Prodigy (Legend 2)

I shake my head. “No. Why?”

June turns to face me. The kitchen entrance is narrow enough that her shoulders brush past mine, raising goose bumps on my arms. I’m annoyed that she still has this effect on me, in spite of everything. “While we were getting into the tunnel I noticed that you were swinging at the Patriots from your arms . . . but that’s not very effective. You should be swinging from your legs and hips.”

Her critique grates on my nerves, even though she’s giving it in a strangely hesitant tone. “I don’t want to do this right now.”

“When are we going to do it if not now?” June leans against the door frame and points toward the shelter’s entrance. “What if we bump into some soldiers?”

I sigh and put my hands up for a second. “If this is your way of apologizing after a fight, then you really suck at it. Listen. I’m sorry I got angry earlier.” I hesitate, remembering my words. I’m not sorry. But telling her that now won’t help anything. “Just give me a few minutes, and I’ll feel better.”

“Come on, Day. What’ll happen when you find Eden and you need to protect him?” She is trying to apologize, in her own subtle way. Well. At least she’s giving it a shot, however crappy she is at it. I glare at her for a few seconds.

“All right,” I finally say. “Show me some moves, soldier. What you got up your sleeves?”

June gives me a small smile, then walks me over to the center of the shelter’s main room. She stands beside me. “Ever read Ducain’s The Art of the Fight?”

“Does it look like I’ve had free time in my life to read?”

She ignores me, and I immediately feel bad for saying it. “Well, you’re already light on your feet and you have flawless balance,” she continues. “But you don’t use those strengths when you attack. It’s like you panic. You forget all about your speed advantage and your center of mass.”

“My center of what?” I start to say, but she just taps the outside of my leg with her boot.

“Stay on the balls of your feet and keep your legs shoulder width apart,” she goes on. “Pretend you’re standing on train tracks with one foot forward.”

I’m a little surprised. June’s been watching my attacks closely, even though it usually happens when all sorts of chaos is going on around us. And she’s right. I hadn’t even realized that all my instincts of balance go right out the window when I try to fight. I do as she says. “Okay. Now what?”

“Well, keep your chin down, for one.” She touches my hands, then lifts them up so one fist stays close to the side of my cheek and the other hovers out in front of my face. Her hands run along my arms, checking my posture. My skin tingles. “Most people lean back and keep their chins high and jutted,” she says, her face close beside mine. She taps my chin once. “That’s what you do too. And it’s just asking for a knockout.”

I try to focus on my own posture by putting two fists up. “How do you punch?”

June gently touches the tip of my chin, then the edge of my brow. “Remember, it’s all about how accurately you can hit someone, not how hard. You’ll be able to knock out someone much larger if you catch them in the right spots.”

Before I know it, half an hour’s gone by. June teaches me one tactic after another—keeping my shoulder up to protect my chin, catching my opponent off guard with fake moves, overhand hits, underhand hits, leaning back and following through with kicks, leaping out of the way with speed. Aiming for the vulnerable spots—eyes, neck, and so on. I lunge out with everything I’ve got. When I try to catch her by surprise, she slips from my grasp like water between rocks, fluid and constantly moving, and if I blink, she’s behind me and twisting my arm up behind my back.

Finally, June trips me and pins me to the floor. Her hands push my wrists down. “See?” she says. “Tricked you. You’re always staring at your opponent’s eyes—but that gives you a bad peripheral view. If you want to track my arms and legs, you have to focus on my chest.”

I raise my eyebrow at that. “Say no more.” My eyes shift downward.

June laughs, then turns a little red. We pause there for an instant, her hands still holding my arms down, her legs across my stomach, both of us breathing heavily. Now I understand why she suggested the impromptu sparring—I’m tired, and the exercise has drained my anger. Even though she doesn’t say it, I can see her apology plainly on her face, the tragic slant of her eyebrows and the slight quiver of unspoken words on her lips. The sight finally softens me, albeit only a little. I’m still not sorry about what I’d said to her earlier, true, but I’m also not being fair. Whatever I lost, June has lost equally. She used to be rich, then she threw it away to save my life. She’d played her part in my family’s deaths, but . . . I run a hand through my hair, feeling guilty now. I can’t blame her for everything. And I can’t be alone at a time like this, with no allies, no one I can turn to.

She sways.

I prop myself up on my elbows. “You okay?”

She shakes her head, frowns, and tries to shrug it off. “Fine. I think I picked up a bug or something. Nothing big.”

I study her under the artificial light. Now that I’m paying closer attention to the color of her face, I can see that she’s paler than usual, and that her cheeks look flushed because her skin is so wan. I sit up higher, forcing her to slide off. Then I press a hand to her forehead. Immediately I pull it away. “Man, you’re burning up.”