Dominion (5 page)

The moment we stepped into the hall and the door closed firmly behind us, all the lights turned on and machines roared to life.

“
Welcome, Agent V,” a machine voice announced my father’s arrival.

I followed my father down the hall. The training hall was divided into three sectors. We stood at the forefront of the second sector, where the more advanced training equipment was located. The first sector had excise machines, boxing bags, mats for push-ups, sit-ups, or whatever work out one chose, as the first sector was the warm-up sector.

The last sector was the all-in-one sector. The sector was made up of different-sized rooms, some of which contained broken electronics that the agents had to fix. I was pretty convinced that there were bombs somewhere. There was also a swimming hall. The first time Logan took me there, I thought swimming laps was the only thing I’d have to do, until he asked me to hold my breath under the water. That day, I found out that one minute and five seconds wasn’t good enough.

There was also an indoor shooting range. A small emergency room was filled with shelves of medicine. There was one room that contained only metal spikes fastened to the walls, and the only way to go from one end of the room to the next was to swing by them.

Logan and I usually stuck with the basics, but on days when he wanted to push me to my limit, he gave me more advanced tasks.

“
You ready, princess?” my father asked.

Saying no would have been an understatement, so I simply went with a nod.

TASK FORCE

“
Funny thing is, we always hide our bruises,

Always forgetting, the scars would show.”

Melody Manful

š›

O
kay, you can do this, Abigail. I mean, how hard could it be to climb a rope?

Well, this rope looked more liked a fishing net with bigger holes. The first time I made it to the top of this particular rope without falling, I bought myself a tub of ice cream. It was more like my bodyguard, Felix, bought me ice cream because I couldn’t go into the store on my own without getting mobbed by the paparazzi.

“
You understand the task ahead?” my father asked me, already taking his position behind a punching bag.

The task he was talking about was more of a challenge, really. We were at the part of the building where training equipment such as the rope were located. And a stone wall was built in the middle of the room. Behind that, the floor was divided so that big holes lay between the floors, approximately eleven feet deep with nets at the bottom. Each hole was about six-and-a-half feet wide. The thought of even attempting to jump across them scared me, and the nets below did absolutely nothing to calm me down.

There were three holes to jump before we’d reach the single rope that had to be climbed in order to reach the quiver and bow that were placed on top of a wooden platform sticking out from the side of the wall.

After we got a hold of the bow and quiver, we’d have to race behind a black line, where we’d have three chances to shoot at a red button that was fastened underneath a screen that was counting down the ten minutes we had to complete the task.

The challenge was to make it through all those steps before the countdown stopped—the real challenge for me was to try to get close to beating my father. The CIA agents had to repeat the exercise over and over until they got it. I tried it once whenever I was with Logan, but I’d never even made it past the third hole: I always fell down.

We had to warm up before we started the challenge, which consisted of punching a big, red boxing bag followed by hand-to-hand combat with my father. I quickly wound a wrap around my hands to protect them from the punching bag.

“
What does the winner get?” I asked as my fist connected with the punching bag. My father, who was holding the bag, took a step back and steadied himself so my next punch didn’t take him by surprise.

“
The loser tells mom he or she broke that lamp in the sitting room yesterday,” he said with a teasing smile.

“
But you broke it,” I argued, taking another punch at the bag. “You were that one who knocked it down.”

“
It was an accident.” He defended himself.

“
Sure, if you call flying through the air at top speed just to be the first one to get the TV remote an accident, then yes.”

“
Still an accident.” He winked while I counted punching the bag, this time three direct punches in a row, before I took a breath. “You punch heavier than you look. Logan must have been teaching you well,” he complimented as my hand collided with the bag again.

I continued hitting the bag for almost half an hour as my father commented on my moves and made suggestions on how to improve, and he handed me a water bottle when I finished. Right after the short water break, we moved to combat training. It was here that I’d be able to show off any self-defense skills Logan had taught me.

My father tossed me a pair of boxing gloves and tightened another pair on his own hands—at the intensity with which we trained, we’d be bruised all over if it weren’t for a little bit of padding.

“
Your arm needs to be lower.” He took hold of my arm and bent it into the position he meant.

I didn’t say anything in response. I learned this trick from Logan the last time I’d begged him to cancel one of our training sessions; because I wanted to hang out with my friends, he’d bargained, saying that if I could knock him down during one-on-one combat, he’d give me the day off. He’d started off by letting me beat him until the last minute, at which point he took me down, and I’d earned myself an extra session for losing.

I didn’t want to lose and disappoint my father or brand Logan as a not-good-enough teacher.

“
Lower your elbow.” He didn’t wait for me to do this myself: he did it for me. “Now, try and block my arm.”

When my father swung his arm, it didn’t hit me in the stomach; instead, I blocked it.

“Good,” he said as I blocked his fist once more. I could see from the way he threw his arms that he was going easy on me.

“
Twenty bucks if I take you down,” I said as I blocked his fist from hitting my jaw.

When I said this he laughed, and then he stopped fighting. “Seriously?” he asked, shocked. “Sweetheart, I don’t want to take your twenty bucks.”

“
But I wanna take yours.” And with that, I ran my fist straight into his jaw, taking him by surprise.

