Talia's Crucible

Chapter 2: New dawn and a new day.

                “Come on now you can do better than that!”  Talia was working with a new client.  He was insistent on working with her rather than Tanner and she was not in the mood to deny him today.  She was feeling the pent up energy from constantly looking over her shoulder for the next bomb their distant admirer was going to drop in their path.  This would be the perfect outlet for that aggravation.

                Talia smiled at the man who thought he was taunting her.  She had seen so many of them recently since they had added her as a trainer to the company Tanner had lovingly established.  She was used to men thinking that because she was short she was weak.  It gave her a sense of pride to be able to show them how wrong they were and smile down at them when they landed on their backsides because of this “Little girl”.  So many of them started out calling her that as if they had all grown up in the same training camp that regaled women to places of impassive sensibilities.  She loved wrecking their idea of what a woman could do all while showing them that they had sorely underestimated her.

                The man was bouncing back and forth on his toes like a boxer and Talia had to admit that his footwork was not the problem with him; it was instead the fact that he threw every punch with everything he had and saved no energy for the recovery.  He was also signaling his moves before he made them with the lowering of his shoulders before every strike.  She smiled as she saw the telltale drop and thought to herself that this would be his downfall.

                Talia waited for him to begin his strike at her and dodged out of the way seconds before his fist made contact with her face.  As he flew past her body she made a quick jab and landed a powerful punch to his kidney.  He dropped to the ground with a grunt and several curses muttered under his breath.  “Now who isn’t doing their best?”  Talia couldn’t help the taunt that came from her lips as she smiled down at the man.

                She had expected a smart commented retort, what she hadn’t expected was for him to throw sand at her in a dirty move.  As the sand hit her face and her vision blurred she felt her legs get ripped out from under her body followed by an unceremonious crashing of her limbs to the ground.  In an instant he was on top of her, pinning her smaller frame with his much larger one.  Talia froze at the feeling that brought small ghosts of her past to skitter down her spine.

                “What are you going to do now b***h!?”  His breath was on her neck as he spit the hateful words at her.  She could feel his rage as his spittle hit her neck.  Talia took a calming breath before she spoke to calm her nerves and chase the ghosts from her system.

                “You need to let me go and cool off.”  She blinked rapidly to clear the sand from her eyes and peered at her client as he stared at her red faced.

                “What are you going to do if I don’t?”  He had a smug look on his face that said he knew he was heavier and stronger than her.  He believed he had won, he was about to find out otherwise.

                “Well, if you refuse to get off of me and act like a civilized human being then you will regret it.”  She was trying hard not to lose her cool.  This wasn’t anything she hadn’t faced before; when hot headed ego males were proven to be unable to take her down they usually resulted to cave man tactics and dirty fighting to get the upper hand.  She could handle this; she just hoped she managed the situation before Tanner got back with his group from the obstacle course.

                “Oh, I don’t think I am scared honey, you really are at a disadvantage here.”  He smiled down at her as he trailed his finger down her neck towards her collar bone.

                “Remember that I warned you.”  Talia looked him dead in the eyes as the snick of her pocket knife was heard.  The shock on his face was almost priceless.  Looking down their bodies he saw that the blade of her pocket knife was nestled against his family jewels.  He looked back at Talia and saw the determination in her eyes for what it was.  He had issued a challenge and she had given him warning.  If he wanted to pursue this line of tactics two could play dirty.

                “What the f**k!?”  The client jumped off her body as if she had burned him.  “You’re crazy!”

                “No, you chose to play the manhandling a woman game.  You pressed your luck and made suggestions along with touching me in a way that was way beyond training capacity and all because you were losing to a girl.”  Talia straightened herself and placed the knife back into her boot.  “Now, you can apologize and we can pretend like this never happened while you get some actual training to correct the issues I have seen in your technique or you can turn around and go back to where ever you came from and we can agree to never see each other again.  Your choice.”  Talia looked at him waiting for his decision.

                “Fine, I am sorry I acted like a jerk and it won’t happen again.  I don’t like it, but I have to admit that you did kick my butt and I would like to know what issues you saw with my technique.”  He still looked angry but it wasn’t the same blown out of proportion anger he had been displaying now.  Talia could work with this, if he could keep himself in check she would work with him.  If he couldn’t he would be headed back down the road to be someone else’s problem.  Either way she was going to get her frustration worked out today.

