Recruits (Keeper of the Water Book 2) (16 page)

My mind might be in shock but my body reacts instinctively. I duck just as his fist rushes above my head, grazing the top of my flowing hair. Next I sense the slightest move from his hips and know a kicking is coming. I arch my back as his roundhouse attempt sails a bit high. He barely misses knocking my head off for the second time.

I drop to my back and go on the offensive, propping myself up in a crab-like position and sweeping Jack’s legs out from underneath him. The ground thuds beneath me and Jack falls down hard. I spin around and the momentum propels me back to my feet. But Jack is up just as quickly. I can tell he’s a trained fighter and is used to being hit. Still, I can’t figure out what the hell he’s doing?

I open my mouth to ask why he’s attacking me but he’s in no mood to talk, throwing punch after punch. I block or dodge each one but he moves unlike any man I’ve ever fought, including John’s two mountainous soldiers. Jack wasn’t kidding when he said that fighting was his life, though I’m about to teach him a few lessons. I allow his next right cross to come even closer to hitting me but I move at the last second and snatch his wrist, twisting it violently behind his back.

I’m pissed off and have every intention of yanking his arm right out of its socket. Any other person would’ve ended up with a popped shoulder but Jack is so naturally strong that I don’t cause serious damage. He doesn’t even grunt in pain and actually chuckles.

“Whoa,” he says. “Impressive, but not as much as you think.”

“What do you mean – ”

Jack moves like a blur, which is really saying something since
nobody
moves quicker than me. But I don’t have time to blink before he somehow reverses the hold and is behind me, his strong arms wrapped around my throat like twin anacondas. I try to shake free but that only tightens his grip. It doesn’t take me long to realize I’m in serious trouble, a kind I’ve never faced before, at least not that I can remember from my current lifetime. Fighting has always come so naturally for me that I don’t know how to handle being overmatched. I grasp at his arms and try pulling them free but to no avail. He flexes his muscle and an explosion of light erupts in front of my eyes as my brain is deprived of oxygen. My thoughts slow down but I still have the presence of mind to know I’ll go unconscious at any moment…

When he lets go, I take a deep breath. The flashing lights fade away and my strength comes rushing back. I don’t know what made him release me but I don’t waste time with questions. Instinct has kicked in and I attack him before he can start back toward me. He weaves and dodges my punches, moving nearly as fast as I do. It’s discouraging that I can’t hit him, even more when he starts to chuckle. He forms a T with his hands as he backs away.

“Timeout, timeout,” he says with a smile. “Truce, truce. I’m raising the white flag.”

I stop fighting but keep my hands up, ready to defend myself at the first sign of movement. He offers his hand to me but I ignore it, not falling for his tricks.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I ask.

“I told you I wanted to do some training. You weren’t going to take it easy on me so I wasn’t going to do the same for you,” Jack says.

I’m confused but stay on high alert, doubting every word he says.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t warn you I was going to attack or you wouldn’t have fought so hard. I promise I had no intention of hurting you,” he says.

“Didn’t look like it to me,” I snap.

Jack looks offended, genuinely, even though
he
tried to hit
me
. I shake my head.

“If I wanted to hurt you, would I have let go of the chokehold? No, I would’ve squeezed
harder
. For that matter, I would’ve wrapped my legs around you and dragged you to the ground to take away
any
of your leverage. That’s Jiu-Jitsu 101,” he explains.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I ask.

“Come on, I had
hours
when you were sleeping to hurt you. I could tell you know how to handle yourself; I wouldn’t have hurt you anyway,” Jack says. “But jeez, you’re fast. I hope my next opponent isn’t half as quick as you.”

Jack talks to me like we weren’t just trying to knock each others’ heads off. He makes some legitimate points: why would he have gone through so much trouble rescuing Cassie and driving us to safety just to turn around and beat me up in a parking lot? My burst of adrenaline fades away and I feel much better than when I first got out of the car. My muscles are nice and loose now. I lower my guard but still watch Jack skeptically.

“You were fast, too,” I finally admit. Considering the way he moves and fights, I wonder if
all
Amazons would benefit from MMA training, though I doubt many pro fighters would be excited to traipse through the jungle to reach us. “You’ll have to show me how to do that choke move.”

“One day I will,” Jack says. “So, where did you learn to fight like that?”

Another
question I can’t answer honestly.

“My father,” I say, trying not to get choked up when I talk about him. I don’t want Jack to see me upset in case he starts asking more questions I have to lie about. “He showed me some self-defense moves to help deal with overaggressive boys.”

