The Mechanics of Love

|22|

True to his word we worked mostly on hand to hand combat, which left me with lots of bruises and sore muscles. 

I was laying on the matted floor after a match that I lost. 

"Are you too tired and sore to shoot a little?" Ace stood above me no sweat evident.

I groaned and made a move to get up which made him chuckle. 

"Let's wait until tomorrow when you can recover kiska." 

"No-no I can" I struggled to get up. "I can do it. Just let me get up." 

He laughed at my efforts. "Kiska we will train more tomorrow. You did well today and I would rather you not fall while shooting and take one of my men out." 

I finally stood up and looked at him. "No, I'm fine. See? I'm good." I bounced around the mat a little. 

"Kiska the range will still be there tomorrow. You can barely stand." He said as he reached to push me over. I tried to jump out of the way but lost my balance and stumbled. 

"See kiska? You can barely stand. Tomorrow." 

I groaned. "You suck."

I turned to walk away but as I did Ace came from behind and threw me over his shoulder making me groan once again due to the soreness.

"Put me down, you oversized oaf." 

"'Oversized oaf'? Really? And no, I don't want to." 

"You don't want to? I don't care. I want you to." 

"Admit it, you like when I do this." 

"Not right now I don't! I wanted to go and train more." 

"We have been training for 6 hours kiska, you need to rest and we will continue tomorrow."

"It's been 6 hours?"

"Yes."

"I guess I am hungry. Let's go to the kitchen." 

After almost destroying the kitchen with a food fight we decided that we needed showers, separately. He went to one of the guest rooms so I could use ours. 

After a very needed and relaxing shower, I got into some comfy yoga pants and an oversized hoodie and crawled into bed. 

I heard the door open a few minutes later but I was too exhausted to pay any attention to who I assumed was Ace. 

I heard a chuckle and knew I was corrected in my assumption. 

"Kiska, I knew you were tired. Take a nap and maybe we can just have a game night tonight." 

I tried to hum to acknowledge him, and I am 70% sure that it came out. What I do know is that it took less than 5 minutes for me to go to sleep. 

I wake up laying and see the sky above me with trees blocking most of it. I sit up and see I am in a small clearing in the middle of the forest. After I look down I see that I am in the middle of a small circle of flower petals. 

I slowly got up and patted the small amounts of dirt from my clothes before going to explore more.

As I walk further away from the flowers I hear grunting and what seems like fighting. I decided to follow the sounds and soon found where they were coming from.

There were two men inside a ring. But the ring wasn't the typical boxing or fighting ring, it was a literal ring drawn in the dirt in a small clearing. I looked closer at the two men inside the ring. Both were shirtless, sweaty, and a little bloody. I couldn't see definite features from so far away but the faces seemed familiar.