Page 53 of A University of Betrayal

“That brings us a little closer.”

I didn’t know what he meant, so I kept quiet and waited to see what happened.

“Is there any sport that you used to do?”

“Karate,” I said, and regretted it the next moment. It was never good to tell your enemy what you could do. I was an idiot.

“Very exemplary.” He nodded at me with a smile. It was a... friendly smile, which I hadn’t expected. “Unfortunately, I’m the wrong trainer for that. I’ll talk to Laurent and give you some regular karate lessons with him. That should be possible.”

Laurent,Miles’ trainer.

“And what am I learning from you, Mr. …DeLoughrey?” I asked carefully, because I didn’t want to question his presence, and yet it felt like I was doing just that.

“Tristan”I backed away as the man suddenly appeared in front of me. “I don’t want you to call me by my surname because that feelsterriblyold. I’m not that old yet, and besides, I’m...” He looked at me scrutinizingly before finishing the sentence. “Your mentor.”

I nodded quickly and said, “Of course.”

At least he hadn’t tried to kill me yet.

“Good.” He turned away from me again and hurried to the table, where he unrolled my bag. Wait, what? I looked into my hands, where I’d just been holding the heavy bag. It was gone.

“Not to mention your attention, which is in dire need of training. I’m going to have you specialize in throwing stars. Firearms training will be secondary, probably with Camille, but there’ll be time for that later. The important thing is that you have a foundation, a focus that we can build on.” He turned to me and looked me up and down. An unpleasant feeling spread through me. What was he doing? “You’re slim, almost skinny. You’ll have to start weightlifting like Miles.”

He paused, and I continued to watch him.

It was nice that he had just labeled metoo skinny.Thank you, Tristan, the killer mentor.

I didn’t believe him that he didn’t know where Bay was. What Ididbelieve was that he had killed the guy who had attacked us. The two of them hadn’t really gotten along when we first met. But that fact didn’t make it any better.He was a murderer.And I was alone with him in a training hall full ofmurder weapons.

“But above all, you should use your strength. With training that’s customized to you, you’ll hopefully build up more muscle mass. Otherwise, a compact handgun with a smaller grip size might be better for you to ensure a comfortable grip. I think the standard sizes are perfect for you. When choosing calibers, we’ll see which ones provide adequate recoil control for you. Until then... throwing weapons.”

I blinked because I couldn’t follow his explanations – or didn’t want to.

He actually wanted me to train with weapons. Things I had wanted to leave behind.

Tristan pointed to the bag in front of him, where throwing stars lay, their blades glinting menacingly. I immediately thought of Miles’ knives.

“Why no knives?”

Tristan sighed. “If Miles impressed you with his knife games, please keep in mind that throwing stars have an even weight distribution and are easier to handle.” He looked at me scrutinizingly. “Those ridiculous knives Milliam uses are gimmicks.”

I didn’t know whether to believe him because a man who could throw knives was still a man who could attack and defend himself.

With growing suspicion, I eyed the stars. I had never thrown anything like that before, let alone hit anything in general.

Tristan came to me, menacingly close, and I looked at him fearfully.

Come on, be Larissa Champson.

Then he held three blades out to me.

When I didn’t take them, he turned away from me and started throwing them unexpectedly in three different directions. I looked around and spotted three distant targets with a piece of metal now stuck in their centers.

I swallowed.

He held three blades out to me again.

“Your turn.”

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