Page 47 of The Final Cut

“Multiple attackers,” Ever says.

I laugh once. “Great. Starting small.”

“You freeze when too much happens at once.”

“I shot a man last night.”

“You also froze before you moved.”

The words are not cruel, which is probably why they make me wince. “I’m not Lara-fucking-Croft.”

Deacon sets the duffel down. “Freezing is normal.”

“I didn’t ask for comfort from the assassin corner.”

“I can’t help it if I’m the warm fuzzy kind of assassin.”

Ever steps between us before I can respond. “First drill is movement. Your goal is space, not victory.”

“Space, not victory. Got it.”

“Winning means breathing at the end.”

That shuts me up.

They start slow. Ever grabs my wrist and shows me how to turn into the thumb instead of yanking backward. Deacon steps in as the second body, blocking the easy path. I find out fast how quickly space disappears when two men move at once. Even knowing it’s Ever, adrenaline jolts through my chest when his hand clamps around my arm, and instinct freezes in my veins. My body remembers the guard, the chapel corridor, Delia’s throat under someone else’s arm.

“Again,” Ever says.

I do it again. Only wrong.

Again.

Wrong differently.

Again.

Better, maybe, if better means I do not trip over my own feet while trying to escape a hold I helped create by panicking.

Sweat gathers at my hairline. My clean shirt sticks to my spine. The rubber bands on my wrist pull each time Ever catches that arm, a sting over a sting, and after the fifth drill my thoughts start slipping sideways.

Cal is still sedated. Nash is with him, but Nash is not me. Delia is somewhere with Isabel. Shiloh is angry. The hospital has La Rosa markers inside it. I am in a swamp house learning to twist out of Ever’s grip while my sister may be locked in a house with the woman who ordered me dead.

“Reva,” Ever says.

I blink.

He has my wrist again. I do not remember him taking it.

“Focus.”

“I am.”

“You’re not.”

I pull free too sharply, skin scraping under his fingers. “Maybe because this feels stupid.”

Deacon’s gaze sharpens.