The Last City Page 3

  “I can’t watch this,” I whispered to him.

  “You won’t,” Lena said, as she slapped Jordan’s hand away from my face. “We’ll be in separate rooms, so that I can teach you, and you won’t be able to sense each other. We’ll start small, something simple. And I need you to focus on me, not him.”

  Jordan attempted a reassuring smile as he led Dax out of the room.

  My gaze lingered upon the doorway they’d walked through. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t stand the thought of Jordan’s bones breaking.

  And I barely felt it when Lena picked up my hand, and pulled me toward her. She kicked out my legs, and forced me face down with my arm pinned tight against my back. But as she twisted my arm to the point where I thought she was going to break me, my focus was back on her… and the pain. It had happened so fast, I barely had time to register what she was doing.

  “Pay attention,” she demanded, and I struggled, trying hard not to cry out from the pain. “Feel how I’m holding your hand. If I apply any more pressure I will snap it off. This is what you need to learn. Subdue your opponent. Impair those weaker parts of the body that provide your attacker with the ability to inflict the most damage. Such as your hands,” she said. While keeping her stranglehold on my hand, she unpinned my arm from my back, helped me to my feet, and then swung me around to face her. “They contain small bones, easily broken, and yet look at what my hands can do to yours.”

  I looked at her wondering how twisting someone’s hand could cause the most damage.

  “If I break it, you can’t use it,” she responded as though hearing my thought, and applied a fraction more pressure.

  While trying to force the pain away, I studied our hands as best as I could, so that I could imitate her movement.

  “You got it?” she asked, and released me when I nodded. “We’ll start small,” she reiterated, and explained how to grasp her body, and knock her to the floor.

  With each attempt, I could feel my ability develop little by little, however each time I’d managed to subdue her, I was clearly aware that she assisted me, no doubt to build my confidence and technique. But by mid-afternoon, she stopped to change tactics.

  “Now for something harder,” she said, and dropped me to the floor, then painfully twisted my arm once more.

  “This is what you’re going to do to me. But take it to the next level.”

  I swallowed hard, knowing what she meant. I couldn’t think about what was coming.

  She lifted me to my feet once more, explaining that we would remain standing so she could coach me through the movement. She then held out her arm to me. “Take it,” she said.

  I did, after shaking out the pain in my own. And after several minutes of bending and turning her arm, I finally got the movement right, and I twisted her hand and wrist the way she’d done to mine. I tried to apply the right pressure, but I couldn’t go through with it. Mostly because I lacked the strength to, but also because in that final moment I couldn’t hurt her.

  “You have to try,” she demanded.

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. Think of all those times I’d used my weapons against you. Think of the many ways I’ve hurt you in this very room.”

  I did. Using a weapon was one thing. But this somehow, seemed personal. And I couldn’t bring myself to do as she asked.

  “Lydia!”

  “No,” I told her, while exhaling my dismay, and I released her arm.

  “If the ward gets out, what are you going to do?”

  Her question sent a familiar ripple of fear down my spine. The ward, my attacker. The one who’d tried to eliminate me during the Rathe hunt, and who afterward, had attacked me twice more in his twisted and gruesome ways. The ward was supposedly locked in the Spire. But even I knew things on this planet, could change in an instant. He was the reason why I continued to train with Lena. If he got out, what would I do?

  I picked up her hand, while holding the memory of his eyes, his snide smile, and his hands hurting me, slashing at me, all in the forefront of my mind. And I twisted her arm and her hand, increasing the pressure as I did.

  But my hands shook, stopping me once more. I still couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hurt her.

  She growled in my face; frustration contorting her features. She pulled her arm free, and then clasping mine in hers, she twisted and bent. The pain seared up my arm to my brain before the snap crunched in my ears. I cried out, and fell to my knees.

  I couldn’t look down. I didn’t want to see what she’d done. Instead, I squeezed my eyes closed, attempting to hold back the emotion that begged release. And as she led me to the medic room, I silently thanked the warrior suit with each step, as the initial need to scream leveled out.

  “What happened?” Jordan called across the room.

  “She refused to learn,” Lena told him.

  I looked up to see him trying to move off the healer’s table. A light from the ceiling had covered his arm from his shoulder down to his fingers, attempting to pin him to the table. The healer, Gaias, pushed him back down, but Jordan brushed him aside, and shoved himself upward. He then strode across the room to us.

  “I needed to show her that it’s nothing personal,” Lena continued. “It’s training.”

  Jordan grasped her neck and jaw in one hand, forcing her backward, moving her away from me.

  “Get your hand off me,” Lena warned, but she sounded more amused than threatened, and she didn’t move to defend herself. Instead, she waited it seemed, in eager anticipation. And I couldn’t help but feel that she was hoping he would take it further.

  “Jordan, it’s ok,” I tried to tell him, but my voice croaked from the pain. I felt a gentle tug on my good elbow, as Gaias tried to pull me away.

  Dax stepped forward to protect Lena, but another warrior, just entering the room, put his hand against Dax’s chest, stopping his forward movement.

  “Don’t,” Castor told him.

