Page 55 of Dangerous Rhythm

“Train me,sensei.” Curtis put his hands on top of each other in front of his face in a sign of respect.

Lina just shook her head with a chuckle. Curtis noted how much she laughed at kicking his ass. He grinned, satisfied that even if she thought he was an idiot, he could make her laugh.

“Let’s do it slower this time.” Lina, oblivious to his thoughts, now stood in front of him like earlier. “I’ll do the same moves. This time, I don’t want you to jump back, but sway wide to your left.”

“Sway?”

“Yes, just twist your body and take a big side step to the left.” She extended her knife-wielding arm.

Curtis avoided the knife the way Lina instructed. He ended up to the left of the knife. She retreated her arm and adjusted to his position.

“In an actual fight, you’re already giving yourself distance from the knife, which is the goal,” she said. “I’m going to do that again. This time, sway to the right.”

Curtis frowned as he did what she told him. “Are we dancing or fighting here?”

“Fighting is like dancing in the sense that there’s a bit of footwork. And that you should be able to read your partner, or opponent in this case. That way, you’ll be able to anticipate their next move and your countermovement.”

She held the knife at the ready again. “Let’s repeat that a little faster. Ready?”

Curtis nodded and focused on the task. He watched Lina’s arm coming at him, and he swerved to the side. She pivoted and repeated the attempt. He countered it by moving to the other side.

“That’s good. You’ve done this with kickboxing, I’m sure,” she said. “Except you’re dodging a punch, and you may only need to move your head.”

“Oh, yeah.” He frowned.

Why didn’t I think of that?

“You have your training, Curtis. Your body remembers how to react when being attacked.” Lina twirled the knife in her hand so now she held it tip down.

“Whoa. How did you do that so fast?” he asked.

Indulging his curiosity, Lina showed it to him by flipping it back up slowly with only her first two digits and thumb. “It’s a three-finger flip. It’s crucial to switch your grip on your knife fast during a fight.”

She gripped the handle with the knife’s tip downward again. “This is the reverse position. Holding it like this, I can do a downward stab or a side-slice, right to left, and back.” She demonstrated the movement as she explained it. “You can do a lot with a knife in this position.”

“I should get myself a knife,” Curtis said.

“No. We got distracted. What you need to do is to learn to survive a knife attack, since the people who are hunting you have a quirky penchant for them.”

“Can you blame them?” Curtis grinned.

Lina smiled. “Only you can find humor in that.”

He shrugged and realized the melancholy plaguing him had dissipated. When punching bags and playing music failed to chase it away, Lina succeeded.

twenty-three

Lina watched how fast Curtis picked up the defense movements in a knife fight. She’d taught him how to use his arms to block and push the attacker’s knife away. Then they’d moved on to counterattacking barehanded. Though she preferred he would dodge and escape. But knowing him by now, she knew he wouldn’t run from a fight.

They’d put away the knife and started working on hand-to-hand combat, which he was actually quite adept at. But he hadn’t been able to take her down yet.

“Relax. You’re too tense,” Lina told Curtis, walking around the ring as if she was strolling in a park on a sunny afternoon. Curtis looked a bit worse for wear. He’d shed his sweatshirt a while back. His T-shirt was stained with sweat.

“You keep telling me that. How does a person relax in a fight?” he asked.

“Remember I told you a fight is like a dance?”

Curtis nodded. “Yeah.”

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