Page 29 of Hunted

“So, why are you pulling your punches⁠—”

“I’m not!” I snapped.

“—Taylor?”

Oh.

Oh.

How fucking dare he?!

“I’m not,” Ethan grunted, attempting a shitty uppercut that was too slow to be any real threat.

“You are!” I realised, scowling.

That revelation, the unsubtle pointing-out by Beckett, flipped a switch in my brain. Logic went out the window, leaving only instinct behind—and considering the day I’d already had, it was an emotional warzone all up in there.

I hated the fact that Eth was going easy on me.

Hated that Beckett had been the one to point it out.

Abhorred the thought that it was because Ethan thought me weak, fragile, broken.

Detested that even if those things were true, he still thought he could win.

His hands lowered ever so slightly, exposing an opening I took full advantage of. I led with a left jab, swinging from my hips, and successfully distracted him from the right cross I was actually going for.

My fist landed with devastating impact. The bridge of Ethan’s nose crunched audibly beneath my knuckles, and his blood sprayed the mat—and still, I did not relent.

His fucking pity had broken my emotional dam, and now decades’ worth of pent-up bitterness came crashing down on the both of us. I hit, kicked, and jabbed my way through the crimson haze clouding my vision. I screamed with the force of my hatred.

Hatred of his charity, wrapped in unwanted layers of well-meaning.

Hatred of the circumstances that brought me here to this gothic hellhole in the first place.

Hatred that Fleur was gone.

That it was my fault.

That I couldn’t avenge the scum I knew in my bones was responsible—and conveniently absent from today’s session.

Red was all I could see until a thick, tanned forearm extended into my field of vision, blocking me from further rage-filled right hooks. All of a sudden, it was not the bloodstained teeth on the infuriatingly amused grin of my lone remaining friend I was staring up at, but the grievous glare of my hateful instructor.

And you know what? Fuck him for interceding.

Beckett’s eyes flicked to my quivering fists like he knew they were not yet done hurting or causing hurt.

“Take your best shot,” he taunted, eyes sparkling. “Go on. Show me what you’ve learned.”

I was probably about to eat shit, but my fury was unleashable. At the slightest provocation, it erupted. With any luck, I could land a few well-earned blows before he handed me my ass in front of the whole class.

I feinted left but struck out with my right fist, aiming for his solar plexus. I almost had him, too, but Beckett moved illogically quick for someone of his stature, and all my fist met was open air. I stumbled, ducking to evade his sweeping knuckles but only succeeded in a crouch-then-roll manoeuvre.

Beckett kept coming, though. He didn’t let up—not once.

He didn’t go easy on me.

He didn’t care that my best friend had just died. Didn’t care that she’d died because of me.