Page 34 of Spark

“I do.” She smiled. “Now, let’s go for a swim.”

I doubted Holly would be able to crack Darren. I doubted he wanted me in fighting condition ever again. He might want me strong and durable, but that didn’t mean I could throw kicks at his head anymore. I wouldn’t be fighting him anytime soon—at least not hand-to-hand combat. I’d have to find some kind of advantage over him, but first, I needed to get him to let his guard down around me. In order to do that, I had to stop fighting him.

But sure to Holly’s word and much to my shock and confusion, there was a pair of hot pink boxing gloves with gold tiara prints on them, pink wraps, and my old iPod sitting on the leather couch in the gym. I rolled my eyes at the color and pattern of the gloves, but I could deal with it. At least, I finally had a pair!

Holly was beyond excited for some reason. She said she couldn’t wait to see me in action and see what I could do. As I wrapped my hands and wrists, Holly hooked up her phone to the stereo system and started playing “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor. She turned around and practically beamed like it was the best idea she’d ever had. I rolled my eyes. What the fuck did she think this was, a Rocky movie? As soon as I was done with the wraps, I marched over and shut the song off midway through the opening guitar solo.

“I fucking hate this song.” It was overplayed and overrated.

I switched Holly’s phone out for my iPod and put on the song I was dying to hear—“Break Stuff” by Limp Bizkit. As soon as the sound made its way to my ears, I was ready for breakage. I cracked my neck and rolled my shoulders as I strapped on my gloves and made my way over to the bags. I got light on my feet, keeping my knees bent and my weight steady. I breathed easy, my gloved hands at face level, and focused my sights on my target. And with one deep breath, I moved for destruction.

Hooks, jabs, crosses, uppercuts, elbows, kicks, knees—you name it, I did it. I tore into the bag like there was no tomorrow. Sweat dripped from my brow in a matter of minutes while my heart force-fed adrenaline through my veins. The bag flew in a manner of all different directions, each attack stronger than the last until I could no longer catch my breath. I tore myself away and gradually paced in front of the bag like some kind of animal stalking its prey. My conditioning was for shit, but I would fix that in a matter of days.

When I was finally calm enough, I went back for more. I must have hit the bag for thirty minutes straight before I finally collapsed on the floor in a sweaty, exhausted mess. Nearly all of my attacks were twenty-five percent less capacity of what I was capable of. My kicks were slower and lacked my usual finesse, and my punches didn’t have anywhere near the same power I knew I could bring. I had so much work to do, but apparently, I had all the time in the world since I technically controlled when we were leaving the island.

For the rest of the month, Holly and I worked habitually on the bags, lifting weights, stretching, and making me as strong as humanly possible. Darren was certainly enjoying the results because I wasn’t just letting him fuck me anymore—I was fucking him back. When I could forget the fact that his men were currently hunting down the love of my life, my mom, and my brothers, and when he wasn’t a total controlling douchebag, he was almost tolerable.

He didn’t push me on my emotional detachment or my ever-growing desensitization to the prospect of death. Though I wouldn’t consider myself the chattiest with him, I tried to keep things light and civil, and it seemed he was on the same page as I was. Darren actually tried to spend as much time with me as he could, almost as if he was trying to get our “relationship” back on track. He was attentive, affectionate, and surprisingly sweet, though he would never let me escape the reminders that he was in control. I knew what I was giving up the moment I pushed that makeshift Molotov cocktail off the ledge of that window, and I was slowly coming to terms with those consequences. Even though Darren controlled every aspect of my life, at least I could finally control my bodily movements.

I could feel my depression leaving me now that my body was back in shape. I had stretched myself back to the limber noodle I was, finally completing a no handed cartwheel, my scorpion kick, and my butterfly kicks. I was nearly ready to leave the island; I was so confident. But for some reason, Darren seemed to want to test me further.

One day after warming up on the bag, Scott randomly walked into the gym wearing black sweatpants, running shoes, and a black t-shirt. I hadn’t seen him since he’d first left with Darren before I had escaped. I’d completely forgotten all about him, and I had no idea why he was suddenly in the gym and walking toward me with an angry look on his face. He strolled right past me for the shelves of fighting equipment and grabbed two focus mitts.

“Come on,” he said, passing me. “You’re working with me.”

“Wait, what?” I asked. Holly looked just as confused as I did.

“Darren wants me to train you to make sure you’re ready. Got a problem with that?”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “He didn’t say anything to me about this.”

“That’s because he just decided it five minutes ago.”

Motherfucker was watching me again—was probably watching right now.

“Okay,” I said, eyeing him. “Whatcha got?”

He held up the mitts. “Left, right, hook, uppercut, hook, duck, uppercut.”

Holly stood there confused, as if Scott was speaking a second language, but I knew exactly what he’d just said. “All right.”

I landed the first five strikes but wasn’t fast enough for the duck before I threw the last uppercut. My lips formed into a tight line as I stared Scott down. He smirked back.

Okay, motherfucker. Game on.

Over and over, I repeated the same set but could not manage to duck his strike before the uppercut. It was frustrating as hell. I knew I was fast, but fuck, he was faster. Just as fast as Darren. Eventually, we changed up the set, switching the strikes for elbows or kicks, and I found myself fighting just to remain standing; I was that exhausted. When we were finally done, it took everything I had not to collapse on the floor in front of him.

“We’ll pick this up again tomorrow,” he said and walked out of the gym.

“Can’t wait!” I shouted after him and proceeded to chug the rest of my water bottle.

“Holy shit, Jaden! You did so well! I’m super impressed!” Holly beamed.

“Thanks. I think I’d like to go to sleep for the rest of my life now.”

She giggled. “You can’t do that. Not with Thanksgiving right around the corner!”

I stopped mid swig of my water and eyed her like she was a ghost or something.

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