  I was grateful he’d arrived when he did, and I tried unsuccessfully, to greet him with a smile as he looked my way. But Jordan’s warning tone brought my attention back to him.

  “Do that again to her and…”

  “You’ll what?” Lena interrupted. “Go ahead. Give me all the explicit details.”

  But he only stared back at her for several moments, not speaking. Lena however, responded as if he’d delivered a threat.

  “Ooh, promises,” she chuckled, while swiping his hand away.

  It took only one more successful tug from Gaias and I was forced onto a table. He held to my mouth a familiar, foul-smelling tube and I drank it without question. Right away, I felt the numbing effects take over as he worked to mend my arm.

  It didn’t take Gaias long to get us both back to normal. However, while Lena and Dax waited for us, Hera, Castor’s daughter, had entered the room with Connor. Connor was from Threa. And Castor made it clear with the severity of his stare, that he did not like the match.

  Lena’s reaction to their presence on the other hand, was the more troubling in the room. She glared at Hera, watching her every move, almost as if she expected at any moment for something terrible to happen.

  Hera glanced back at Lena, but there was no fear in her expression. She instead, exuded defiance in that one look, before turning back to her scowling father.

  Lena shook her head and whispered words that didn’t reach me, but Hera only peered back at her with a grin and a nod, as if accepting a challenge.

  “Lena,” Castor’s compelling voice boomed. “Not here.”

  Once healed, Jordan pulled me off the table, and ushered me out of the room. On our way out I had every expectation of being led back into the training room, but instead we turned in the opposite direction.

  “Be early tomorrow,” Lena warned us.

  “Of course,” Jordan readily agreed. I thought he would at least, have paused for a moment or two, before responding.

  We headed
toward a long narrow room, that wound its way around the width of their underground stadium. Along the entire length of one wall were more of their changing cubicles, and we quickly changed out of our suits. I was more than a little curious however, as to why our training ended so early. We were fully healed, well, maybe ninety-nine percent healed for my part, and mostly ready to continue. But Lena had dismissed us before I could question.

  “What’s wrong with Lena?” I asked, as we left the stadium, and made our slow way toward home.

  “I couldn’t say for sure,” Jordan responded. “She’s been mumbling to herself all day. Earlier, she’d said something more about the fields and mentioned Haize’s name.”

  Haize, along with Aleric and several others from Rathe and Heart, seemed to have disappeared. I hadn’t seen them in weeks. Both she and Aleric had been coming and going for the past few months.

  “She apparently, also has an issue with Hera,” I said.

  “Hera…” he began, then sighed before continuing. “Had been inserted by the Guardian. We didn’t get to her in time. She has its signal embedded within her.”

  My steps faltered. I should have known. Aleric had indicated as much several months earlier. But I’d decided then, that it wasn’t an important detail.

  “The Guardian is no longer an issue though,” I said.

  When he spoke next, it was with care, as though he already knew what my reaction would be. “If the Guardian is reinstated, it will have control of her.”

  “What do you mean if it’s reinstated? Why would anyone do that? Mason assured me it was gone,” I could hear the panic begin to creep into my voice, and I took several deep breaths to calm myself, while making every effort to release the fear before it took hold.

  “Lydia,” he whispered, drawing out the word, attempting to soothe me. We stopped walking, and he placed both hands around my face, as his soul wound its protective warmth around me. “Even if the Guardian was brought back, for whatever reason, the ward would not. There is no reason for anyone, to free him.”

  He stopped abruptly, as though lost in thought, and turned back toward the stadium for several moments. He then glanced back at me before releasing me, and we resumed our walk home. Whatever thought had passed through him, it had silenced him for more minutes than I wanted to count.

  “Lena shouldn’t have done what she did to you,” he finally said, changing the subject.

  Taking one more deep breath, I decided to follow his lead, and not dwell upon the Guardian. It wasn’t an issue. And I refused to weaken myself with thoughts of any possibility of it returning. I refused to think of it, until it became necessary.

  “Do you think that’s why she ended training?” I asked him.

  “No,” he scoffed. “She feels no remorse. Everything she does, is done with specific intent. But she went too far. She shouldn’t need to inflict such pain to teach a lesson.”

  As much as I agreed with him, a part of me felt she was justified, in doing what she did.

  “No,” I said. “She shouldn’t have needed to. But I understand why, and I agree with her motive.”

  “What could she have possibly said to convince you of that?”

  All I could do was look up at him as the memories swept through me once more. I was sure Lena needed me to remember, needed me to keep on remembering. For while awake, I could only ever recall the act of being hurt, but never the painful sensations that always resulted. While I slept however, each stinging, biting, burning memory stirred from its dormant depths to seep through whatever blocks my waking brain had constructed.

  The worst of the dreams always seemed to coincide with the level of pain I’d endured during that day’s training. But knowing this, never stopped the fear that filled me each night as I slept. And after Lena’s brutal lesson, I knew the night would be bad. I lay in Jordan’s arms, trying to focus upon the lulling rhythm of his breath, but my mind had other ideas. For in-spite of the fact that it was either Lena, or Dax who hurt me while I trained, it wasn’t them I was afraid of. It was the ward. He may have been locked away, but it was his presence that haunted me in the darkness.

