A Girl Named Calamity by Danielle Lori

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SAD TRUTHS

Imulled the idea of leaving and fending for myself around over and over. How could I have lived in this violent world and never known how to protect myself? I didn’t doubt that if I wasn’t with Weston, I wouldn’t have made it this far. No matter how much that bit of truth pissed me off, I couldn’t deny that it was the truth.

I was between a rock and a hard place. I was so angry that he would use me as he had, but the thought of being alone was gut wrenching. I needed to be stronger if I wanted to make it in this world.

My hair was different. My clothes were different. But now, I was the weak farm girl from Alger. And I didn’t want to be her anymore.

Weston might have been an enigmatic man with no conscience, but those Untouchables were surely worse. He hadn’t physically hurt me nor had he tried to rape me. And that was what made me decide to stay. That, and to learn how to protect myself.

We hadn’t said a word to each other the rest of the ride. It’d taken an hour before the shaking in my hands disappeared; it was mainly from the intense anger boiling in my veins.

“Do whatever you did to me again and I’ll kill you in your sleep,” I told him.

He gave me an indifferent look as he sat across the fire that showed me exactly how worried he was about that particular threat. He wasn’t. With the raging inferno in my mind dissipating, I realized something.

He could move in a blink of an eye and could have dodged my knife easily.

He let me stab him.

It must have been his strange way of making amends. He might have been a psychotic assassin, but now I knew that he knew it, too. I caught his glare above the fire, announcing his meddling around in my head.

“Stay out of my head,” I sighed, truly aggravated at the lack of privacy. “I thought you would rather endure torture than listen to my thoughts?”

“They are hard to block out when you shout them to the world.”

“How am I supposed to know how loud my thoughts are when it’s abnormal to be able to hear them? You’re the one with the problem. Control your creepy impulses to listen,” I said but heard no reply. “What are you teaching me tonight?” I continued. I could feel the protest in the air, so I stood up and unsheathed my knife. “Say anything about not agreeing to teach me and I will stab you again.”

He was silent and still for a moment. Too still that I became aware I’d stepped over the line. There was a blur, and my own knife was pressed against my throat from behind. The cold of the steel made me shudder.

“Threaten me again and you won’t live to regret it. We both know I let your knife hit me. I promise you, I won’t let it happen again,” he growled. “Now, try to get away from me.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Your first lesson is right now. Try to get away.”

There was still a knife at my throat, and I had no idea how to begin. “I don’t know how,” I admitted.

He sighed. “Lean all your weight back, and grab my wrist holding the knife and push it away. That will give you some room to bring your head back to head butt me. Now, you can take your other arm and swing it down into my groin. It’s the best spot to hit a man, but since I’d prefer you didn’t do that, you can elbow me in the stomach instead. Now I’m dazed, and you can run. And you’ll run fast because you have little to no chance if I catch you again. I wouldn’t have my guard down.”

I took it all in, and then leaned back and gave his wrist a push, which I was sure he let happen. It was a bummer, but I rolled with it. I brought my head back, and it bounced off his hard chest.

“Ow,” I said while I rubbed the back of my head.

“You don’t have to use the force you would in a real fight. Most men are shorter than me. So, you might hit them in a better spot.”

“But I need to learn how to defend myself against you.”

He let out a breath of amusement. “Could never happen.”

“Don’t make me hit you in the groin,” I warned.

He laughed this time. “Think that would bring me down?”

“I won’t know till I try it, will I?” I taunted.

“It would only be a severe annoyance. You want to make me angry, Princess? Try it.”

“Stop calling me a princess. It’s not even close to the truth.”

“No? Aren’t princesses spoiled, little girls?”

I shook my head, but the knife grazed my throat, and I held still. “I’m not spoiled, and I’m not little.” My reply sounded poutier than I would have liked.

“I think you’re the shortest girl I’ve ever come across.”

I scoffed. “They must make them tall in Titan because I’m average where I come from.”

The fact that I was having a conversation with an assassin while he held a knife to my throat was not something I registered until later. And I realized that normal to me had severely changed on the scale.

“Ah yes, Alger. They must make them a lot softer there, too.”

I frowned. I’d never told him I was from Alger. He must have been meddling around in my head. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? I’m not soft.” I had always been a hard worker and was toned. I wasn’t self-conscious in the slightest, and I knew he was talking about my lack of muscle mass. And trying to piss me off.

