Estranged (16 page)

When they finished climbing the final
set of stairs, Kalei followed Erit out of the stairwell and into
the hallway. The flat, green floor was ripped and torn at regular
intervals in front of the open doorways along the hall, the cuts
and tears reminding Kalei of a remodeling project she had seen at a
friend’s house, leading her to suppose that construction work was
probably the cause of this damage too. As they passed the open
rooms, Kalei saw that they were indeed padded with light blue mats
across the entire length of the floor and halfway up the walls. The
padding on the floors appeared to be made of a sturdier material
than that on the walls, but both seemed newer than the rest of the
hotel, albeit worn with years of use.

Erit took them to one of the smaller
rooms and handed out long-sleeved workout shirts, pants, gloves,
and even cloth ski masks that reached all the way down their necks.
He insisted that they tuck in the garments wherever the seams met
so that not an inch of skin was showing when they were done, apart
from around their mouths and eye sockets.

Shenaia made a comment about being
dressed for robbing a bank, then the students waited for Erit’s
instructions, sweating before they even threw a punch.

“
I understand that the
level of combat experience among you three varies considerably.
Kalei was trained traditionally by the local force, Shenaia has
what she would call ‘street’ training, and Mar has almost no combat
experience at all.”

Mar scoffed. “Yeah, right. You don’t
get to be my age without learning how to knock a few heads
around.”

Erit ignored the comment. “To rectify
this, we will go through the basic hand-to-hand fighting styles
that are accepted and used by SWORDE.”

For Kalei, this meant the rest of the
afternoon was a test of patience. She went through the motions as
Erit instructed, she listened to Shenaia argue with everything the
instructor said, and she tried to help Mar wrap her head around the
importance of fighting stances.

“
Why don’t I just stand
here and punch you in the face?” Mar asked. “Why do I have to do
all this weird shit with my feet?”

“
Because when you stand
like that, your abdomen is an open target. If you turn to the side,
then there will be less for your opponent to hit.”

“
They won’t be hittin’
nothing after I knock ‘em on their ass!”

Kalei sighed. It was a very long
afternoon.

Once the physical training started,
the recruits got their own rooms and started to receive weekends
off. That first Saturday, they all went their separate ways:
Shenaia disappeared into the city, Mar would go do whatever it was
Mar did, and Kalei would head down to the shooting range to blow
off some steam. By the time Sunday came around, Mar joined Kalei at
the range, muttering about having nothing to do.

The next weekend, Shenaia joined them
with a dozen pistols, and after they blew through a small mountain
of ammo, the range officer cut them off and kicked them out, so
they went up to Shenaia’s hotel room where the two younger women
taught Mar how to disassemble and clean a gun. It was an important
thing for Mar to know, although Kalei suspected that Shenaia just
wanted an excuse to put the work on someone else.

After they cleaned the first pistol
together, Shenaia went to the closet and came back with three more
pistols, one for each of them.

“
Where the hell do you get
all of these?” Kalei asked incredulously.

“
Don’t worry about it,”
Shenaia replied with a grin.

Kalei took one look at the .50 caliber
handgun Shenaia plopped onto the bed and decided not to ask
again.

Kalei took the pistol Shenaia had
assigned to her and went to work. She got as far as pulling off the
slide when she heard Shenaia ask, “So, Mar, why do you wanna join
SWORDE?”

“
I don’t wanna talk about
it,” the old woman grumbled as she pushed a wire brush down the
barrel of the revolver.

Kalei noticed that Mar had forgotten
to take off the cylinder. She reached over to take the gun. “Here,
let me help you—”

Mar pulled it out of her reach. “No,
I’ve got it.” She noticed what Kalei was getting at and started to
pull the cylinder off.

Shenaia started up again, “If you
don’t tell me, I’ll pull out my hollow points and see how many it
takes before you talk.” Again, she smiled.

Mar stared at her blankly. “What are
hollow points?”

