Page 65 of The Commons

“That’s an A for listening. Who else?” An A? That’s a fail.

I put the stray edges of my hair behind my ear, then look at him. For the first time today, I am terrified. I can’t play Pesh. I just know it. I can’t. He’ll see right through me. And I know he is not going to give up until I learn what he is trying to teach me. Also, seeing as I am tired physically, I am not sure if I can defend myself against him while trying to fail at the same time. This is going to be hard. I am not optimistic at this present moment. I’m intimidated, but I pretend I’m not.

I mean, how good can he be, right? Urgh! That’s a stupid thought.

I remember Zavish’s words: Pesh’s moves are lethal. This should be fun. Not.

He sees right through me despite my efforts to be calm. “Are you scared?” He perceives.

“I’m not scared of anything or anyone.”

“Good. Keep that same energy. You’ll need it.”

I cannot let my guard down. If I do, will he have mercy?

We give each other a little distance and stare at each other from opposite sides of the field. I take a deep breath and bend forward in a fighting position. I don’t wait for him to attack me. I go right in for the punch, but he catches it and spins me around. I almost fall, but I catch myself. My intuition was right. He is ready to destroy me.

Before I can get back into position to kick him, he flies a kick toward me, which causes me to fall on the floor. He kicks me on the floor in order to get me to rise up, twice. I curl up to brace against the impact. Oh my goodness.

“Get up. Again,” he commands, calm.

I thought I had the freedom to fail in his presence, but apparently not. He will not even wait. I’m in pain, but I shrug it off and stand up immediately. I try to keep my balance and put my fist up to go in for an aggressive punch. It gives him the space to jab me. I gasp, the pain is excruciating.

Urghhh! I have to keep going. I almost fall, but I hold my balance.

“Fight with the rules of The Commons!” he screams at me. He kicks me.

I fall back, then he slides through my feet, and I fall to the ground.

“Jab, kick, slide. Everything that I can’t see coming.” His voice thunders.

I gasp, then immediately stand up, terrified of being kicked by him again. Flustered, I try to collect myself and stand in a fighting position, overwhelmed by his intensity. He is not giving me the chance to react.

I scream in hopes of getting a response and causing him to take even half a second break from his ruthless attacks. “But it’s not fair fighting!”

He spins me around. From the back, he hits my stomach and holds me against his chest. “We decide what’s fair,” he whispers in my ear and strikes deeper into my stomach. I scream. I’m infuriated, so I kick his feet, then spin out of his hold. Before I can put my hands up, he grabs my hands and hurls me to the floor. I crash to the sand, grabbing onto the ground to stop my head from banging on the stone right next to me.

If he threw me one inch further, my head would have smashed into the stone. What the crap!

I spit out the sand particles on my lips. Standing up, propelled by the taste of fear, I sprint toward him in a flying kick. He catches my legs in his fist, spins me around in the air and lets me go.

I crash to the floor again. “Arghhh!”

Flipping up, I go for a kick, but he strikes a long sweeping kick, his feet flying at full force to my head. I duck and escape the blow. I’m confused. Why did he aim for my head?

Is this guy trying to kill me?

Maybe he’s just so skilled that he somehow perceived that I would escape it? I’m not sure which, but before I can come out of my crouched position, he slides at my feet, and I fall back. He hits me with his ankle. I defend with mine.

I hit him back aggressively, but he is untouched. It’s like hitting a rock or slamming my body into metal. What on earth!

Okay, now I’m thinking… I have to figure out a way to get that sword he tossed on the ground, or I will be brutally wounded. But before I can come to terms with that thought, he grabs my right elbow and spins me around. He pushes me against a wall, then joins and tightens my two hands together in a cuff, behind my back. I scream, stuck. He intertwines his feet with mine. I am now even more stuck. I can hardly breathe. I struggle, but even now, he does not relent or judge me too weak to be defeated at this point.

I am terrified at the lengths to which he is pushing me. I struggle violently to come out of his hold, but my body does not even move an inch against his grip. The moment I stop, he pushes me against the wall even tighter. There is no space for me to move or do anything. His skin on mine, his chest pressed against my breasts, I’m caught up and unable to move, yet I try repeatedly. I can feel the concrete of the wall on my skin, so I clench my teeth, trying to hold in the pain, trying to keep the back of my head from hitting the wall. A fragile breath escapes my lips as my gaze meets his. He looks into my eyes with no compassion. I am undone.

I have never been so challenged. He looks at me without a drop of mercy. Instead, he reads me. He reads my every reaction to his painful grip and hold. He reads my every facial expression to understand what I do when I cannot get out of a situation. He reads me and lets me suffer for a while, confident that I will submit to his authority. It’s almost like he delights to see me struggle against his dominance, like he delights to watch me challenge him until I cannot anymore, like he wanted to train me to an extreme point of endurance, like he was looking for me to meet my match. In this moment, I realize I’m done for. I am so screwed. Of course I knew it earlier, but I didn’t want to admit it. At least physically.

I have fought black belts, world champions, trained fighters; I have fought elites, top-ranked players; I have fought a Lerod, but I have never fought someone as ruthless as Pesh. And he didn’t even seem like he was trying. I would hardly call this a fight, had I not been fighting for my life.