“I don’t know, you feel kind of soft to me.” His hand ran across my bare midsection. It felt like fire, and was such a shock to my heart, that I grabbed it and flung it off me. He chuckled, and it warmed my insides against my wishes.

“I’m not soft,” I growled.

“Prove it, Princess. Get away,” he taunted.

I went through the routine again and again. But I decided to elbow him in the stomach instead of hitting him in the groin. There was that little thing called self-preservation holding me back. It wasn’t always around, so I took advantage of it when it was.

When I had the move down, I begged to be taught another one, but he refused and told me he would show me another one the next day. I grumbled something about needing to know more moves by tomorrow with the trouble he got me in. He only shot me a look, and I reluctantly dropped it.

I was lying on my pallet staring at the stars, thinking about Grandmother and home. And about my future. If I even had one . . .

“Weston?” I said to the star-lit sky. I didn’t hear anything but the crickets and the crackle of the fire, so I only continued. “What is Undaley like?”

“You’re not going to shut up until I answer, are you?”

“No,” I answered honestly.

“I’ve never been to Undaley.”

I didn’t have a whole lot of hope when I asked this question, but I had to try. “How can I keep you out of my head?”

“You can’t. And stop with the melancholy thoughts.”

“Why? Does it make your cold heart upset?” I sneered.

“You know what makes me upset? You. Awake. Go to fucking sleep.”

* * *

“Why did you even need me if you could kill seven men like that?” I asked Weston as we were once again traveling down the tedious dusty path the next morning. Trees and patches of grass were becoming more numerous the farther we went, and I was more than happy to see them. Never had I thought I would be excited to see some simple grass.

The entire day had been a quiet, uneventful one. Which to me was a win. Uneventful on this trip was always a good thing.

“I needed them together and distracted,” he said as he rode beside me.

“Not good enough to kill them all on guard?” I smiled internally as I asked it. I caught his dirty look out of the corner of my eye.

“It would have been risky.”

“How was using me not? Is that why you decided to escort me to Undaley? So you could use me as bait while you satisfied your bloodlust?”

“No, but it sure is a plus, isn’t it?” he drawled.

Ugh, he was annoying. And I suddenly imagined practicing knife throwing with him as a target.

He glanced at me with amused eyes, and I only shook my head. No matter how long it took to get to Undaley, I didn’t think I’d ever get used to him reading my thoughts.

“Then why did you change your mind and decide to take me?” I knew he didn’t do it out of the kindness of his heart, and his small smile confirmed it. “Well? I’m getting real tired of you ignoring me,” I sighed.

“I have to listen to you every minute of the day. Do you think you could give me a short respite?”

“I don’t talk all day.”

That might have been a tiny lie.

“You are constantly talking. And when you aren’t, your thoughts are loud enough to be heard in Cameron.”

“I told you to stop listening.”

“It’s not that easy when you shout your trivial thoughts.”

A frown pulled at my lips. “I don’t think about trivial things.”

“So trying to shock your grandmother with your recent hair removal experience isn’t trivial?”

I couldn’t contain my laughter. It flowed out of me like an erupting volcano. When I was done, my stomach was aching from laughing, and Weston was looking at me . . . strangely.

I cleared my throat. “You did say I was a prostitute in Cameron. I might as well look the part.”

“We both know you aren’t a prostitute.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I could totally be a prostitute.I was sure my thoughts were automatically coming out the opposite of whatever Weston said at this point.

“There’s a reason two men have called you an angel.”

“Why?”

He looked at me as if it was a ridiculous question. “Because you look like an innocent.”

“I do not.”

He shook his head. “Why do you argue with me? It gets you nowhere, and all it does is piss me off.”

I said the first thing I thought. Which was what I did most of the time. Little did I know how much trouble it would get me into in the end. “Maybe I like to piss you off.”

The look he gave me was completely serious. The look I was sure he had perfected as an assassin. The one he would give right before he got rid of whatever facade he had on, and shoved a blade through his victim’s heart. The one that got rid of any man who happened to get past the shield his presence put up. And the one that made me internally shake in my boots. Though, I’d never admit it.

“Don’t ever forget what happened yesterday. Don’t feel a false sense of security around me. I’m not a knight in shining armor. Don’t pretend I am.”

My humor was gone.