  I closed the fractional gap between my body and Jordan’s, snuggling close, refusing to acknowledge the insidious shadows.

  Until sleep won out. And I slipped into that subconscious world where painful sensations lie waiting.

  But as always, it didn’t last long.

  You’re dreaming, Jordan’s voice came to me like waves upon a rippling pond. The sound of him reverberated through me, calming my fears. His face then came into focus, as his warmth surrounded me, his presence protected me, and he held me wrapped within his soul.

  And the dream evolved. Every adverse thought, every hostile feeling was soon clouded by him, until the ward existed no more. Until all I could sense was Jordan. And all I could breathe was him.

  He kept me close until my pounding heart beat not with fear, but instead with his love. And I knew I was safe.

  When I awoke his face was inches from mine, and I watched him while he slept. The details of the dream had begun to fade, but the images, the sounds, and the scent of Jordan remained strong within me. His memory was so vivid, that I had to wonder, as I did most mornings, if he really had come to me in my sleep. Or if I was just getting better at dreaming of him and making the nightmare end.

  And as much as I wanted to believe that I was strong enough to save myself, I preferred to think it was him, dreaming with me.

  He smiled as I finished my thought, and then leaned forward to kiss me before he’d even opened his eyes.

  “How do you know it’s me you’re kissing?” I asked him. “I could be anyone laying here in your arms.”

  “I don’t need to see you to know you’re next to me,” he whispered. Then finally, he opened his eyes, capturing mine. This was the best ending to any dream or nightmare - waking up to him, knowing he was real, and feeling how much he loved me.

  And the feelings stayed with me all morning, with every smile he sent my way, with every memory, every brush of his hand, with every warming rush of his soul around mine.

  Though once we were back in the dome, I felt my heart leave with him, as he and Dax flew to the stadium, while Lena and I stayed behind.

  “Why do you do that?” Lena asked.

  I had no idea what she meant, and so I gave her a puzzled look in return.

  “Create that sense within yourself, that part of you is leaving.”

  “Because it is,” I couldn’t help but smile. I had no idea that my emotions were so plainly expressed upon my face.

  She scowled at my response.

  I was in trouble.

  “While your emotions may be appropriate in certain circumstances, when you’re in the Arena, here or at the stadium, you’re expected to show a certain amount of control, even at your level,” she said. “And during any battle, you don’t suppress the pain to not feel it. For you do feel it, all of it, every sensation, and you recognize it. You keep yourself open to everything around you, just as you would if the pain was not there. And you keep going until the pain is just another part of you. Until it disappears amongst everything else that is you, and amongst everything else that is happening around you.”

  I wanted to ask how to accomplish that, or how to even start, for pain was something I was familiar with, but it was something I’d spent years trying to expel from my mind. And now I was expected to willingly embrace it. It was an idea that my stomach didn’t agree with, and I swallowed hard to keep its contents in place.

  “I wasn’t going to start you off on the simulation; you gave me every impression that you wanted to learn,” she said, leading me toward the far wall. “And when you hesitated, I was hoping the mere mention of the ward would be motivation enough for you to want to fight the way you need to. But apparently not. So…”

  I followed her to the floor mat and she called my level. Immediately, a warrior appeared before us. I reached o
ut my hand to touch him, to see if he was real, but he only flicked my hand away.

  Upon glancing across at Lena, I noticed her quizzical expression mimicked the same puzzled look the simulation now wore.

  “Who is he?” He didn’t look like anyone I knew, or had met in Tira-Mi. However, from the size of him, he was clearly more advanced than me.

  “One of us. Made from flesh, programmed to train.”

  “He’s a ward?” I had to ask.

  “No. He’s one of us.”

  I didn’t understand. How could he be a simulation and made from flesh at the same time? But I knew I wouldn’t understand any answer she would give, so I kept the question deep inside.

  I turned back to the warrior only to find him now grinning at me, but he hadn’t yet spoken, and I wasn’t sure if he would.

  “Um, hello,” I said, and rose one hand in a quick wave. I then turned back to Lena, wondering what to do.

  Lena stared at me for several moments, trying to stifle an amused smile, before speaking, “What are you doing?”

  I didn’t know how to respond. I thought I was waiting for instruction.

  “Hands up,” she insisted, as though I was supposed to know this. “Like this,” she finished, holding up her fists. When I didn’t quite get it right, she showed me how to hold my arms to protect my head. She then stepped off the mat.

  I didn’t even have time to turn back to the simulation. And I certainly wasn’t ready for what came.

  It punched me and kicked me too easily, and then wrestled me to the ground in less time than it took me to take a single breath.

  Lena only laughed. I was glad neither Jordan nor Dax were there to see.

  I’ve been through worse, I told myself as I breathed through the pain. Though it wasn’t that bad. I’d definitely been through worse.

  “Oh, come on.” She pulled me up. “It’s only a level five. Shake it off. Try again.”

  I was hoping to see a healer first, but that was clearly not happening. I tried to do as she suggested, tried to maintain my focus, but the pain was just there, throbbing through my skin, aching to my bones, and determined to devour my attention.