Page 18 of The Unforgiven

I found myself grinning. Jalen was a bit older than me, a dad, although he’d long since split from their mum, but there was something childlike about him. A vibe.

“Just about. Not sure how aware I’m going to be. I’ve been awake since four.” Which was now catching up with me. After this I’d be home, showered, fed and in bed.

“This’ll sort you out. Start with skipping.” He handed me a rope.

I began automatically, the ritual and the pace focusing me purely on the now, on the single space between the ticks of a clock. Nowhere else to be, the past was done. All I had was where I was right now.

It was a therapist’s trick. Language to help the taking of control back, looking at only what was in your power. I specialised in criminology and profiling when I was studying, but I’d learned alongside enough people who were pursuing a career in psychotherapy and clinical psychology.

“Speed it up.” Jalen said quietly from nearby.

I hadn’t realised how close he was.

I carried on until I was almost breathless, dropping the rope and going through warm-up exercises, the movement of muscles and the quickness of it waking me up, my mind clearing. It was similar to the effect that running had. When I ran I’d lose myself, just like I would here, but here I had to be more aware, more alert at what was happening around me. When I ran, what I was passing was inconsequential, a blur of grass and greenery.

“Pads today?” Jalen waited for me to finish a set of burpees.

“No. Self-defence. I want you to come at me.”

“But you’ve already said you’re half asleep.” He put his hands on his hips and viewed me, like he could see everything I was trying to hide.

“Exactly why we should do this now.”

“You’re on that new case, aren’t you? The woman-pusher?” He led the way onto the mats. This would be street-fighting, struggling, grappling. Jalen would pin me down but always know the point where he needed to let go.

I nodded. “It’ll be released to the press later that we’ve identified her. Nothing to do with the pusher or any other urban legend.”

“I don’t know, these things come from somewhere. We will start with some pad work. Glove up.”

Ten minutes later and I’d started to sweat, the routine pattern of jab, cross, hook, uppercut as Jalen moved around the mat, shifting his position, leaving out the words. Knees got involved, then shins and elbows, my body starting to hitch up a notch, awake and alert. Then he ditched the pads, and it was glove against glove, reading each other’s movements, his sometimes too quick, too agile.

“You’re not at your best, Mia.” He dropped his gloves at the side, letting me catch my breath. Jalen was, of course, unflustered, barely sweating.

“I know. How shall we do this?”

“You won’t have to try to be unaware, so why don’t I try to grab you from behind and drag you back. You fight me off?” He put his hands on my shoulders and pressed down.

I felt muscles untense.

“Okay. Don’t go easy on me.” Because this was how I felt safe when I was on my own, hunting down a suspect or a witness with the potential to be dangerous, and not really a witness at all. It was how I knew I’d be okay walking through quiet estates attwo in the morning when the only souls about weren’t ones you wanted to meet.

But maybe that was how they felt about me.

I walked slowly across the mat. Jalen had turned the music up louder, and no one else was in the gym – Sunday evenings were always quiet. I let myself drift off into thinking about that email and who’d sent it, how they knew who my mother was. I hadn’t used her surname since I was a teenager, known as McAllister like my foster sister. I changed it formally by deed poll when I was eighteen. Just then, I felt arms grab me from behind, clamping around me, over my arms.

I didn’t fight, not straight away. Panic was flung in a box, and I took a deep breath and dropped my weight. Jalen’s centre of gravity was knocked; although I wasn’t heavy, I was strong and flexible, hitting my head hard into his stomach, maybe a bit too hard given it was a practice session, and then it became a struggle. His goal was to get me on my front or my back on the floor; my goal was the same, but ideally it would be him face down, wrists behind his back, ready for my cuffs to go on them.

I’d never succeeded. Jalen never went easy on me. He was strong and lithe and a good fighter, part of his talent in predicting where hits and kicks were going to fall. Every time we practiced this, he got a little quicker, a little more real.

Trusting me more to tell him when to stop.

I used elbows, my head, went to bite soft flesh that covered hard muscle, but let him pull away because doing actual harm wasn’t on the menu. He rolled me on top of him, my back to his front, one arm around over my stomach, the other on my throat.

“Come on, Mia, this would be game over.”

I relaxed, which surprised him, then elbowed him sharply in his side, followed by a stamp to the shins, which could’ve been harder, but we were playing after all. He lost his grip and Iswung to my feet, out of breath and it was then I realised there were tears on my face.

“What’s up?” Jalen stood up, reaching out to me, pulling me close even though I was sweaty.