Strong For Too Long Trilogy ✔️

12. It Was Instinctual

CHAPTER 12: It Was Instinctual

Fern lifts his shirt over his head, the sweat pouring off him is worth the amount of a small swimming pool as he heaves a breath, "Damnit, kid. You trying to kill me?" He asks incredulously, wiping at his brow before he throws the tainted grey shirt away.

His muscles thrust out as he rolls out his shoulder, holding both hands up with one foot forward, the radios on in the background as the rain forms a nurturing gift against the gym rooftops. It's six in the afternoon at the academy, we'd been at it for most of the day. It's been a week and a half since I was passed by Doc to start back training, Aaron still didn't even know my training wasn't just shooting targets now.

I rotate around Fern, my own gauzed hands wrapped as I duck under his roundhouse kick, grabbing his thigh with my right hand and slamming my elbow into his thigh before shoving his shoulder around so he's rotated back to me. When I through my next fist into his cheekbone, he catches my wrist, twirling me and choking me with it.

That's what Tobias sees when he steps in and his eyes bulge out of their sockets, "Shit!" He grunts before pushing the next member away but, a kick is sent into his abdomen and a blurry version of Aaron walks through next.

His face rages instantly at the sight he sees.

I grunt, lifting myself up and off the floor as I attempt to throw Fern over me, just as Aaron screams, "TAP OUT!"

And I do, just a minute later as I fall to the floor, coughing and suddenly a pair of arms lifts me into a seating position, with a bottle of water in one hand and I grab for it instantly, finding my voice again, I turn to the one holding me.

Instead if a soft brown, I catch a crimson darkening in his irises as he pulls me on his lap, "What...the....hell....are...you...doing?!" He puffs out with each breath.

Fern shakes his head in front of me as he rolls out and shakes the leg I'd hit, pointing down at me, "Now, you're getting better." I fall back on the mat as Aaron keeps one leg under my two bent, tired and wrangled ones as his hand lays flat on my bare stomach, which looks much better than it did six days ago.

He looks down at me in betrayal, shaking his head as wet cold drops of rain fly from his hair and he furrows his eyebrows, "I've been watching you all week. What is this?" His confusion is laced in small fractions with his anger.

I close my eyes, panting each breath as his cold palm helps a lot against my writhing abdomen muscles, "We trained in secret for a bit." I say quickly, losing breath. I cough once more, lifting up but his hand pushes me back down.

He gives me a stern look, "No more, you need to rest."

I grab his wrist, pull him onto his back and sit atop of his back with his arm twisted behind him, "Stop treating me like a china doll, imbecile. Besides, I think it's pretty pathetic I was able to take you down this easily and your ten years ahead of me in experience."

I hold him for a second before his back leg twists me over, his shoulder pins me as he smiles on top of me, tilting his head, "You were saying?" He asks.

I roll my eyes, sliding my foot up the back of his leg and he freezes for a second, lifting up, I send a solid punch into his chest. The point was to get him off me but the momentum was only enough to put him in a coughing fit, not fly off me, he did the opposite and fell all of his weight on top of me.

I moan in slight pain, "Bloody hell, how much do you weigh?" I take long breaths as a smirking Reynolds and Branson stand to the side of us and in my line of sight.

I nudge my eyes to Aaron who's no longer coughing but is groaning a lot, on top of me. This must look so wrong, on so many levels. And, Aaron just had to be bare-chested the second he walks into the freaking gym.