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“You will wash my cars for a week.”
I frowned. He knew how much I wanted to get my driver’s license so I could drive around in the Bugatti Veyron. A car he hardly let anyone touch, let alone me. For him to make me wash the cars he wouldn’t allow me to drive was maddening.
He swooshed the bat from left to right. “I will sweeten the pot for you. You only have to hit me once.”
“Just once?” He nodded, and once again I felt like I was missing some clue. I’d seen him spar with the guys, but how difficult could it be? It was time to take him down a peg. “Deal.”
His eyes turned serious. “Do you know the story about the raven who thought he could rival an eagle?”
I didn’t, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. “Is this going to be another story about humility? Because I think that would be like the story about the pot and the kettle.” Without waiting for a response, I charged. He turned his body, and I hit air.
Slap!
I jumped when his bat hit my ass. I pivoted until I had my eyes on him again. My heart raced and my cheeks flushed. I spotted movement from the corner of my eye. Viking walked by, shook his head, and made himself scarce.
Kristoff stepped back to give me some space to maneuver. It was both endearing and humiliating.
“A raven saw an eagle swoop down from the sky and carry off a sheep,” he started while circling me like I was prey. “The raven thought to himself ‘that’s a cheap meal. I can do that too.’ So he found a fat sheep from a well-fed flock. The sheep seemed to weigh a ton. That’s how fat it was.”
I charged again, made a fake move to the right, but he evaded me. I was so close! Had he been slower this time? Was he distracted because he was rubbing a story in my face that couldn’t possibly end well?
“Then what happened?” I asked, contemplating my next move.
“The sheep’s wool was beautifully thick. However, the raven’s claws got caught in it. No matter how hard he tried to fly, he couldn’t untangle himself from the wool.”
I really didn’t like where this story was going. I jumped to one side, dropped to my knees, and swung my bat against his legs.
With a move that almost defied gravity, he jumped and smashed his bat against mine, then dropped to his haunches.
I dropped the bataka bat, leaving myself defenseless. He swung one leg in my direction and I fell onto my butt.
He was on me in an instant, his bat pressed against my throat. The soft pad almost caressed my skin. All the air seemed to have left my lungs. I stared up at him as he towered over me.
“Then what happened?” I asked hoarsely.
“A shepherd came along and released the raven from the wool.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“I’m not finished. The shepherd grabbed the raven and put him in a cage.”
I couldn’t have jumped up faster if he’d splashed ice-cold water in my face. I swatted away the bat and pushed at his chest. He let me rise with no resistance.
I grabbed my bat off the floor and squared my jaw. I wasn’t going down without a fight.
This time I put more thought into it. I used my advantage of being faster and lighter on my feet, and gave Kristoff a run for his money. All I needed was one hit. One damn time, I needed to touch him to garner a bit more freedom. But it was to no avail. When he hit me two more times in less than two minutes, I realized he had been playing with me all along. I’d never stood a chance, and he knew it.
My shoulders slumped. “And what happens after I return, Kristoff? It’s been over three years, and I’m still not really living. I don’t have any friends to speak of. I want to go out into the world, meet people, have a life. I’m almost twenty-one and I want to have a freaking drink.”
His face tightened. “We already discussed this. You can’t stay in a dorm room. It’s not safe. You can ask people over.”
Invite someone over? How was I going to explain the armed men and the iron gate? Feeling deflated, I was just about to leave when another thought hit me.
“Speaking of washing cars,” I said pointedly, “I think it’s time I got a driver’s license, don’t you think?”
“Why? You have a chauffeur.”
Yes, one of the many reasons I stuck out like a sore thumb at school. “Normal students don’t have chauffeurs driving them around in a bulletproof Aston Martin.” James Bond had nothing on me. All the car was missing were the fancy buttons that shot bullets out the headlights.
