Page 41 of Fighting for Irish
“And doing that makes you happy?”
Fuck no.“I like bikes, I can turn a wrench, and it pays the bills. What more do I need?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said with extra sarcasm, “maybe some of that fire I saw in your eyes when you were talking about the sport you so obviously love?”
“All right, smarty-pants. What would you be if you could do anything?”
“That’s easy. I’d be a superhero.”
“Come again?”
“You know, someone with superpowers like the ability to fly or read minds or—”
“Kat, I know what a superhero is. But you don’t exactly strike me as the sort of girl to dress up and attend ComiCons.”
“You’re right, I’m not. But you said if I could do anything, right?”
His mouth quirked up on one side. “I did indeed. Okay, kitten, enlighten me. What kind of superhero would you be?”
“Well,” she started thoughtfully, “as cool as it would be to have any kind of superpower, I would want super strength.”
“A little unoriginal, but not entirely a bad choice. Why that one?”
Kat began playing with the label on her bottle. She picked at the corner until she could pull it off in little strips. She’d withdrawn a little, like a turtle not completely hiding but not willing to keep its neck all the way out where it was vulnerable.
“Kat?”
“Because then no one could hurt me,” she answered softly. “If I didn’t want someone to touch me, I could make him stop.” Finally she lifted her head, and the rage and pain he saw in her eyes made the animal in him howl. “And then I’d make him pay.”
The steely resolve in her voice revealed a little girl who’d been mistreated in ways no one ever deserved. She’d had no way to fight back, no way to protect herself. It was no wonder she longed for superpowers. Unfortunately, even if superheroes existed, she clearly wasn’t one of them. So he’d have to make her the next best thing.
“Come on,” he said, pulling her to her feet.
“Why, what are we doing?”
“Giving you superpowers.”
“Oh, good,” she said wryly. “And to think, all this time all I had to do was ask.”
Aiden walked to a stack of thick blue mats and pulled them out one by one until he’d made a decent area for them to work in. Standing in the middle of the mats, he asked, “Ready?”
“For what?”
“Your first self-defense lesson.”
She hesitated. “Really? You could teach me that?”
“Yeah. You said you wanted superpowers, and being able to defend yourself against someone no matter what his size is as close to that as you can get. So, you ready?”
Wringing her hands together in front of her, she nodded.
“Then let’s get started.”
For the next two hours, Aiden worked with Kat on different techniques she could use for different situations. He’d only planned on teaching her one or two, but with every move she mastered, her inner strength and confidence grew right before his eyes. Her appetite for the knowledge of how to protect herself was voracious.
By the end, she knew all the weak points to strike on a person and how to throw him off-balance almost any way he grabbed her. Except for one way in particular he’d steered clear from, unsure how she’d react to being put in that position again so soon.
“This is great, Irish, thank you,” she said. “Anything else?”
