Page 65 of Hiding Secrets

“Thank you for that.” Taking the toast from Hunter's hands, I start to walk away.

“Give him hell.” Kameron shouts down the hallway when I’m out of sight.

I scarf down the toast, dusting off my hands when I get to the gym doors. I see from the other side of the glass that Marcus is on the treadmill. Music is blaring through the room again.

I slide the door open, closing once I’m fully in and I walk over to the side of one of the treadmills as Marcus ignores my presence.

“Get on the treadmill. Start running.” He says before I can say anything.

“I thought you were teaching me self-defense?”

“Treadmill,” is all he says to me.

I huff out a breath but I do as I’m told.

I mess with the buttons and start the treadmill, not knowing what all the others do.

Marcus steps on the side and reaches over, setting the treadmill to a certain speed and incline because it starts to rise as if I’m running uphill.

I adjust to the speed and run alongside him, panting while he runs as effortlessly as if he was on a leisurely walk. By the time the treadmill stops, sweat is rolling off of me.

“Don’t run much?”

“I don’t domuchof anything in Everton.” I step off, catching my breath as he walks somewhere else in the room. “In Everton, women are just there. I wanted to go to college after high school but that wasn’t a woman's way and they were telling me to wait for my Chosen.” I cringe at the thought that they were waiting for me to marry Samuel.

Something cold taps my shoulder and I look up to see Marcus handing me a water bottle.

“Thanks.” He gives me a half assed smile, taking a long sip of his own water.

“We’re going to take this slow, I want you to be comfortable and not too sore tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s stretch, then I’ll show you some moves and you’ll practice them on me.”

I nod, following him to the matted floor in the center of the room.

***

“Lock your elbows, Elliott!” Marcus smacks my elbow for the hundredth time. “You need to lock them together. If you don’t, I still have access to you and can take you down.”

“I’m trying but you’re strong.” I huff out, my face hot from the last two hours of training. He told me we could call it quits half an hour ago but I was determined to get this last move down.

“Yeah I literally fuck people up for a living, Elliott. You need to be able to stop my moves or at least get out of them to be able to get away from danger. Hence ‘self-defense’.”

“I know. Let’s try it again.” I get in position, ready and waiting for him to ‘attack’. He comes at me from behind like all the other times and I press my elbow down into his gut and flip my stance, bringing my arms up and around his throat. He kicks my legs from under me so quickly that I fall on my ass. Again. I grunt in frustration but unlike the other times, he lands on top of me, pulling my arms into a hold that renders me defenseless.

“Elbows. Up.”

“Fuck.” I growl out.

“You’re frustrated, princess. We’ll pick this up tomorrow. It’s just your first day.”

“I want to be able to do it now.”

“No one can be perfect at something the first time they do it. You got the other two moves under your belt. This one is tricky.”I roll my eyes at him, still stuck in his hold. “Why are you being so hard on yourself?”

“Because.”

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