“Ooh,” she said, taunting, and came at me with a kick to the midsection that I deflected with both hands, but not without some pain. “You talk to me about ego? Look whose head seems to have inflated about what a badass she is?”
“I have some minor accomplishments to back it up,” I said and flung myself back in a flashy somersault that bought me a moment of breathing room. “I killed Wolfe—”
“Totally by accident.” Three punches and a kick that I dodged followed her reply.
“I beat Odin’s son, Bjorn, like a red-headed stepchild. Twice.”
“I hear he was always the dumbest of that brood.” She was on the attack now. She kept coming at me, but I was parrying almost everything, letting her score only minor hits.
“I stalked and killed Glen Parks,” I said and came back at her with a countering punch that caused her to move laterally into a kick I landed in her ribs, causing her to double over and retreat. “I ambushed Clyde Clary, an ironskin, trapped and killed him. I dragged down Eve Kappler, a peri, and I killed Roberto Bastian, a Quetzlcoatl-type while he was in full dragon mode.” I punched her in the nose again, sneaking one through her defenses. “While I was in England, I personally beat the living hell out of all four ministers of Omega.”
“Even Heimdall?” My mother dodged my next punch but got caught by the one that followed.
“Especially Heimdall,” I said and launched a front kick at her that caught her under her guard and caused her to grunt in pain. “I beat him to within an inch of his life.” I pressed the attack, causing her to fall back.
“Did that make you number three?” she asked, deflecting my next attack. “Third to beat him, ever?”
I hesitated. “Yeah. How did you—?”
She launched a counterattack that broke through my defense and landed a punch on the side of my head that caused me to see a flash of light even as I whirled away, trying to protect myself. “Nice to meet you, number three. I was number two.”
I looked up at her, the pain all over my body fueling my rage. “Figures you’d be number two; you were shitty mother.”
“I was what I had to be,” she said coldly, “to keep you alive until you were ready for the deep end of the pool, darling girl. Before you criticize me too harshly, just remember that everything I put you through has made you what you are today.”
“I didn’t ask for this!” I screamed the words and flung myself at her, clumsy, awkward, an attack that should have been easy to deflect for a calm, cool operator like my mother. She didn’t deflect it, though; she committed the cardinal sin of wavering, hesitant, and I slammed into her midsection with my shoulder, taking her down to the snowy pavement. I heard her hit and the air went out of her. “I didn’t ask to be what you made me!” I brought a hand back and hit her in the face, hard, rocking her skull against the concrete. “I didn’t want to be a killer! I didn’t want to get involved in Old Man Winter’s games!” I punched her again and she took it, ineffectually trying to block me with her hands. “I didn’t want to watch my boyfriend die at his hand!” I hit her again, and this time she managed to get up enough strength and momentum to buck me off of her into the air by arching her back and pushing my weight up with her hips.
I flew into the air and took a standing position as she rolled away and got to her feet. There were already dark bruises and cuts on her cheeks, trickles of deep crimson running down her face from where I’d battered her. She looked woozy, like she was going to fall over at any moment. “I didn’t ask for it either,” she said, and spat a gob of blood onto the snow at my feet. “But it got handed to me just the same as it did for you, and no one prepared me for it. I did everything I could to make you ready for it. I’m sorry if I failed you,” she said, and I could hear the remorse. It actually slowed me up, kept me from launching at her again. “But I will not apologize for coarsening you, for overprotecting you, for exposing you to ridiculous levels of hardship to prepare you for monsters like Wolfe and Omega and Sovereign. I knew they’d be after you from day one. I knew it.”
“Why?” I asked, and I felt my hands drop to my side. “Why ... won’t they leave me alone?”
I watched her hands fall to her sides, wary, weary, and I saw a single tear run down her cheek. “I don’t know. I wish like hell I did, but I just ... don’t know.”
Chapter 12
The two of us brushed our way back inside at a wary truce, exchanging glances but nothing more, and with a lot less hostility than had been in them previously. I didn’t really know what to say, so after staring at each other for a couple minutes she just turned and started walking back to the rear door of the offices and I followed. This round was over. The bigger part of me hoped there wouldn’t be another, ever.