Joy grinned at me. “It’s only a matter of time.”
“What?”
“That’s if they’re not already.”
I sighed. “Joy, when have I ever liked riddles?”
“I was saying it’s only a matter of time before those two get together.”
A blazing heat of half-anger half-panic shot through me and I felt like I’d explode. No. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let them be together. If she was to ever be with Evan for even one night there would never be any chance of there ever being anything between Sam and me. I couldn’t ever be with someone for even one night who had been with my brother. Too weird for me. And the idea of there never being a chance sparked a dull ache in me. All this over a goddamn fuck?
“Are we going up now?” said Joy sweetly.
“You are. I’ve got somewhere I need to be.” I moved so fast around the table that she lost her monkey grip on me.
“Where are you going?”
“Why don’t you get the chocolate mousse ready,” I suggested in an irritated voice. Not that I had any intention of following her up there.
“It’s chocolate ice cream.”
Oh. Turns out I’d been paying even less attention to her than I’d thought. “That too.” I went at vampire speed to the arena, expecting to see Sam and Evan along the way, but it seemed that they had travelled at vampire speed too.
I joined Evan in the front row of the spectators’ box. He had his arms folded and a hand holding his chin, intensely interested. So was I. But only in Sam.
“Hey bro, I didn’t know you were coming.”
I only nodded at him.
He sighed. “Jared, I could be wrong, but I could swear that I’m supposed to have done something, and if I have, I truly have no idea what it is.”
I forced a mini smile and patted his back. “I’ve got a lot on my mind right now.” That was true. The upcoming attack on The Hollow’s walls wasn’t something that just slips from your brain.#p#分页标题#e#
“I’m guessing that it’s mostly Sam.”
“No,” I denied. “Squad stuff.”
“Yeah. Right.” He shook his head grinning before then returning his attention to the scene below us.
Sam was pacing in front of the guys who were all stood side by side in an almost perfectly straight line. None of them were smirking or fidgeting or whistling – which was more than what I could say for when they were training with me. Even Damien was focused. Wow, she ran a pretty tight ship. It was when she said the first few words that I realised exactly what they were focusing so much on doing.
(Sam)
“Harvey, there’s a tiny bit of excess energy around you, suck it in,” I said.
“Yes, Coach.” His expression was aggravated, as always. Harvey still hadn’t rid himself of his arrogant streak so he always got touchy whenever he was singled out for one reason or another. For once, however, he didn’t grunt before doing as I’d asked. I took that as progress. It was a case of baby steps with Harvey.
“Last session, you all met your goal of channelling all your energy. That’s an achievement, but it’s not yet the time to do a sing and a dance about it unless you can channel all that energy under pressure. During an attack, you won’t be in a nice, quiet arena, secure in your safety, with me right here to tell you if you’re doing it right. You’ll be out in the open, you’ll be surrounded by stimuli, you’ll have enemies hunting you down and you’ll have me to answer to if you don’t move your arse.”
They each smiled at the latter part, knowing better than to laugh. This was a serious matter and they were expected to treat it seriously.
“So, here’s where we get a hint of just how well you’ll do. Tonight, we’ll be doing two exercises. The first will involve me testing you all individually to see how well and quick you can respond to an oncoming threat. I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to know that I will be that threat,” I added, to which they smiled. “I know you’ll definitely be pleased to hear that I don’t want you to just defend, I want you to attack.”
Enthusiasm seeped out of every one of them; they wanted desperately to let go and abuse those powers. Boys and their toys.
A few of them suddenly noticed that the spectators’ box wasn’t empty tonight. I guessed that there must have been some movement from up there.
“Yes, yes, you have observers. Get over it. Note that my intention in this exercise isn’t to hurt you and see how well you can ignore the pain, we’ll leave that for another night.” More smiles. “During this exercise all I am interested in is your reaction to an attack. Only if I can be sure that you’re handling your gifts as you need to can we move on to the second exercise. All that understood?”