Behind |First book in The Risen Saga|

Chapter thirty one

"Hey! That's not fair!" I yelled at Kai as he dashed behind me and quickly put me in a choke lock, "You have super speed!" he laughed in my ear.

"So do you," he whispered and then spun me back around to face him. My eyes narrowed and I tried to keep from smiling but I couldn't. He was imitating my expression, or, trying to imitate my expression. I burst out laughing and then backed up, fists clenched and up at the ready. 

"Come at me," as soon as I said it, Kai was right behind me again, trying to use the same strategy. But I wasn't standing for that. I spun around and ducked, just in time for his arms to lock around thin air. I laughed softly and swept his feet right out from under him, straightening quickly and standing over him.

"Progress," he said, for the millionth time. An exasperated sigh escaped my mouth as I helped him to his feet. He was almost up and then I let go, letting him fall back to the ground, groaning. 

"You've said that for the past three hours," I said, my hands thrown in the air. He slowly sat up, his arms thrown over his knees.

"I know, A, but I just want you to be ready. I don't want you to get hurt," his expression changed and softened. He noticed my staring and started getting up, saying, "Plus, I kind of like messing with you." he shrugged his shoulder and started walking to the door. 

So, there were two training rooms. One was bigger than the other, otherwise, they were pretty much exactly the same. The floor was padded and hanging from the low ceiling on one side were some punching bags. Behind that, were workout things. Weights of all sorts, yoga balls, medicine balls, pull up bars. There were gloves for the punching bags but when I had moved on to that, I didn't use them. I just had a wrap of tape on. My knuckles hurt pretty bad after that so, when Kai had said that it was time for hand-to-hand combat I had put a pair of black, finger less, gloves on. 

A huge mirror was on the other side and as I stared into it, I noticed I had a few bruises here and there. One on my left cheek, one on my upper thigh. I wondered how they had gotten there. I was wearing a pair of Tessa's short, black shorts that were too big for her and since I had longer legs than her, they fit perfectly, and a black tank-top that was a little tight. My hair was up in a high pony tail and my forehead glimmered with sweat. 

"Are you coming?" Kai called from the doorway, jerking my attention back to him. His golden hair stuck to his forehead from the sweat and his black tank-top was skin tight on him, outlining every muscle on his body. His blue jersey shorts, swaying as he swayed. 

I smiled at him, "Are we taking a break?" I asked, propping a hand on my hip. He glared playfully at me and laughed.

"Only to get a drink and see how your boyfriend is doing. Then we'll move on to our weapons," he said and walked out into the hallway. I laughed and jogged after him. Tyson had went to train with Tessa. Kai had said that we would get distracted with each other so we had to be split apart. Tessa volunteered to train Tyson so Kai said he'd train me. 

"This is gonna work, right?" I asked suddenly, drawing Kai's attention. He looked at me with confusion but I only glanced at him briefly before looking back into the dark hallway.

"What is gonna work?" he asked, serious. That playful edge to his voice gone like it hadn't been there in the first place.

"This," I gestured around, "The rebellion? Like, is you training me gonna be worth it in the end?" I had thought about this a lot. I had hoped that all this that we were doing, risking, was going to be worth it and we were going to win but I had my doubt.

"Of course," Kai said, without a seconds hesitation, "Zachariah has it all planned out and it is gonna be risky, since we have no allies, but I think we could get it done." he nodded to himself.