Talia's Torment

Chapter 2: Companionship and Complications.

               Two years later:  Talia smiled as she finished her routine.  She had worked so hard to make herself into a machine, lethal and honed to perfection.  She worked hard each and every day to get it right; she could practically hit the targets without having to look at them now, even as they swayed back and forth from their cords.  She knew better than to train with stationary targets, living targets won’t stand still so you can hit them, no matter how nice you asked.  Although, nice wasn’t the way she was planning on this going in the end, no never nice. 

                It had been a year and a half of grueling physical therapy and then the last six months of non-stop, make you want to dig your own grave, training to get to this point.  She couldn’t count on both hands the number of trainers she had gone through to get to where she was now.  She recounted how they all had thought she had lost her mind, telling her that her training was way too intense for self-defense.  Yet, how can you tell them that the real reason is not self-defense, but rather revenge you are seeking.  If it hadn’t been for her current coach, she may never have been able to get where she was now.  He understood her need to get her solace, kill her demon.

                She caught herself smiling at the memory of when they met for her first session.  She had set up the appointment as usual telling him she was looking for self-defense training.  She gave him the same line that she had given the dozen trainers before him, had been mugged in the street or beaten by and ex and never wanted to be a victim again. 

               He hadn’t bullshitted her either, the first glance at her he told her she could tell him the truth or walk her ass back to the bus stop.   For the first time she told the truth, there was something about him that told her he wouldn’t turn her away, or turns her in for that matter.  She didn’t know why, she just felt like he would have her back and get her where she needed to be without hesitation.  The only part she didn’t like was spilling the past and being made to bear it all again, it felt like doing so was flaying her flesh all over again, but she did it.

                She had told him right then, no lies and no cover story.  She didn’t look away, she held his gaze as she told him that she wasn’t interested in self-defense, she wanted to know how to kill a trained killer.  He had looked at her for a second as though she might be joking, then he straightened and looked her in the eye.  He had made a bargain with her, she tells him everything without holding back, tell the whole story and he would decide if he would train her.

                It was hard, she had wanted to tell him what to do with his bargain and walk back out that door, but she had seen the look in his eyes.  It told her that if she laid her secrets bare and gave him her past he would help her, she could see he would understand the need to finish this, to make the past lay silent.  He had, and now he was her constant.

                She tried to remove the slight tipping of her lips at the corners, no doing.  He had heard her, seen the scars both physical and emotional, and trained her to beat back the monster that had put them there.  He would help her to defeat her dragon, but she would never be that frail and helpless princess that she had been again. 

                He had instead helped her to find the warrior within herself in the process, like breaking the clay mold to find that there was wrought iron inside the cracks.  She had been fragile and been broken, but with his expert knowledge and hands he had filled in those breaks with metal and now she was stronger and somehow better for it. 

                What she couldn’t figure out was how she had gone from leaning on her new found companion as a friend to finding herself in a place where his smile brought her heart racing like she had just been running the thousand stairs at some temple in the forest.  It surprised her, and scared her more than anything, and so she hadn’t breathed a word of it to him. 

                She feared that he might be feeling the same; she could see his glances and stares when he thought she wasn’t watching.  If she confessed her feelings to him and he felt the same would he let her complete her mission?  It was a risk she couldn’t take, but she vowed to herself that if she did this and somehow survived, she would tell him then.  She would tell him, and she would rest, it would finally be a life instead of an end that she would have then.  Maybe, just maybe, something could turn good out of all this misery. 

                Trying not to jinx herself she shook off the thoughts in her head and headed down to dip in the lake before heading in for lunch.  If she dragged more sand into the cabin he just might make her mop the floors this time along with dishes.  If you have ever tried to get sand out from between floorboards then you would understand her resistance to the idea, it could be the most maddening task on the face of this planet.  She knew, because she had already done it five times in the last six months and it wasn’t like she wanted to add a sixth.  There would be no prize on that punch card, nope not going to happen.