Page 13 of Blue Arrow Island
“Hey.” He grins at me. “Let’s go do a thing.”
“A thing?”
“You’ll like it. Come on.”
5
You don’t need a background in botany for this course. I hope to build your knowledge of plants and their role in Earth’s ecosystems from the ground up this semester. The only requirements for this course are a willingness to learn and curiosity.
- Excerpt from the Introduction to Plant Biology course taught by Dr. Lucinda Hollis
“Harder.” Pax spits in the dirt and gestures for me to come closer. “Hit me like you mean it, Briar.”
I do mean it, but every punch I throw lands on him like a light slap. It’s starting to really piss me off. I’ve sparred with men bigger and stronger than me since I was thirteen years old. My dad wanted Maven and me to be able to defend ourselves, so he and some of his friends in law enforcement showed us how to fight someone when you’re outmatched.
Nothing is working. Pax’s reflexes are unbelievably fast, and he seems to anticipate my every move. We’ve been sparring atthe Rising Tide training grounds for more than an hour, and I’m wearing down.
“Pretend I’m coming at you with a spear.” He crouches slightly, putting his arm up and making a fist.
It takes me right back to the beach. The smell of saltwater and the metallic tang of blood are still fresh in my mind.
I drilled this scenario with my dad many times, but he used a rubber knife to simulate a real one. The concept is the same, though. If you’re unarmed, you’re beaten unless you can evade, distract or disable.
I go with disable, scooping up a big handful of sandy soil and chucking it in his face as Pax advances on me.
“Shit.” He stops, his hands flying to his face.
I back up a few steps, relaxing slightly. He chokes out a single note of laughter, rubbing his fingertips over his eyes.
“Nice move.”
A group of about twenty people who left for a run earlier returns to camp, still in the same neat two lines they left in. I do a double take because the leader of the group announced it was a five-mile run, and they haven’t been gone very long. It doesn’t even feel like thirty minutes.
They’re finishing at what looks like a six-minute mile pace, but surely they didn’t run that pace the entire time? They don’t even look winded—some of them are smiling.
“Have you picked all of this up since the virus hit?” Pax asks me.
I turn my attention back to him. Black soil and sweat are streaked on his face, a glob of dirt stuck in his dimple.
“No. My dad taught me.”
“Was he in the military?”
I nod. “Marines. Then he became a police officer, and he worked his way up to teaching at police academies.”
“And were you planning to become a cop, too?”
“No.”
Thanks to the setting sun, I’ve stopped sweating so heavily. Still, I’m drenched. I pick up the canteen I left at the edge of the sparring area, draining what’s left in it.
“You need to fill up?” Pax asks me.
“Yeah.”
The training area is a huge clearing, sparring areas delineated with medium-sized rocks. The clearing runs all the way to the beach. When we got here earlier, a group of people was swimming hard and fast in the ocean, fighting cresting waves and high winds.
Pax picks up his own canteen and we walk over to a well at the edge of the practice area. The group that was running is huddled around the woman who was leading their run.
