Page 1 of Ensnared
Prologue
My dad graduated first in his class in economics at Stanford. He was the youngest person in his class at Harvard Business School, and he irons his sheets. He’s uptight, exacting, and brilliant. Meanwhile my mom’s a psychic who often keeps her hair in dreads because it’s more environmentally friendly not to wash it very often. She wears sarongs, and she does henna tattoos as a side gig, and she believes crystals carry energies that alter the aura of the people and the room around them.
They could not possibly be more different.
When Dad met Mom, she was reading people’s futures at one of his company events. She was a curiosity. A party entertainer.
Nothing, at least, to him.
But Dad and Mom were drawn to one another like magnets—I was conceived the night of that stupid party, apparently. Cue my retching.
From that day forward, they took things one day at a time.
No one that either of them knew or loved thought they would work. Heck, I didn’t even think they’d stay together. They regularly fight like dry lightning strikes on a hot summer night, and it’s usually over something stupid, like what to do with the snake who ate one of our chicken’s fake eggs. Dad, of course, wants to kill it with a hoe and be done with it. Mom insists on spending the next two days nursing it and calling every rescue from here to Waco.
But even more fiercely than they fight, they love passionately and with every part of their being.
Maybe that’s why.
Maybe that’s the reason that, of all the people in the universe I might love, I’m falling for the absolute worst. I’m falling for the man—a beast—sent to slay everyone I know. The prince of the dragons, the creatures who invaded our earth with no regard for our past, our present, or our future.
I should be plotting his demise, but with every moment that passes, my resolve crumbles. And all I can think is that it’s my parents’ fault, because it must be in my DNA. Opposites really do attract, apparently.
How can I save the world when I’m falling for the powerful, savage being capable of utterly destroying it?
1
Fear makes men forget, and skill that cannot fight is useless. -Brasidas of Sparta
I was a very fearful child. Sometimes people don’t believe me when I tell them that, because who would believe that an up-and-coming UFC fighter could only sleep with the lights turned on when she was seven years old?
After enduring my sobbing fits for months, my parents decided to put me into martial arts. Mom hoped learning to defend myself properly might eliminate some of the fear. Dad just thought taking a few punches might toughen me up.
I started with kendo, because I wanted to hold a weapon and a sword felt like a good one. To this day, fighting with a sword in my hand has always been my favorite. It quickly became apparent that, although fear had brought me into the ring, it was the absence of fear I felt in the heat of a fight that allowed me to excel.
See, most people, and by most, I mean quite a bit more than ninety-nine point nine percent of people, when they’re punched, experience an acute stress response—their sympathetic nervous system goes haywire, basically. This causes tunnel vision, loss of hearing, and a short-circuit of all critical body systems. It renders you unable to think at all, much less respond to the danger that’s right in front of you.
But the rare one in less than ten thousand people. . .just don’t.
Most people don’t even know whether this might be them, because not very many people in this day and age actually get punched in the face. For most people, the only way to deal with the acute stress response is to work to condition it out with enough time and training. In such a way, when trauma or stress strikes, you can often power through.
Mostly.
But when your opponent’s trash talking, threatening, and intimidating you, when the audience is jeering and shouting, and when that first blow slams into your jaw, it often takes over in spite of your best efforts.
And that’s where I have a serious edge.
If you’ve ever seen Conor McGregor fight, you’ll know how someone like me looks. Even after a fight with months and months of trash talking and lead time, he waltzes into the ring calm and relaxed. His timing remains flawless. His reflexes are consistent, because unlike a normal human, he’s genuinely not stressed. His nervous system is fully functioning and ready to respond to any hits that come his way. It’s the reason his timing and accuracy are consistent. It’s the reason he consistently wins.
And like McGregor, in spite of my terror at night, in spite of my bad dreams, when I’m confronted with a terrible foe, I remain calm. Actually, I usually focus better. My reflexes heighten. My senses sharpen. My brain kicks into overdrive.
My perfect track record in UFC matches, the fact that there are way more men at my gym than women, and the fact that most women can’t keep up with me means that I spar with men more often than not. It’s certainly true today, though this is the third time I’ve taken someone down in under three minutes. I release my rear naked choke, which was way too easy to get, and drop Holden on the mat.
“What’s going on?” I kick his hip, not savagely, just enough to make sure he’s listening. “Why aren’t you going hard?” I spin around, looking at the guys who are watching. “You too, Javi. You barely even tried to avoid the armbar.”
Javi looks away.
When I look back at Holden, he won’t meet my eye either.
