifts my hand, the one holding the knife, to his neck. My fingers tremble slightly. He doesn’t acknowledge it.

“Here,” he says. The knife’s point rests below his jawline, where the skin is soft. “Jugular. If you go deep and fast, it’ll be over in seconds. Blood pressure drops. They won’t stay standing.”

“Mm-hmm,” is all I can get out.

His hand keeps mine steady as he brings it down slowly, over his collarbone, and presses it right beneath his rib cage. “Liver,” he says. “Hard to hit clean unless you know the angle. If you get it, it’s done. Severe internal bleed. Not immediate, but close.”

I swallow, watching the way his ribs rise and fall. I’m the one holding a knife against him, but somehow, I’m also the one who ends up exposed.

He shifts my hand upward, guiding the blade to the gap between his ribs. The tautness of bone resists the steel, followed by the sickening give of flesh. I loosen my grip instinctively, worried I’ll break his skin, but he doesn’t budge. His breathing is steady; mine definitely isn’t.

“Lung. Collapse one and they’ll have trouble getting air in. Collapse both, well, it’s fatal.”

Our eyes meet. His are bold, daring. Mine are wide, overwhelmed. But I don’t pull away.

Then he guides me further. To the center of his torso, left of the sternum. “Heart,” he says. The word leaves a mark. “Trickiest to hit through bone, but if you do, it’s instant. You don’t need force, just precision.”

I hold my breath. The knife rests lightly over his heart, my fingers curled around the hilt, covered by his, keeping them in place. Neither of us moves.

The silence stretches.

Then, slowly, he lowers our hands. Downward. Past the curve of his ribs, past his stomach, to the inside of his thigh. The intimacy of it makes my throat go dry. I could let go. I should let go. But I don’t.

He presses the flat of the blade against his sweats, below the crease of his groin, fingers closing subtly around mine. “Femoral artery,” he murmurs. “Fast bleed. Dangerous. Takes less than a minute.”

I just stare.

“Got it?” he asks, drawing my attention back from the knife to his face.

I nod in slow motion. “Yeah, got it,” I stammer hoarsely.