Seventeen-year-old Scarlett Hayes is living her life by her own rules. Losing her parents at a young age has made her strong and fiercely independent. She knows exactly who she is and nothing is going to change that.
Everything starts to change for...
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Scarlett
I swung my fist toward my opponent's face, but he ducked out of the way at the last moment. Sweat beaded my forehead. I raised my tightened fist, ready to deflect a blow as I stepped backward.
I didn't watch his fists. I was taught to watch my opponent's eyes to be able to anticipate their next move.
"Too slow, Scarlett," my opponent teased with a challenge. I would make him eat that comment soon.
For a few moments I watched him carefully, studying his eyes, which flickered to his right, betraying his next move. This time I had more than enough time to move out of the way and attack with a well-placed kick to his side. My kick wasn't hard enough to incapacitate him, but I heard a grunt of pain.
"Did that hurt?" I teased as I bounced lightly on my feet a safe distance away from him.
Instead of some cocky reply, he glared at me and I grinned.
His eyes narrowed as he planned his next line of attack and I watched him carefully as I anticipated his next move. Like before, his eyes flickered to the left and I ducked out of the way as his fist swung for my face. I stepped closer and landed a punch to his abdomen. The grimace on his face told me it had hurt.
"Now who is the slow one?" I teased.
If you compared my five-foot-seven lean frame to my opponent's six-foot muscular build, you would think I'd be at a disadvantage, but I wasn't. At the age of sixteen, I'd started to develop heightened senses and, along with that, my physical strength had also increased.
The changes had been subtle at first and as time passed they'd become stronger and stronger.
I got in a few more hits before my opponent threw up his hands in defeat.
"I'm done," said Gary as he bent down and reached for a towel next to the gym mat. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with it.
"You're showing your age," I teased as I reached for a bottle of water beside the gym mat we were sparring on and took a couple of gulps from it.
He glared at me because of the reference to his age. He was no spring chicken, but at the age of thirty-seven, he didn't consider himself old. To my seventeen years, he wasn't exactly young.
He'd been my father's best friend and I'd known him my whole life. After my parents died when I was ten, Gary had become my legal guardian. To me, he'd been the unofficial uncle who had become my only family. He loved me like a daughter and I loved him like a father.
At the age of sixteen, I'd made the decision to get emancipated. Gary had understood my need for independence and my wish to control my own affairs. When I'd sat him down and explained to him what I wanted to do, he hadn't been surprised. In fact, he'd supported the idea.
Although I was now considered an adult and able to make my own decisions, Gary had remained an important part of my life. He was family—the only family I had.
