THE PRICE OF FREEDOM || The Covenant/Reid Garwin

4

Avery was pleasantly surprised to find out how powerful Chase Collins was. She knew he was holding back on her just as she was with him, but even then this had been the best training exercise she had done in years.

Chase's powers challenged hers in a way no others here did. He wasn't afraid of hurting her to win, a fact she found exhilarating as it added the real element of danger to their fight.

She found Chase was her new favourite training partner. A fact she was sure would please Dr Masters, since he seemed keen on pairing them up. First the tour now training together.

Avery had to admit she was suspicious of why Dr Masters was connecting her with the sons so much, it couldn't be just to make her feel bad because she helped bring them in like she thought because he was now pairing her with Chase too. Something else was going on here.

But that thought quickly left her mind as she ducked out the way to avoid the ball of energy Chase sent hurtling towards her.

"Feel like giving up yet sweetheart?" Chase grinned from the other side of the training room, beginning to form yet another ball of power to throw at her.

"Actually," Avery's smirk was downright vicious, and caused Chase to grow nervous to what the girl was planning. "I'm getting quite bored of this back and forth, I think I'll just end it for the both of us."

Chase expected Avery to run at him, or start some type of attack. So he was confused when all she did was close her eyes. Taking his chance, he threw his energy ball with as much power as he could, hoping to end the fight before she got a chance to retaliate.

To his astonishment, his attack was stopped midair between them. Chases eyes widened in surprise, he didn't know she could do that. No one had ever stopped one before, even in their training Avery had just been dodging them up till now.

Avery's eyes opened and her hands raised, throwing his attack right back at him. It hit Chase right in the chest and he went flying back into the wall. Avery waited to see if he'd get up, but when he stayed down with his eyes closed she knew she was victorious.

She walked over and crouched next to Chase, giving his cheek a light slap to wake him up.

"Ouch." Chase groaned. "Remind me not to get on your bad side."

Avery grinned widely, "Not what you were expecting huh?"

Chase thought that was the understatement of the century. He'd heard how powerful Avery was, and he'd even trained with her once before when he first got here. But something was different today. She was usually so unattached from her attacks, today it was like her anger had fuelled her power. Avery was strong, but he didn't think that even she knew how strong.

"You could say that again. I might have to request a new training buddy." Chase groaned again, taking the hand Avery offered to pull him up.

"My training partners never last very long. That's why I prefer to do it alone. Come on, let's go see how the others are getting on."

•

Reid rolled his eyes as he listened to Caleb rant about how dangerous Chase was to the guys they'd met. Like we didn't already know that.

He sat at the side with Tyler while the others 'trained' or whatever. He wasn't in the mood to parade around like a show pony for a bunch of scientists.

He didn't understand why Caleb was going so crazy over Chase spending time with Avery. They'd known this girl a day, it was crazy.