One Autumn Morning

Chapter Seven

Sarah woke up the next morning in a soft, warm, bed. She stretched out and remembered what had happened the previous day. She sat up and saw her new room again and checked the clock, it was 7:30 in the morning so she got up and took a quick shower, pulling her hair back into a braid and changing into her black sports leggings, a red shirt, and some black Nike's. She soon heard a knock on her door.

"Come in!" Sarah said. The door opened and in walked a maid.

"Your training is about to begin Sarah, head down to the 2nd floor." Sarah nodded and the maid left, closing the door behind her. Sarah grabbed a water bottle and her phone and headed downstairs. She stepped into the elevator and pushed the 2 buttons and the elevator started moving down to the second floor, it beeped and she stepped out into a bright room. On one side were a bunch of guns, bows, and arrows with targets lined up on the wall. Another side had a bunch of dummies with boxing gloves and tape, another with ropes dropped into a lap pool, and the last side was a bunch of treadmills and other equipment you would find in a gym. She saw Boss Man, I mean, Richard, standing there smiling. He ushered her over and she walked over to him.

"Sarah! You ready to start your training?" If it's going to let me save Willow faster, sure, Sarah thought while smiling innocently at Richard.

"Of course!" she replied enthusiastically. 

"We're going to have you start with the fighting section since you did so good earlier fighting those men." Sarah nodded and he bought her over to the dummies and two of his men followed him. "We're going to watch you fight and help you improve your technique, ok?" Sarah nodded again and taped up her hands, ready to start. "Ok," he said. "Start now!" Sarah started punching a dummy, head then chest then stomach and alternating out of turn, so that if it was a real opponent they wouldn't know where her next punch was heading to. The men seemed impressed and after a few minutes, Sarah took a break and took a swig of her water.

"Wow! You have really good technique. The one thing is you need to put more power in your punch, since you're smaller you need to put more hip in it, the motion will make your punches stronger, have more of an impact. Try it." Sarah tried it and the dummy almost fell over because of the power.

"Wow, that really does help!" She kept punching and the dummy eventually fell over and the men applauded.

"Wow, Sarah! Where were you trained?"

"I just took a few self-defense classes, but they said that I caught on quick. I guess they were right," Sarah laughed. 

"I know they were, it usually takes years of training to be that good. You should be proud. Now let's see your kicks." Sarah started kicking the dummy and it was even better than her punches, within less than a minute the dummy was down.

"That was impressive! I don't think you need any help here. Let's move on to the next thing," Richard said, walking to the shooting range. Sarah followed him and when they got there she grabbed one of the pistols laying out on the table. 

"I've never used one of these things before, how does it work?"

"Ok," he said, using another gun as an example. "You hold it like this and then pull the barrel like this to load it. Ok? Then aim at the target and pull the trigger." Sarah did what he said and when she shot, she landed right on the outskirts of the bullseye. 

"Wow, nice shot!" one of the men said. Sarah shot again and this time she made a bullseye. 

"Ok, is there anything you can't do?" the other man asked. Sarah laughed and grabbed a bow and some arrows. 

"Ok, how about this one?"

"Ok," Richard said, showing her once again. "Hold the arch with your left hand then put your pointer and ring finger on one side of string like this and then hold the arrow with the middle and then use your thumb to hold the back of the bow. Then aim and release the arrow." Sarah let go and the arrow flew free, hitting the outside of the target. She tried again and hit the outside of the target again. "Well, I guess you're not too bad, but you're definitely not amazing. No offense."