Kalei replied, “Not something you want
to learn about first hand. It’s probably better if you just answer
the question.”

Mar grunted and went back to work on
the revolver. The smiley on her nails took on a deep frown, and its
new eyebrows alternated between sharp downward angles and a level
plane. Shenaia started to get up from the bed when Mar finally
answered with a barely audible rasp, “The past doesn’t matter. What
matters is, I’m gonna set it right.” She picked up an oiled rag and
made a couple of swipes down the barrel of the gun. Her smiley’s
mouth flashed into a full frown, then an angry grimace, then
struggled to maintain a flat line. Kalei glanced at Shenaia, and
Shenaia met her eyes. They would let it lie at that.

After a moment, Mar looked up and
asked, “So what about you girls? Why do you want to join
SWORDE?”

Franklin’s plan flashed through
Kalei’s mind, she thought about her desire to wipe Estranged off
the planet, and she thought about her hatred for Xamic and Terin...
but instead, she answered, “I’ve spent the last six years of my
life protecting the people in this city. I’m not going to stop now
just because the darkness shows up in my nails.” Kalei hadn’t
forgotten about all of the trouble-makers and screw-ups, all of the
victims and civilians she met in her former line of work... some
hated her, some loved her, but in the end, she was able to make a
difference in their lives... what she did meant something to the
world. Kalei had never realized that before. Joining the police
force had just been a means to make her way into SWORDE. The people
she worked with were just coworkers. But the thing was, they
weren’t just co-workers.

Every Thursday, Debbie
would visit Kalei in the locker room to talk about the latest
episode of
Professor
Where
, and Talwart was always shining his
flashlight in her eyes, or pretending to check if she was
intoxicated. Even their chief would sometimes come out and joke
with them for a few minutes before brusquely sending them on their
way. And then, of course, there were all those hours she had spent
on patrol with her partner Marley... After being with these people
five days a week for the last six years, they had become her
family. And she missed them all. But thanks to the darkness, she
could never get that life back.

Mar asked Shenaia, “What about
you?”

Shenaia shrugged and looked at Kalei.
“I became a Recruit because I care about my family.”

Mar and Kalei glanced at each other
and started laughing.

“
Hey, I’m being serious,
guys!”

Kalei wiped a tear from under her
eyes. “Sorry, but the thought of you, being all lovey dovey—” She
started to laugh again.

When Shenaia started to load the .50
caliber, Mar and Kalei ran for the door.

After two weeks of patiently walking
through the basics, Kalei was beyond ready to start throwing some
real punches. In fact, she was tempted to pick a fight with Mar
just to speed things up. But, luckily, Erit gave them the go-ahead
to spar before Kalei had to resort to such tactics.

Kalei and Shenaia were paired off
first.

As the two walked out into the center
of the mats, Erit preceded the match with a few words. “No need to
worry about hurting one another. We are all Estranged here, so I
can assure you that any injuries, mortal or otherwise, will meet
with a swift recovery. Now fight!”

They didn’t circle or dance. For a
moment, they simply stood there. Shenaia playfully stretched her
neck from side to side while Kalei shifted her weight to the balls
of her feet. When Shenaia smirked, Kalei raised an
eyebrow.

Shenaia feigned a lunge to Kalei’s
left, and then swung at her right. Kalei dodged easily. It was a
tactic Kalei had seen many times. Somehow, it reminded her of her
childhood, when she would— Shenaia ran at Kalei and cocked her
right arm back for another punch.

With all the confidence that came from
years as a cop, Kalei blocked Shenaia’s first punch, grabbed the
second one, and then twisted Shenaia’s arm behind her back while
kicking in the back of her knees. The counter-attack would have
been successful, except that in mid-kick, Kalei lost her grip on
the darkness. It went punching through her limbs, slammed into her
head, and left her dazed and doubled over. Shenaia readily escaped,
but she must have lost control as well because she ripped off her
gloves and charged after Kalei with the ferocity of an animal ready
to feed, the whites showing in her eyes, her lips bared in a
ferocious snarl. Erit intervened, small as he was, and with an arm
around the woman’s abdomen and a small leg behind her calf, he
easily threw her to the mat.

