Page 22 of Mending Scars

“We’re all having trouble dealing with the shooting, Kam. It’s o—”

He abruptly stood and narrowed his eyes at me. “Don’t tell me it’s okay, Kaiya. You have no idea what I’m feeling. No fucking idea.” He took a deep breath as his eyes watered. “You didn’t pull the trigger—you didn’t take your brother’s life.”

Rising off the couch, I reached my hand out to touch his shoulder. “Kam, I—”

“Don’t,” he growled as he whipped away from me and stalked down the hall toward his room. I heard the door slam a few seconds later.

Damn it.

I flopped back on the couch and clutched my head in my hands.

What the fuck am I going to do?

Kaiya hadn’t been acting like herself since the whole incident with Kamden a couple of weeks ago. She tried to pretend like everything was okay, but I knew her well enough to know when she was putting on her armor.

My stubborn Warrior.

Even though she hadn’t gotten any more texts, I wanted to be on the safe side and continue to teach techniques that would be helpful in case something happened. Plus, the phone company had told her that the number couldn’t be traced because it was from one of those disposable burner phones, so there really wasn’t anything they could do. At least I was doing something by teaching her what I could.

“Today, we’re going to work on rear hair pull defense. Having long hair is a disadvantage in a fight scenario since it can be used against you. But there are some easy techniques to turn the tables.”

After explaining the move a few times with Mark and David, everyone split up and got to work. I paired up with Kaiya and turned around as I instructed, “Grab my hair.”

“Where? You barely have any.” She chuckled.

“Run your hand up my head until you can grip something.”

Her fingers went up the back of my head and almost to the top when she finally grabbed a good chunk and tugged lightly. “Good, now pull harder.”

As she jerked my head back, I put my hands on top of hers and secured them in place. “First thing you want to do is grab their hand and trap it on your head—it may seem like the opposite of what you should be doing, but this keeps you from having your neck snapped and makes it harder for them to jerk you around.”

“Next, bring your elbows to shield your face in case your attacker tries to slam you into something.” I pivoted into her. “Then, turn into your attacker and duck under their arm.” I squatted under her arm and went to the outside, forcing Kaiya to bend over as her arm twisted unnaturally. “Now, you have them in an arm lock. If they haven’t let go by now, then you can throw a side kick to the ribs, a roundhouse to the stomach, or if you really want to do damage, throw a sidekick to the knee. I guarantee that’ll put them out.”

I let go of her arm. “Pretty simple, right?”

She rubbed her elbow. “Almost seems too good to be true. I can’t believe it’s that easy.”

I laughed. “Well you just felt how much it hurt. Sometimes it doesn’t take that much effort to inflict pain.” I stepped behind Kaiya as I spoke. “Your turn.”

I grabbed Kaiya’s ponytail and wrapped my hand around it once before tugging. “Bring your hands up.”

She clasped her hands over mine and pushed down against her head. “Now get in a horse stance and pivot inward as you duck under my arm.”

Kaiya wrenched my arm around, bringing it up as my body was forced to bend over. “Good, throw a sidekick into my ribs.”

I let go as she kicked my side. I shrugged the shoulder of the arm that was just twisted and shook it out.

Good thing it wasn’t my other arm—I’d be in some serious pain.

“Great job, Warrior. Let’s practice again, a little faster this time.”

Kaiya turned around, and I gripped her ponytail and pulled. She made a noise that sounded like a gasp and a low moan put together.

My dick twitched.

Holy shit, did she just moan?

I snaked my other hand around her waist and brought her against me, pressing that ass into my growing cock. I leaned next to her ear and murmured, “You like that, baby?”

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