Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 169305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 847(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 847(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
I grinned behind my mask. “Don’t blink.”
Without mercy, I advanced, taking advantage of our size difference.
My turn.
I aimed for Andras’ head when he parried, directing a thrust at my shoulder. But I was faster than a bullet.
I shifted, catching his masked face with the point of my sword. The buzzer rang across the room, adding a tally to my half of the scoreboard.
I didn’t need the electric wires to tell me I’d earned the point.
Behind the sword, you just knew.
Andras tore the mask from his face and dumped it at his feet, shaking his gloved fist at me. “Where were you the entire match? You came to life twenty seconds before we finished.”
I pulled my mask off and shrugged. “Twenty seconds is all I need to win.”
I’d lost any right to be arrogant after The Incident, but with Andras, I could.
He never judged anything outside of technique and effort. Never made me feel like a lesser person for making that mistake.
I set my mask on a bench outside the piste lines, listening to his bitching. I deserved every single insult thrown my way.
Luckily, most of them were in Hungarian, so I couldn’t understand.
Andras had graciously agreed to rework his schedule to fit mine. He trained me at six in the morning, three times a week.
He deserved one-hundred percent of me.
Andras followed me as I padded to the orange cooler. “You look like a novice who watched The Parent Trap and decided to take on fencing. An embarrassing amateur.”
I hovered my lips an inch shy of the tap, gulping ice water. “Won’t happen again.”
He tailed me as I headed toward the locker room. “Of course, it will not. If you show up in this condition on Thursday, I am suspending you as an instructor.”
That stopped me in my tracks.
I whirled around in the middle of the hallway. Two amateur fencers bumped into me but apologized quick, even though it was my fault.
I shook my head. “You can’t do that.”
Andras planted his fists on his waist.
It used to creep me out when his light-blue, almost translucent eyes bored into mine. Now, I found comfort in them.
With Dad gone, no one else cared enough to stare at me like this.
Wrinkles stacked on Andras’ wide-set forehead like Jenga blocks. Short and wide, he didn’t have the perfect stats for a fencer.
And yet, the world considered him the best instructor to ever grace the sport.
The Fourth Mouseketeer.
A living legend.
People shouldered past us, rushing to sessions with their instructors. Potomac Hills Country Club offered Olympic-grade, professional fencing facilities.
If you could afford them.
Or if your coach was The Andras Horvath.
The supersized digital clock fixed on the far wall reminded me my student would arrive soon. I needed to prepare.
He didn’t appreciate tardiness.
I dropped my voice to a whisper, sweeping my eyes across the club. “I need the money.”
Not really.
I needed the client.
But God forbid some asshole overhear our conversation and pass it along to Vera. For someone as lazy and allergic to math as my stepmother, she sure kept a militant eye on my finances.
“My academy, my rules.” Andras charged forward until our noses almost touched. A whoosh of apprehension somersaulted in my belly. “I am not here to help you maintain your hobby. I am here for the gold medal, and you are my best shot. You are the most talented student under this roof. If we do not share the same goal, the same discipline, you know your way out.”
Oh, Fae.
So delusional of you to have called that straight-out-of-The-Shining Kubrick Stare affectionate.
Something so silly as human emotions couldn’t possibly penetrate the thick cloud of Andras’ one-track mind.
He lived and breathed fencing.
Nothing else mattered to him but an Olympic gold.
I swallowed down the bitter comeback lodged in my throat. There was a lot I wanted to say.
That I didn’t have time.
That sometimes I saw two of him when we dueled and the sleep deprivation played tricks on my mind.
That the calluses from cleaning had overridden the fencing calluses, and now the sword handle felt strange in my hand.
And mostly, that I wasn’t even sure I could qualify for the Olympics with my record and the fine I was still paying off.
In the end, all I said was, “Duly noted. Now… may I please get changed before my student arrives?”
Without a word, he swiveled, storming in the opposite direction toward the reception area.
Andras always walked like that. Like an Axis general from the ’40s.
I chewed on my inner cheek, finally making it to the locker room. There, I pulled out my fencing gear and raked my fingers along my upper arm.
Andras had left a mild cut there, just like he’d promised he would. Only he had ever managed to pierce my fencing lamé and padded plastron.
They must’ve torn beforehand, and he knew it. A gross violation of the sport’s ethics. And exactly something Andras would do.