Page 47 of Pride
A flicker of some unnamed emotion passed over Mary’s expression. Alice wanted to believe it was respect for her, but she shoved that down deep inside. Misplaced hope could be delusional. She had to keep her wits about her. Maybe the hold-up with this alliance was that she hadn’t garnered the esteem of the matriarch.
“What do you want to know?” Alice relaxed her shoulders when Mary took her wrists.
And that was her first mistake. Mary didn’t want to run her own polygraph test using Alice’s pulse. She wanted to fight—she yanked on Alice’s wrists. Alice may have placed her hands within the woman’s, but she’d also braced her foot. The moment Mary tugged, Alice rolled and evaded her grip until she ended on the other side of the Chesterfield, still ready, still a warrior in her own right.
Mary may be the legend, but Alice was the future.
Both women faced each other and circled, neither conceding eyes.
“It’s going to be like that, huh?” Alice dropped into a defensive stance.
Mary mirrored and Alice smiled at her classic intimidation technique. Mimic the enemy. Throw them off balance. Confuse them. Alice had learned the same tactics, and then some.
Mary threw punches, strikes, jabs, all in quick succession and all on perfectly balanced feet. The woman had a few decades on Alice, but she was a machine. Alice blocked each time, her bones jarring on contact. But Mary didn’t give up. She kept coming for Alice, her face calm and giving away nothing, her body language so precise and controlled that Alice could garner no intention there either. Mimicking was over. What was her motivation for this attack? Distrust? Self-preservation?
“What do you want?” Alice snapped, taking Mary’s wrist and snapping it down, intending to twist their bodies and bring her to the ground.
But Mary flowed like water and slipped out of Alice’s hold.
“Are you here to kill me?” Mary asked.
“You know I’m not.” Alice circled her hands and body and shifted Kung-Fu stances until her fingers were claws ready to strike. Mary mirrored. Again. Alice’s jaw clenched. “You know we trained under the same masters. It is stupid to fight each other.”
“All I know is that you’ve been watching my family. You were supposed to hunt me down decades ago, yet you didn’t.”
Alice’s fists lowered. “That’s because the Sisterhood’s mission has changed. I can’t speak to the Reverend Mother’s mission back then, but now, one AWOL Sinner is nothing in the grand scheme of things, especially one who’s values are aligned with ours.”
“Our values aren’t aligned. I’ll never condone the assassination of children.”
“Neither do we,” Alice shot out, taking Mary’s hit on her shoulder.
Mary launched at her again, hard and fast. Alice didn’t want to hurt her, just as she’d never wanted to hurt Parker on that warehouse rooftop. So she kept defending, kept blocking, and when they knocked into the desk, and Mary picked up a paper weight, Alice kept dodging. Around and round the office they went, going in circles until Alice realized something. Although she never telegraphed it, Mary had to have noticed Alice’s limp—it was so obvious—but instead of using that knowledge to her advantage, like Parker had done, Mary ignored it.
This wasn’t a fight. This was a test. Mary didn’t want to hurt Alice anymore than Alice wanted to hurt her back. Alice wanted to show the Sisterhood had changed, and Mary wanted Alice to prove it.
“Enough.” Alice dropped her hands and allowed Mary to grapple and bring Alice to the ground.
The woman pushed Alice face first into the carpet and pried her arm back. Alice winced, but didn’t struggle. She tapped her hand on the floor.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Mary,” she said. “Even if you hurt me first.”
Mary pulled on Alice’s arm, sharpening the pain.
“Do you remember life before the Sisterhood?” she asked, surprising Alice.
“I don’t know. Bits and pieces. Why?”
“Why the limp?”
Alice exhaled, closing her eyes. None of this was making sense. She thought this was about Mary’s relationship with the Sisterhood. “I was in a car accident as a child.”
The pressure on her arm eased and then went. Mary moved to the couch, where she put her face in her hand, breathing hard. Wincing, Alice rubbed her shoulder and got to her feet. She tested her leg, putting pressure on it. Pain lanced her thigh, but she’d survive. She always did.
“What’s going on?” she asked, sensing the danger was gone… if it had ever been there in the first place.
Eyes full of liquid pain met Alice’s. Mary’s bottom lip trembled.
“Mary?” Alice frowned. “Are you okay?”