                “Good, let’s begin by working to stop your telegraphing your moves before you make them.  Every time you went to throw a punch you lowered your shoulder and it let me know exactly what to expect before your punches even came.”  She smiled at the new client, now they could actually get some work done and she could feel like she had earned the fee he paid to come here.

                Four hours later her client was shaking her hand as Tanner and Duke came back with a huffing and puffing group of clients who had just ran the obstacle course they had set up on the other side of the lake.  Talia made arrangements for her client to come back and work with her three days a week and he wanted to keep to that schedule for the next two months.  It wasn’t going to be cheap but he said he felt the training would be good for both his technique as well as his manners.  She just chuckled and told him to have a safe trip home and she would see him in two days.

                Turning she saw Tanner watching her with interest.  She knew he had heard the part about the manners and could see the sand dried onto her face.  This was going to be a fun conversation, yup from one frying pan into the other.  She loved the man, but sometimes she thought he forgot they had faced the same monster together and lived.  She wasn’t made of glass and while she had been broken when they met she was now made of so much stronger materials then before.  He had helped her to become stronger and sometimes she just wanted him to remember that she could handle her own as well as he could.

                “Before you get all overprotective, I am fine.  Yes this is sand on my face.  No I don’t need you to take a look at my bruises.  I will heal and they are only surface scrapes.  No I don’t want you to cancel his contract.  Yes I am going to keep working with him, and no you can’t join me in our sessions.”  She was looking into his eyes and trying to make sure that he saw she meant business.

                “I was just going to ask if your session went well and see if you wanted to go for a swim to get off the sand.”  Tanner was looking at her with a lopsided grin as he tried not to laugh.  “But the way you answered every question you thought I was going to have was quite cute if I do say so myself.”

                Talia shoved his shoulder as he started to laugh openly at her.  “You are such a punk you know that?”

                “I love you to baby.”  Tanner leaned into her and brushed his lips against hers.  That one touch told her all she needed to hear. 

                “I love you too.”  Talia pressed her lips against his as she wrapped her arms around his waist.

                “Eww!  Too much PDA man!  Go take a dip in the lake or something I don’t want to see that.”  Duke was like a brother to her in so many ways, but sometimes Talia swore he was a little kid. She wouldn’t be surprised if the next thing she knew he was going to be making cootie catchers and singing about them sitting in a tree.  She shook her head as she looked at him and he smiled back at her.  Her life had become so different from what she had grown up with, but this rag tag man standing before her in all his goofy glory was family.  With Duke and Tanner at her sides she felt like she could take on the whole world.

Meanwhile:

                “Yes sir, I am in.”

                “Your certain she doesn’t suspect anything?”  The man on the other end of the line had sent him to do a job and he wasn’t the kind of guy you lied to, he would know and you wouldn’t live to regret the decision.

                “No, she doesn’t.  She does have her guard up around me though but I think that is because I am a guy.”  He had noticed that the moment he had arrived for his training session with Talia.  She was on edge as if she expected him to make all the wrong moves.

                “You think I should send someone else for your assignment?  A female perhaps?”  He could hear the sarcasm in his voice, he knew suggestion this mission be handed off would be bad for him.  He was not about to give his boss an excuse to retire him.  The severance package didn’t exactly include a beach in the Bahamas if you get what I mean.

                “No, not replace.  Maybe sending in a female operative to also work the target will keep her off balance.  If she is being worked from both sides we may be able to set her up to fall without even realizing what we are doing.”  He knew it was risky to add another player to the game, but he had a feeling that Talia would be less guarded around a woman than she was with him.  He just knew it could work.

                “Fine, you may be right on this one.  I will send you someone, be ready.  I don’t think I have to tell you what happens if you fail me on this one.”  His voice was cold as he finished his sentence and the line went dead.

                Nope, he didn’t have to tell him.  He was already well aware of what happened when the boss was displeased.  His last partner was missing at least two fingers as testament to a less than perfect job and that one had been completed.  He was not about to find out where his body would end up if he messed up this job.  The boss seemed to be very interested in how this one played out and he knew better than to ask questions when he was given orders.  He would do this job and go on to the next one.  Maybe even make enough on this one to buy his little island in the Bahamas.  Who knows, he could dream right?  He just hoped that whoever the boss sent wasn’t going to be a pain in his ass, he really hated when female operatives came in all bossy with something to prove.