Both Recruits were sent to opposite
sides of the room to recover while Erit worked with Mar on her
stances.

As she sat in her corner, Kalei was
forced to face the fact that the darkness would not be so easily
tucked away and forgotten. Some battles never ended, no matter how
much training you put into them. Even now as she tried to regain
control, she could feel it pulling, digging, and consuming her soul
from the inside out. The all-too-familiar sensations burned at her
heart and spread once more. She struggled to pull herself away, but
she only felt it sinking deeper into her bones.

Slowly, she put the darkness back
under her control, but the leash was tenuous. She stood up to fight
another round.

Over the next few weeks, Kalei
eventually learned to maintain control while sparring with Mar. Yet
always beneath the skin, she could feel the pressure of the
darkness and the slight tang of its presence in her heart. She
resented its presence even as she knew she would never be without
it.

Shenaia was having trouble too. She
would disappear for hours, days at time. When she returned, she was
usually disheveled, disoriented, and a bit too quick in her
movements. Kalei recognized the symptoms of an addict, but she
didn’t say anything. Erit would have to be the one to kick Shenaia
out; Kalei had no authority. And she knew Erit wasn’t an idiot; she
knew he saw what was going on. But still, much to Kalei’s
aggravation, the boy kept his silence.

Combat practice moved slowly. Even
working day and night with their tireless bodies, it took nearly a
month before Mar and Kalei could spar without losing control. For
Shenaia, it took another four weeks.

Fighting Shenaia was the hardest
challenge for Kalei. She had scuffled with gangsters before; it was
part of her job description as a cop. They were scrappy fighters,
with no regard for the rules or etiquettes of more civilized
combat. Shenaia was much the same, except that she took it to a
whole new level. Not only did she have no regard for the
conventions of fighting, but there was cunning and experience there
too. Add a bit of unnatural ferocity to her style, and Shenaia was
a beast. In an even fight, she would have won every time. But with
the darkness in the mix, Shenaia always lost control
first.

During the fifth month since Kalei had
entered the recruit program, Kalei and Shenaia were able to extend
the length of their matches while maintaining the darkness. As they
fought round after round, neither woman would submit to the other,
leading to long, drawn-out battles of will. Shenaia even broke her
own arm once to get out of Kalei’s hold. But the intense level of
fighting that passed between them consistently brought the two
women to their limits, and Shenaia would consistently cave first.
Sometimes, she would simply collapse. Other times, the darkness
would turn her into a monster, ripping at mask and glove to reach
Kalei’s skin. Erit, somehow, was able to tame the beast every
time.

Then, one Tuesday between bouts,
Shenaia began to pace fervently, muttering to herself as she went.
Kalei picked up on a few words, “–need it, just one
more...”

There it was. Confirmation for what
Kalei had been suspecting for weeks. She walked over to Shenaia and
stood just inches in front of the young woman, interrupting her
pacing. “You need what? What was that you just said?”

Shenaia glanced at Kalei, then
furtively dodged to the right as she responded, “Ai-air, that’s
what I said, I need air...” She stepped out of the room.

Kalei made to follow, but Erit stopped
her with an outstretched arm. She turned her fury on him. “What the
hell are you doing? Why are you letting her get away with this!
This isn’t some game, Erit.”

“
Kalei, you have to
understand. Not everyone can handle the darkness as well as you.
Wait– Listen to me. Shenaia has been an Estranged for far longer,
and under much different circumstances. She has spent the last
decade in an environment where highs are accepted, encouraged,
even. Rewriting those old habits will take time. I hate it as much
as you do, but it is necessary.”