Page 29 of Forged in Deception

Bajwa had already directed everyone into forming two neat parallel lines. Karlin shared a quick glance with Ned, who was standing behind Paul and looked even less thrilled than she felt. She couldn’t blame him–this totally wasn’t his job–but unfortunately such little details rarely stopped Bajwa from making unreasonable demands of his staff.

“Ready?” Bajwa asked his partner, Lily, who was standing about two feet in front of him. She had her eyes pressed firmly shut, but she was smiling.

“Ready.”

A second later, she fell straight back, landing promptly in Bajwa’s waiting arms.

“Now, you guys give it a try,” he ordered.

“You’ve got me, right?” Cora asked her own partner, Destiny. Destiny assured her that she did, and caught the woman easily. Paul and Ned followed suit, though both of them looked more interested in trust-falling Bajwa right off the bluff.

Karlin’s palms felt sweaty. She was confident Axel would have no trouble catching her weight, but that didn’t mean she was thrilled about having to let him do it.

She’d managed to avoid him for most of the day, and now Bajwa had forced them together. It was maddening. She knew that she had to work with Axel, but that didn’t mean they had to spend every second together. She had enough going on in her head without him poking into her life.

“You got this, Karlin,” Axel was saying behind her. She pressed her eyes shut and stood up straight, forcing herself to take a few deep breaths, but Bajwa spoke again before she worked up the nerve to make the fall.

“Now that you have the basic move down, there’s a twist,” he said. “You knew there had to be a twist, right? I can’t have this be too easy. Otherwise, how are we really going to learn to rely on one another?”

He paused, as though waiting for someone to actually answer. Of course, no one did.

“Anyway,” he continued, “we’re going to have a little competition. The catcher who can step back the furthest and still catch their partner wins.”

Now Karlin’s heart was really racing.

This sounded like an absolute nightmare. Falling a foot with Axel standing right there was bad enough, but this?

“Are you ready for real this time?” Asher asked, positioning himself a couple of feet behind her and extending his arms outward. Despite his compact build, she could see the wiry muscles that covered his arms, and she had to admit, it made her feel a little better.

She nodded, unable to form words as she once again positioned herself to get ready to fall.

She closed her eyes and let herself tip backwards. She didn’t even get the chance to realize she was in the air before Axel caught her.

“Okay,” she said, letting out a breath. “I can do this. It’s not that bad.”

“Heck yeah you can do it!” Axel crowed. “We need to win this thing!”

She made a face. “I mean, do we?”

“Why not? It’s a competition.”

“What does that matter?”

Axel lowered his voice and leaned close enough to her that she felt his warm breath against her ear. “Do you really want to get smoked by a bunch of old people and two women?”

“You do realize I’m a woman myself?” she pointed out, trying to sound more stern than she felt.

“Yeah, but you’re not the one doing the catching. We have an advantage!”

“So you can’t lose to a girl?” she asked, getting in position for another fall. This time, she allowed Axel to step a few inches back. “Are you twelve?”

“You know, my brothers ask me that like once a week,” he said. “It’s not really an effective insult any more. The sting is gone from overuse.”

She let herself fall, and once again, he caught her with seemingly no effort.

“I guess I’ll need to think of some more creative insults.”

“You could,” he agreed. “Or you could just accept that I’m a pretty great guy. Then you wouldn’t need to insult me at all.”

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