Page 125 of A Dark Duet

“Are you fucking crazy?” Jaden roars.

“Brie, you didn’t,” Giselle says, shock clear in her voice.

“Well, I can tell you are pissed,” Nate says.

I grimace, tilting my head. I look pointedly at Jaden. “Maybe.” I pinch my fingers together. “Just a little bit.” I smirk. “Train me.”

“No,” he snaps.

“Fine, then don’t.” I turn on my heel and walk away.

“Where the fuck do you think you're going, Briana?”

Ignoring him, I walk toward Giselle’s studio, not wanting to freak my best friend out with my crazy behavior.

Sitting in Giselle’s office, I exhale the breath I have been holding. When she walks inside, she looks at me worriedly.

“What’s up, Brie? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you are not. I see that look in your eye and it’s that same look you had when you left. Don’t shut me out again. Please,” she pleads.

“I’m not shutting you out, Giselle. I’m just tired.” I stare up at the white drop-down ceiling. “I need Jaden to show me self-defense and he is being a dick about it.”

“Why would you want to learn how to fight, Brie?”

Looking back at her in her cute little tutu and leotard, I smile at how pretty and delicate she looks. She is happy but I see that I make her sad. It hurts me deeply that I make her sad and feel like an awful friend.

“My mom got out,” I blurt.

Giselle’s eyes soften and it dawns on her. She understands why. I tell her about Ethan and why I lit the car on fire.

“Bastard. What an ass.”

“Yeah, Jaden is probably trying to make sure he won’t kill me for what I did.”

Giselle shakes her head. “I don’t think he would be that stupid. Not with Jaden or Nate. Jaden will destroy him, maybe even kill him. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, but he won’t train me, and I refused to take another dime from Carter or borrow money to pay the school what I owe.”

“Why? I can give you the money, Brie.”

“No, I don’t want it. I’ll work at Equinox until I can pay for it on my own. I have been doing it for three years, what is the difference if I do it a little while longer? It’s not like I don’t have rent to pay and other bills.”

Jaden and Nate rush into Giselle’s office, barging in. “Brie, are you okay?” Jaden asks.

“Yep. I’m just peachy. I am going to ask you one more time, train me.”

He gives me a hard stare. “I can’t train you, Briana. If someone is threatening you, you need to tell me.”

“No one is threatening me. I just want you to train me in the basics. It’s not too much to ask.”

“No, and that is my final answer.”

There is no getting through to his stubborn ass. When I get up from the chair, he asks, “Where do you think you are going?”

Throwing up my hands. “My apartment. Where else?”

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