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“That gives us at least twenty minutes,” I said. “Come on, who’s up for it?”
I glanced at Brooke, and for a long moment, she stared back at me. I recognized the thirst in her eyes. She was a competitor, plain and simple, and as odd as it seemed, a morning fight sounded just as good to her as it did to me. When I first joined the Squad, I thought Brooke and I were complete and utter opposites. I was the anticheerleader, and she was the poster girl.
These days, I wasn’t quite so sure.
“We’re wearing cheerleading uniforms,” Tara said, making an admirable stab at talking me out of what I’m sure she thought was a very bad idea. “And body glitter.”
“I promise I won’t hurt anyone’s glitter,” I said, my eyes still on Brooke. The last time we’d fought, she’d ended it before either of us had had much of a chance to win.
“Brooke.” Chloe Larson stepped in front of Brooke, effectively blocking me from her view. “I thought we’d go over the chant order for the pep rally. I think we may want to put ‘Clap Your Hands’ before ‘Stand Up, Up.’”
Brooke’s facial expression never changed, but I could almost hear her internal sigh as she realized that neither one of us was getting a rematch this morning. “Just a sec,” she told Chloe. “Lucy?”
“Yeah huh?” Lucy popped out of a nearby bathroom stall, and I blinked as the glare off her glittery chest struck me straight in the eye.
“Toby wants to spar,” Brooke told her. “Make it interesting.”
Lucy was little, perky, and happier than just about any person I knew. Needless to say, the happiest girl in the world wasn’t exactly my first-choice punching bag. Then again, I’d never seen her fight, and if there was one thing the past few weeks had taught me, it was that underestimating any of these girls was a very, very bad idea.
“You ready?” Lucy asked me, bouncing on the balls of her feet. I nodded, and beside me, Tara sighed.
“You want me to come with?” she asked.
I shook my head. I was pretty sure I could handle Lucy, and because it was Lucy, who’d always been nice to me in her own special Lucy way and who hadn’t, for instance, forced gloss upon my unwilling lips in the past five minutes, she wasn’t in any real danger from me, either.
Lucy bounded back into the bathroom stall, and then returned a moment later. “So how’s your day going?” she asked, coming up and hooking her arm through mine. “I mean, I know it’s pretty early, but so far, so good?”
I was glossed and glittered and on edge, and I had a sinking suspicion that I wasn’t going to be getting any answers about our superiors any time soon, but I also had an assignment, and the thought of tailing Jacob Kann after school was enough to make up for the rest of it. With any luck, I’d actually get to break into his hotel room.
“So far, so good.”
Five minutes later, we were in the training room, and Lucy was sitting on the ground doing a butterfly stretch, the soles of her feet touching each other, and her knees pushing down toward the ground.
I took a few deep breaths and warm-up kicks, and by the time Lucy bounced (literally) to her feet, I was ready to go.
We stood there for an elongated moment, looking at each other, and then Lucy flew at me. She was fast—I’d give her that much, and she knew how to put what little weight she had behind a punch. Despite the fact that I’d told myself not to underestimate her, the speed of the movement took me off guard, and she managed to catch the edge of my shoulder as I belatedly moved to dodge her blow.
Without thinking, I turned, absorbing the force and moving with it, and grabbed her arm. With a single, smooth movement on my part, Lucy was flying through the air, and I was reminding myself that I really didn’t want to hurt her.
Realizing she was airborne, Lucy somehow managed to turn her flight into a technically perfect front flip, and as soon as she landed, she came at me again. For several minutes, we got stuck in that pattern—Lucy advancing on me enough to punch or kick, me dodging and using her own momentum to throw her into some kind of twisting flip. After the first time, none of her punches or kicks touched me, and even though she seemed to be having a good time, I was starting to feel kind of bad and figured it was time to end things.
As she landed from her umpteenth flip, I moved forward, kicking low with my left foot in a motion meant to sweep her feet out from underneath her. She fell, but was back on her feet instantly, and as I tried to temper my reaction to her skill level, she managed to land a solid kick to my chest.
I grunted, spun, and came disturbingly close to throwing myself into a roundhouse. Keeping my head in the game, I short-circuited the movement. My roundhouse was not a thing to be taken lightly.
“Ummm…Toby?” Lucy’s voice was somewhat hesitant as she backed away from me slowly.
“Yes?”
“Remember how Brooke said for me to make it interesting?”
I nodded, relatively unconcerned. Lucy was good—definitely better than I’d expected, but there was a very real chance I could have taken her with my eyes closed.
“Toby?” Lucy prodded.
“I remember.”
Lucy smiled tentatively. “Just checking.” She moved quickly, her hands blurring with the speed at which she reached back and somehow produced two sharp, metal objects.
Throwing knives? What the…
And then we were fighting again, and instead of dodging Lucy’s punches, I was avoiding the thrusts of the knives. I grabbed hold of her left arm and twisted her wrist until she dropped the weapon, and then barely managed to duck before the knife in her right hand came whizzing at my neck.
I needed to put space in between the two of us. Fast. Without even thinking, going entirely on instinct and years of training, I flew into a series of back handsprings that took me away from her and landed just in time to see Lucy take aim and throw the final knife.
I dove down and out of the way, twisting to allow my shoulder to absorb the impact as my body hit the floor, and then I rolled on autopilot back to my feet.
Lucy smiled hopefully. “Wasn’t that interesting?”
My heart was beating hard against my rib cage, and the adrenaline was flowing. I opened my mouth and then closed it again. I wasn’t sure whether to be incredulous or ticked, or possibly oddly elated. On the one hand, Brooke had more or less told Lucy to throw knives at me. On the other hand, it had made things more interesting. I could take Lucy with my eyes closed. Lucy with knives was another story altogether.
