Page 44 of Scar

He stepped back. A moment later, she heard the distinctive beeping of the keypad outside her apartment’s main door. She didn’t bother to ask how he knew the code, though she did wonder, “Is this the first time you’reusingthe front door?”

She got no answer as he held the door open for her.

Tally changed as quickly as she could while he waited in her living room. She grabbed two sports water bottles from her cabinet and filled them with water before handing him one. She noticed immediately how he took it without having to touch her fingers.

She tried to hide the disappointment she felt at that.

Once outside, Tally folded her cane, putting it into the pouch she had strapped to her back. She knew her mystery man was wearing leather, even in the June heat, and wondered if perhaps jogging was the wrong activity for him.

But it wasn’t like he’d voiced a protest.

After stretching, Tally started out slow, wanting to not only warm up for herself but to also ensure that her mystery man could keep up. He did. She picked up her pace, he matched it. She picked it up even more and he still remained at her side. Christ, she couldn’t even hear him breathing heavily.

Was the guy even human? Maybe he was a machine? Part android? Could vampires go out in the day or had that myth been debunked? Maybe a werewolf?

They went for about ten miles before Tally started to slow, a stitch in her side. Even with how in shape she was, it had still been a long time since she went for a distance run. She drank nearly all of her water bottle in a single gulp.

“How…the fuck…” she gasped, “are you…not breathing…?” She stretched her back, trying to get the stitch in her side to let up. “I don’t…think you’re human.”

Rather than reply, he took her nearly finished water bottle from her right hand and replaced it with his full water bottle that she’d given him at her apartment.

She drank that one too, only slower. “Nope. Not human.”

If her internal map was correct, and it usually was, they were about a half mile to her destination. Tally started walking it, grabbing her cane from the pouch attached to her back. Since he’d started walking with her and had stopped trailing behind her, she had noticed that he was always on whichever side was between her and the road.

The storage facility she took him to was down towards the aquarium. As the crow flies, it was only about three miles from her apartment, but there was a lot of city that they had to navigate around that a bird simply flew over.

Once inside, Tally threw open the overhead door to reveal her secret. Well, it wasn’t a secret from him.Hewas the only one who knew she could fight, but it was a secret to the rest of the people she knew in Atlanta.

“I don’t get to come here often,” Tally said as she walked inside. “There should be a light switch around the entrance somewhere if you need it. Since losing my office manager at the restaurant and then my dining room manager going on maternity leave, things have been more crazy than usual. But this is where I come when I need to destress and to train.”

She heard the whirl of the garage door closing and then the hum of the lights turning on over their heads. She knew what he was seeing and felt a little nervous because she wasn’t sure of his reaction to it all.

The twenty by fifteen storage space had a large mat in the center of the floor. Sparring dummies lined the mat. On one side was a set of uneven bars and a balance beam. On the other side was a rock wall and climbing peg wall.

She felt him approach her from behind. “My dad started training me when I was young. As far back as I could remember, he enrolled me in karate, gymnastics, swim team, cross country… I even played baseball.”

Tally felt his head turn towards her and understood the question. “Well, actuallybaseballis incorrect. The regular team wouldn’t let me play even after I proved I could. Liability or some shit. I played Beep Ball.” She pointed to the far wall where she knew a line of targets were. “Beep Ball is the blind version of baseball. It’s exactly the same except the ball and bases emit a sound at different frequencies so we can detect where everything is. My targets and sparring dummies do the same. When I turn them on, they vibrate and I can sense the movement so I can train.” She made a face. “My dad won’t let me practice with real throwing knives unless he’s around. I keep asking him for some, but he says too much can go wrong. But I thought you’d like to see this place. See how it is that I can do what I can do.”

Tally wasn’t sure what she was expecting his reaction to be. She heard the pull of something metal from leather and then theswishof metal through the air. The sharpthwackbrought her attention to the back wall.

He pulled something else out. It was the same something. She clicked her tongue in his direction to get a better sense of what was going on. He was holding something out to her.

Tally put her water bottle down and put her hand out. He placed the cool metal into her palm before letting go. Tally gripped the handle. She could feel no rubber grip, just metal. A small cross guard touched the narrow space between her pointer finger and thumb.

She brought it up towards her ear, clicking her tongue as she did. The metal dagger practically hummed back at her. It weighed just over a pound, the blade approximately seven inches. Fourteen if she included the hilt.

She rolled it around in her palm, her brain trying to comprehend what her hand and ear were telling her. “This is aMerlinblade.”

They were known for being made with exquisite craftsmanship. Expensive and designed for precision throwing. The same brand professionals used in world competitions.

“Holy fuck,” she breathed out. “How many of them do you have?”

He stepped back away from her. And then a series of swishes and thuds sounded.Thwack, thwack, thwack…Six of them. If she counted the one in her hand and the first one he threw, that was eight. He was carryingeightMerlin blades on him? ‘Holy fuck’ now seemed like an understatement.

“You carry aroundeightMerlin daggers on you?” Tally wouldn’t have been able to keep the shock from her voice if she tried.

She heard the crinkle of the mat as he walked across to retrieve the daggers. Before he walked back to her, she heard the flip of a switch and then the distinctive vibrations of the four targets. They pulsed in her ears, giving her a clear image of the room, like her echolocation on steroids.

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