Stephanie Doyle - Calculated Risk

This. Her. “I’m a person, not an assignment,” she protested, now completely annoyed with herself for bringing the subject up. It wasn’t that she thought they had any kind of bond or anything. She knew she was only a job to him.

And it wasn’t his fault if she’d let him become more than that to her. Which she had. Quinlan was much more to her than an evil trainer inflicting physical punishment. More than a teacher and a rule maker. In a very short time, he’d become her center.

Because he got her.

Nobody ever got her before. Not her mother before she took off, or her father, who could never deal with the fact that she was smarter than him. She hadn’t had a whole lot of friends because she’d been labeled weird, almost from the start. And she’d never met a teacher who hadn’t hated her on sight. Of course that could have had more to do with her condescending attitude than her gift.

Quinlan was different. He didn’t treat her as if she was strange. He expected her to be as smart as she was. Insisted upon it. Nobody had ever done that before. Nobody had ever pushed her to see how far she could go. At least nobody who she ever respected. He made her believe there was a reason why she was the way she was. And that she had an obligation, a duty, to use her capabilities to their fullest extent.

“Again,” he said, ignoring her protest about not being an assignment. He moved into position and fixed his eyes on hers.

For a quick second her breath caught in her throat. It had been happening lately whenever he looked a little too deep, or stared at her a little too long. As if he was seeing something inside of her that she didn’t even know was there.

She didn’t like it. She didn’t hate it, but she definitely didn’t like it. It made her…edgy.

“Breathe,” he instructed.

Since she’d been holding it in, the reminder proved to be beneficial. He’d taught her to use the opportunities during a fight to inhale deeply whenever she could. Oxygen meant life. Always.

Sabrina straightened her back to what she knew was textbook-perfect posture. And like a textbook, she executed the move with exact precision. It was never her technique, but rather her speed and often her lack of commitment that made the strike so easy to deflect.

“Still sloppy. And too slow.” Her palm glanced off his shoulder and she cursed. It was purely to be mean, she decided, that he felt obliged to add, “And you hit like a girl.”

This, of course, made her mad, which could have been his intent. It was hard to know. Nevertheless, she began to charge with more energy, but as she did, she could feel her precision dissipate until it became even easier for him to redirect her fists. In a single move, he wrapped his ankle around the back of her knee and tugged, sending her to the cushioned mat with enough force to knock the breath out of her.

When she tried to get up, he motioned for her to stay down with a simple hand gesture and instead, crouched down next to her head, resting on his haunches while she sucked in a few quick breaths. “Sometimes when people get pissed off, they fight better.”

“Like Rocky,” she wheezed as she sat up.

“Like Rocky,” Quinlan agreed with an actual smile. “But you don’t.”

She gave him a disgusted look to let him know that she’d already figured that part out. Standing to his full height, he stretched out his hand to her and helped her to her feet.

“You’re going to have to learn how to discipline your emotions. And you need to work harder on your own time. Repetition is the key.”

“Can’t you just teach me how to shoot a gun?”

“Your mind is your first weapon. Your body is your second. Guns, knives, those will come later. We’re done for today.”

“If you say so,” she muttered heading over to the side of the gym where her water and towel waited. Together they sat on the bench in companionable silence and drank deeply from their water bottles.

Sabrina could smell the lingering essence of sweat in the empty gym. Mostly from her, but some from him. On some level it disturbed her that he could smell her. Enough so that she found it necessary to scoot down the bench a little.

“When’s your next class?” he asked.

She checked the clock on the wall of the gym. “I’ve got time. I’m going to need a shower. I stink.”

“You do,” he agreed, wrapping his own towel around his neck.

“Yeah, well, you’re no rose, either.”

He didn’t comment.

“So do you hate it?” she blurted, still trying to get something from him, although she couldn’t say what that intangible thing was or why it was so important to her. But she figured he had to hate being stuck teaching a teenage girl how to fight. “I mean being here with me,” she clarified when he only raised his brows, “instead of out there in the field.”

“No.”

Sabrina waited, but that was apparently all he was going to offer.

“Were you good?” She bet he was. She bet he was very good.

“I still am,” he said.

“Right,” she agreed quickly. “I mean it’s not like you’re retired or anything. You’re not that old.”

She could see him wince at that comment and smiled because that had been her intent.

“How old are you? Thirty-something, right?”

“Close enough. Why all the questions?”

“We’ve been doing this for months. You know everything there is to know about me. I can’t even get you to tell me if Quinlan is your first or last name. I want to know your story. Did you mess something up? Are you being punished?”

“You think working with you is a punishment?”

She’d been told as much. On more than one occasion. But this wasn’t a sympathy exploration. All she really wanted was to find out about him. His past. His future. His scar, how it got there, and if that was the reason he’d been stuck working with her for so long. And most importantly, how long it would be before he left.

“Most people seem to think so,” she replied. “I’m not exactly easy. Ask my Arabic teacher.”

“Where’s the fun in easy?”

She smiled because it was an answer she understood. And he made her believe that he understood it, too.

“Seriously,” she pressed. “Why me?”

For a while he said nothing. Only the clock, sounding particularly loud in the quiet gym, made any noise. This was a time when an adult might have said something to ease the tension to let another adult off the hook. She had only just turned seventeen. Not adult enough.

She only lasted a minute before she proposed, “Maybe it’s because I’m difficult. Maybe they think you’re the only one who can handle me.”

He turned his head and she could see his brow furrow. Then he shook his head softly. “I’m here because I needed to heal,” he finally admitted, pointing to the red mark over his eye. “Don’t ever get the impression that you’re too special, Sabrina. Trust me when I tell you that you’re not.”

“Yo,” she moaned, clutching at her breast with her hand in a show of mock pain. “Ouch.”

His lips twitched and he leaned his head against the wall behind him. “You’re right. You’re not easy. I suppose there are some handlers who might think it’s not worth the effort.”

“This is the part when you tell me you’re different from the other handlers,” she replied cheekily for the pure challenge of eliciting another smile.

But just in case he said something else, she wrapped the towel that had been around her neck, around her shoulders so that it covered her barely clad body.

“You’re late for class.” It was the only thing he said before he stood and walked away.

Present