Remember This✔

Chapter Forty-Six

"I can't believe you talked me into this," Molly pants as she takes a few swings at the punching bag.

Charlie moves around her, observing her movements. They're at Perry's house and after days of convincing she's finally let him teach her some self-defence. She's dressed in a training bra with tight sweatpants and her hair is pushed back with a black headband. She looks so beautiful that Charlie is finding it hard to concentrate. Perry and Lauren are sat across the room, they're too invested in each other to care about what's happening over here.

"You're hardly touching it," Charlie laughs.

"It's heavy, okay?" she hisses. She shakes her fists at her side. "And it hurts my hands."

"Punching hurts," he says. "But if it's your only option then you take it. You suck at this."

She folds her arms and scowls. "Let's see you do better."

Charlie approaches the bag and throws his fist against it; Molly stares up at the metal clip that moves the bag a few inches over. She narrows her eyes as he smirks.

"How did you do that?" she demands.

"Hours and hours of training," Charlie says. "You can push your body to do anything, if you exorcise and train enough then your body has no limits."

"I exorcise," she says bitterly. "Sometimes."

"The best chance you have is to go for the throat," Charlie says as he walks towards her. He places his fist into the dip of her neck. "Full force, no hesitation. Worst case is you wind them for a few seconds and even then it buys you time, best case is they drop to their knees."

"Do all of your opponents drop to their knees?" she says.

"Of course." Charlie grins and steps back. "I want you to try it."

She widens her eyes. "On you?"

"Yeah. Just hit me, right here." He points to the centre of his throat.

"I'm not going to hit you," she says.

"Please hit him," Perry shouts. "You're the only one that can and I've been waiting a long time to see it."

"Stop being such a girl," Charlie says. "I can take it. It's not like you're actually going to hurt me."

Charlie sees the anger flash in her eyes and she swings her fist at his throat. The breath leaves his lungs as he stumbles backwards. He holds his neck as he chokes and he spits down on the ground.

"That was good." He sticks a thumb up. "Woah, that was really good."

She straightens, smiling proudly. Charlie lunges himself at her and pins her arms behind her back. "What the hell?" she groans.

"Now, you weakened the attacker but not for long. He's behind you and he's got your wrists locked. You can't move so what do you use?"

"My head?"

"Mhm."

She starts thumping the back of her head against his chest as she struggles. He laughs quietly. "If he's tall how am I supposed to hit his face?" she demands.

"You wait until he leans down," Charlie says, bringing his lips to her ear. "Now."

The back of her head slams into his nose and he lets her go immediately, holding his nose as she turns around and panics.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he says. "The point isn't to hurt me, it's to shock me. Now I've let you go and I'm holding my nose, you're at the advantage until I recover, what do you do?"