Chapter 5: Sparring

Cade looked at the crowd in the hallway.

Then he looked at the corkboard.

Then he took the pen on its string and put a small check beside my name.

"Tomorrow, eight o'clock, the mat room," he said. "If you can't stand up at eight fifteen, you're out."

"And if I can?"

"Then we'll talk."

He walked off.

Peyton stared at the check mark.

At eight the next morning, twenty warriors sat along the wall of the mat room in shorts and T-shirts.

I came in last, in leggings and a black tank top, with my hair tied back.

Lark came with me as far as the door.

"I'm not allowed in," she whispered. "I'll be listening at the crack. If you die, I'll avenge you. Badly."

Nobody made room for me on the bench.

So I sat on the floor.

Cade stood in the middle of the blue mats with his arms folded.

"Rainier," he said. "Up."

I stood up.

"Hagan. Up."

Rhett got up grinning. He still moved a little stiff from the classroom floor.

"Coach, come on. I'll break her."

"Then break her. Human form. No teeth, no claws, first to tap."

"Coach," Peyton said from the bench, "this is literally against the rules."

"Then you can file a complaint," Cade said. "In writing. After class."

Rhett came at me the way big boys always do.

Straight in, arms wide, to grab and squeeze.

I let him get his hands on me.

Then I dropped my weight, hooked his ankle, and drove my shoulder into his belly.

He went down hard.

I went down with him and wrapped my legs around his arm.

He was twice as strong as me.

That's why you never fight a strong man's strength. You fight his elbow.

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