Airel - Aaron Patterson [98]
He made ready again, elegantly. “That’s all?”
“Hmm,” I scoffed, and tried again, this time faster, stronger, quicker. I pivoted on my left heel and brought the staff across his midsection with all the force I could muster. I was going to put everything into it, even if I fell afterward.
His staff was everywhere at once. He blocked the blow almost casually, and his unexpected movements caused me to lose my balance. I went down to the floor, landing on my knuckles, my staff skittering off and rolling. Pain shot up my hands. I turned over onto my back, winded.
“Again! Break the staff over my head!”
A warm feeling began to spread through my body as I interpreted his words. I was never super-athletic, but from lying flat on my back I jumped to my feet in a single movement, grabbing my staff again along the way. I twirled it once over my head like a baton and jumped, swinging the staff in an arc at the top of his head.
He raised his bright silver staff to deflect the blow. He laughed. It’s like all he saw was some kid who had just learned to ride a bike without training wheels. I, however, was screaming like a crazy woman. The impact of the two competing weapons cracked like lightning, and just as I had imagined in my mind, the staff shattered into splinters.
I landed on my feet, bending my knees to absorb the shock. I uncoiled to my full height, Kale now off to one side and behind me at the end of our maneuver. I turned toward him, absolutely filled with rage like never before, a little out of control.
I tore the silver staff from his hand and racked him in the back of the legs with it. He went down like a bag of rocks as I reset and brought the metal staff up over my head. Right before I stabbed the end of it down through his face, he rolled out of the way. It impacted the floor, tearing through the matting and wood, digging into the earth below, so deep that the leather grip was only half visible.
My breathing was rapid and my heart pumped furiously. I felt cold steel against my neck and froze. Kale grabbed my wrist and wrenched it into my shoulder blades. The tip of a knife rested threateningly just under my chin.
“You let your anger control your power one more time and I will show you the meaning of pain.” He flicked his wrist, slicing the underside of my chin, which hurt. But it healed quickly. That itching thing was going to take some time to get used to.
I walked over to one of the walls and sat with my back resting against it to catch my breath. I studied Kale from across the room as he wiped the blood from his knife and put it away. The silver staff stuck out of the floor like a gigantic needle. As I calmed, I wondered how I could be so strong. Here it was, right in front of my eyes. Evidence, facts, truth.
The room was littered with wood splinters, and the metal staff stuck out of the floor. It was hard not to feel discarded, in a way. I had sat in class wondering if I was abnormal or normal—whatever that was—so many times. I wondered if I would ever be accepted as-is, or if I needed to change part of me. Maybe I was doomed to be on the outside looking in. Try to fit in now. Now I would be the kid who had been kidnapped, at least. Or the girl who had superpowers. “So bizarre.” I wondered if I was concerned about the right things—and I even wondered if that thought belonged to me in the first place.
Kale grunted approvingly at me and picked up another wooden staff from the rack. “Now do it with love.”
Love? “What does that even mean?” I was trying not to feel awkward. “How do I do that?”
“Feel that heat, the same as when you were angry—but feel the way love can overpower your emotions and use that to break the staff. But this time break it over your knee.” Kale managed a sideways smile and tossed me a new wood staff.
I took hold of it and closed my eyes, trying to concentrate. I wondered what I was supposed to do to make my emotions flow. It should be second nature. But not when you’re thinking about it so intensely. I felt like I was trying to conjure spells or charm snakes