Page 202 of Deep Cover

Two-thirty rolled around and I thought I was physically tired enough to sleep. I did some basic kata again, and another couple of lengths of suite of punches. If someone wanted to attack me now, I wouldn't have the energy to kick them.

That was good. After the events of the night behind us, after the clubbing Vincent dragged me to after, the only reason I was working out was to exhaust the body enough to sleep.

Now the mind.

I drank a glass of water. I pulled the sweatshirt back on because now I wasn't moving, the wind coming in the window was chilling the sweat on my skin.

I knelt and formed a loose triangle of my fingers, nothing more than a point to focus on. My instructors had never told us what to focus on when meditating. I thought it likely they didn't know. So I worked on what I wanted to work on and most of the time when I was in classes, that was how I could improve. What I needed to ask for help on. How I had fought or done the combinations.

Tonight, I considered everything I knew about the house I was in and the neighborhood outside of it. I concentrated on everything I had watched while trying to seem like I was paying attention to Vincent or to whatever he was doing to my body at the time. It was hard through the overly tinted limo windows, but I built up a cohesive image of the world around the house. It was all residential. It'd be hard in a residential neighborhood not far from the center of town to find someone to take me in and let me hide.

That meant making Vincent dead and taking my shot at getting out at a time when Vincent was expected to be with me and when I assumed the orders were always, "If you hear screaming, don't interfere."

That was about to pay off for me. I'd work through the house, one more time, playing off everything I knew about it and everyone inside it. Where security was stationed at night. The cameras I knew about. Where Kie slept through the fact that she was chained to her bed at night made her less than threatening.

Still, I didn't trust her.

How I would kill Vincent.

I was deep into the meditation, head bent and hands loosely forming that triangle, eyes mostly closed, when the shadow moved from behind me and there was screaming, tearing pain in my scalp.

He wrapped my hair around his fist and yanked my head back, exposing my throat and my breasts under the silly little shift.

His free hand went down the front of my shift and this time even his usual brute force and painful grip paled in comparison. It felt like he was going to crush my breast.

Caught in the instant between a scream of horrified surprise and one of pain and fear, I sucked in a breath.

I had a heartbeat or two while he was still surprised I hadn't screamed. I had that long before he remembered whatever it was he was going to do to make me scream.

I didn't bother with regrets –

--not being able to initiate the attack on my own terms—

--not seeing Cole again---

--never seeing my father again, or anyone in my family—

--never figuring out what to tell Mark –

I used the time to find the best way to get him out of my hair and away from knife's range if that's what he had.

What worked in my favor: He wanted to brag.

I got maybe ten more seconds.

I used them. I reached up and put both hands over my head, pressing my hair down hard to my skull, taking the pressure off the roots where they were shrieking in pain.

Then I stood, shoving myself up hard and fast, standing out of a cross-legged seat the way a martial artist comes up with no hands. I slammed into him, my hands protecting my skull, and knocked him back with the suddenness of it.

The second he staggered, I reached with both hands behind me, grabbing for his face, using it as a focal point to swing myself around so I faced him.

I went for his eyes with my thumbs but he brought his arms up between mine and swept them down and away from him. That was an actual technique, and maybe it was luck he’d used it, but it shook out any complacency I might have had.

Instinct took over and I tried to knee him in the groin. He sidestepped easily and pounded one fist into my retreating thigh, making it cramp. It would be harder to kick with now. I was already exhausted. Now one leg was injured, or at least considerably slowed down.

I changed to the other leg, let the cramping leg take my weight, and tried a front kick, one of those techniques that are good in close quarters, good for getting the other person away from you. I knocked him back several feet.

It also partially knocked the wind out of him because I caught him just under the solar plexus.

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