All Just Glass - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [21]
Sarah didn’t think. She wasn’t good at giving emotional comfort, but there was one thing she knew, and knew well, that she could use to help Christine. She asked, “Do you want me to teach you how to fight?”
Christine looked up slowly, seeming bewildered by the offer. “What?”
“You said you felt helpless,” Sarah said. “I can teach you how to do things like protect yourself, and the people around you.”
Christine gave her an odd look, partly of longing and partly of skepticism. Sarah expected her to say something denigrating her own potential as a fighter. Instead, she said, “Umm … I don’t know how to put this, really, but … your family’s methods for teaching fighting are kind of …” She trailed off, considered for a moment and then concluded with “cold.”
Cold. That was one word for it. Sarah flexed her hand as the memory of her mother’s reaction to her father’s death passed through her mind again.
Nikolas and Kristopher had told her to get away from Christine because they worried Sarah would lose control, but neither of them understood what it was to be a Vida. She had been trained to ignore pain, and cold, and hunger. The moment of hyperawareness earlier had been no different, really. Self-control and discipline were at the heart of a Vida’s training, because they meant a hunter could continue to fight no matter what happened.
A Vida did not give up, or make deals, or compromise, or flinch even when death seemed to be the only alternative. Their line had survived intact for tens of thousands of years by obeying that mandate. Dominique probably wasn’t even as strict as some of her ancestors. At least Sarah had been allowed to attend public school and, to an extent, fraternize with hunters of a less-pedigreed birth.
On the other hand, if Dominique had been as harsh as Vidas had been historically, Sarah might not be in this mess.
“You don’t have to follow Vida philosophy to learn some basic self-defense,” Sarah said to Christine, keeping her “what if” thoughts to herself. “It’s helpful to have some concept of focus and control, but most hunters don’t go to the lengths my line does … did. Look at Nikolas and Kristopher. They fight well, especially when they’re together.”
Again, the words brought an unpleasant memory to mind. Sarah knew how well the two of them fought, and how cooperatively they worked in a fight, because that had been how she had lost.
Every hunter knew that the day would come when she was too slow, but most never needed to reflect on it afterward. They certainly did not wake up in the arms of the one who had taken them down.
“Anyway,” she said. “I can teach you whatever you want to learn, even if it’s just how to throw a punch or get out of a hold.”
Christine nodded. “I think I would like that,” she said. “It’s finally getting through my mind that I could be around a long time, and I don’t want to be a victim forever. Some of the bloodbonds I’ve met are like that. They just expect Nikolas to take care of everything. I want to scream at them, ‘Who’s taking care of him?’ ”
Sarah smiled. “You know,” she said wryly, “if you weren’t in love with a vampire, you would probably make a good hunter. You have a strong instinct to protect people.”
“Back at you, sister,” Christine quipped. “We’re in the same boat, maybe for eternity. So teach me something!”
Christine used it casually, but that word, sister, threw Sarah off balance. Where was Sarah’s real sister now? Was she stalking innocents like Christine to get to Nikolas and Kristopher? Was she moving ever closer to checkmate, when Sarah would have to decide whether to stand with her birth kin or her blood kin?
Unsettled, she said, “I didn’t really mean