He groaned in pain, and then his fist passed by my chin, inches away from contact. “I wasn’t ready.”

“
Sorry, I didn’t know the enemy would wait for me to be ready before he beat me to death or shot me,” I said with a fake smile.

“
You asked for it!” and just like that, I was groaning with my hand on my stomach. I knew my best friend Sarah’s father came to her cheerleading competitions and cheered her on; mine took me to abandoned buildings and beat the crap out of me.

“
You do realize that I’m your daughter and also a girl, right?” I asked, as I stood upright and swung my hands toward my father’s face.

“
You don’t hit like a girl, and the enemy is going to hit you even harder when he learns you’re my daughter.” Touché.

This time around when I blocked my father’s fist, he blocked mine too, and we continued like that for about five more minutes. Sometimes he managed to swing a blow at me, and other times I got him. None of us looked ready to give up and declare the other a winner.

“
You tricked me into thinking you were bad, didn’t you?” my father asked when my next blow landed on his stomach.

“
No, I would never.” I crouched down so that his fist flew over my head, and then I threw another punch at his stomach. I didn’t wait for him to pull himself back up when I struck a punch that landed on the side of his face. He pulled up and swung his fist toward my face. I assumed he’d do that, so when I blocked his blow, I didn’t let go of his hands; instead, I immediately placed my foot forward for leverage and pulled him toward me so that he tripped on my legs and then bang, he fell, and I won.

“
Yes!” I rejoiced, suddenly getting a little hopeful. Maybe I could win this, maybe I could do this after all.

“
Have you considered a future here?” my father asked as he stood up.

“
What happened to Princeton, Yale, or Harvard?” I asked. He and my mother had already mapped out my future—the very future they were afraid I wouldn’t even have.

“
Those are still part of the plan,” he said, and then he started moving toward the rope. I trailed him and gently took a pair of gloves he held out to me.

Looking at the fishnet rope stretching above us, I inhaled deeply. I could climb: I’d done it more than enough, but I was shaking because of the tiny, little known fact that I was afraid of heights. I hated anything that involved heights. The thought of sleeping with a gun didn’t even scare me as much as the rope in front of me did.

“
Justin, start the countdown,” my father said, staring at one of the cameras behind us. I knew there was someone there, watching us. There had to be someone watching the building and the agents at all times, because sometimes the agents needed quick medical care.

I managed to take one more deep breath before a gong went off, signaling the start of the challenge. I couldn’t see the big screen because it was further up ahead.

My father had almost reached the middle of the rope by the time I got the courage to start climbing.

“
You’re not letting me win, are you?” he asked, stopping so that I could reach him. “And I’m serious, loser gets mom’s angry stare.” I knew that stare, the one that said more than words could.

Suck it up, Abigail. I breathed in and started climbing. When I reached the top of the rope, my father was already descending on the other end. I inhaled again quickly and told myself that I wasn’t going to collapse, and then I went down again with no problems.

I felt so happy when my feet touched the ground. At this point my father was already using the metal spikes on the wall to climb up.

“
You are too slow, Abigail,” he said when I managed to make it halfway up the wall. He was standing underneath me, having already gone down. What my father seemed to be forgetting was that I hadn’t gotten the years of advanced training and field training like he had. I was only just starting.

“
Are you trying to make me win?” I asked nonchalantly to cover my sadness that he was talking to me in his not-so-impressed voice.

“
You wish.” And then he started climbing up again. This time around, I pushed myself and made it to the ground before he did, but when he reached the hole, he jumped right to the other side, leaving me standing still.

“
Are you letting me win now?” he teased.

I went back a few steps. “You wish.” Then I sprinted and jumped. I was pretty sure I would land on the net below like last time, so when my feet actually touched solid ground, I was more surprised than my father.

“
You did it,” he said, and then both of our eyes flickered toward the next hole, and we started running toward it. We both jumped at the same time: he landed perfectly, and I almost fell, but luckily for me, my father reached down and caught me.

“
Twenty more bucks to whoever wins!” he said, and then we started running again for the final hole.

The moment both our feet touched solid ground at the end of the last jump, we rushed toward the rope and started climbing.

My heart felt like it was nearly jumping out of my chest because I was dangling on a rope in mid-air, but I refused to stop now.

My father and I both reached our quiver and bow at the same time. We both threw the bow and quiver to the ground below and started climbing back down.

He was fast going down. He had his bow and arrows and was rushing toward the black line before I reached to grab mine.

“
Shoot all three arrows into the red button on time and you win,” my father said, and then he lifted his bow up with an arrow loaded.

I finally saw the timer, which flashed twenty seconds until the game was over.

My father’s first arrow went straight into the red button. I quickly shot my own and felt delighted when it also hit the red button. My second arrow shot into the center of the red button moments after my father’s landed perfectly beside his first one.

“
Five. Four…” my father’s last arrow landed in the red button, and he rejoiced. “Three. Two…” I shot my last arrow, but the timer buzzed right before my arrow landed in the red button.

“
I am awfully disappointed in you for breaking your mother’s beautiful lamp,” my father said. He proceeded to place his bow and arrow on the floor and do a victory dance that I hoped for both our sakes he didn’t do with people around.

“
You know, children pick up on what their parents do, so if you’re asking me to lie, I might just lie at some point…”