I mean this as a joke but Jack’s expression turns upset, even more than when we were fighting. I expect him to break out into one of his usual grins but it doesn’t happen. How is it that
I
was the one attacked but end up feeling so guilty?

“Is it something I said?”

He shakes his head and smiles but I can tell it’s forced.

“Nothing, you just mentioned your father. I get angry when I think about
mine
,” Jack says. “He wasn’t exactly there for my family the way he should’ve been.”

“My relationship with my father wasn’t everything I thought it was either,” I say.

My father saved my life – and I’ll be forever grateful for that – but I can’t overlook the fact that he
did
lie to me for so long. I just wish he’d told me more about his past than the abbreviated story while breathing his final breaths.

“At least he tried,” Jack says, reading my mind.

I’m not totally sure how he knows what I’m thinking but I switch topics before he grows more upset.

“Where did
you
learn to fight so well?” I ask him.

“I’ve trained in a few fighting gyms across the country but most of my real skill came from time I spent in the Mecca of MMA,” Jack says. “Brazil.”

I laugh at the thought of possibly living so close to him at one time and Jack raises a questioning eyebrow.

“What’s so funny about Brazil?”

“I’ve spent some time in that part of the world, too,” I say.

Before Jack has the chance to ask me to elaborate, Celeste and Cassie return. For once, their timing actually benefits for me. They carry a few bags of fast food. Cassie sucks down a milkshake but I have no desire to eat,
especially
not that junk. I wonder what the history books would say about Cleopatra if they saw the Egyptian Queen chowing down on a double-bacon cheeseburger.

“Why are you sweating?” Celeste asks me.

I know she won’t like the answer but I’ve done enough lying. “I was helping Jack train for his fight.”

Celeste
and
Cassie turn to Jack, though Cassie doesn’t glare at him the same way her mother does.

“I thought you’d be in a rush to call your mother,” Celeste says.

I don’t waste my breath trying to explain how I got distracted. Celeste makes me feel extra guilty so I nod and jog off toward the payphones. Celeste follows and grabs my arm once we’re far enough from Jack so he can’t overhear us.

“You shouldn’t be showing off your fighting skills to
anyone
,” she hisses at me.

“But Jack’s the real fighter. We could learn from him,” I say.

Celeste rolls her eyes and looks at me like I’m an idiot.

“I can’t believe you’d even suggest that a mere
man
could compete with an Amazon,” she says. “And why would you mention Mary Bowser to him?”

I tell her about my dream of Anne, of her final request of me, of how I must’ve said Mary’s name out loud in my sleep. It was the only way I could think to cover it up, though it was foolish to say so much in front of Cassie considering the
rest
of my past I’ve recalled. Celeste must realize she’s being overly tough because her expression softens, even though her dark eyes still gaze into my soul. At this moment, I can see her as the old Keeper version of herself.

“The Amazons have lost too many good women like Anne over the years while protecting the water,” she says. “But we’ve also gained many strong women, too, like your first recruit. I’m surprised you just remembered Mary now.”

“I dreamed about becoming an Amazon but when I woke up, I remembered every moment of recruiting Mary, as if the memories were in my mind the whole time,” I explain. But something Celeste said suddenly clicks in my mind. “Did you say my
first
recruit? I thought Amazons only had one recruit each.”

“Even though you only knew Anne for a short time, you took after your mentor,” Celeste says. “Despite her issues with some of the other women, Anne loved being an Amazon. But she also liked being out in the world, watching the strongest women who could possibly help protect the water, like you. You also wanted to help the tribe by looking for strong candidates. And since we lost several women in the attack that killed Anne, we had several openings. Most Amazons hated facing the dangers of the real world – especially being far away from the water of life – but you were so upset about Anne’s death that you volunteered to search out recruit after recruit.”

“It wasn’t just Anne’s
death.
It was her
murder
that angered me,” I say, peeking over toward Cassie.

Celeste frowns. “I see you remember it the same way today as you did back then.”

“I remember it the way it happened,” I say defiantly. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I seem to recall that the Keeper never believed what I saw about Cassie failing to shoot the soldier in time. If she didn’t believe me then, I know Celeste isn’t going to believe now… at least she won’t
admit
she believes me. “So that means I have more than one recruit?”

It starts off as a question but the words are no sooner out of my mouth when I already know the answer. More memories – and specifically, more faces – come to focus in my mind. Celeste doesn’t have a chance to respond by the time I answer my own question.

“Next was Florence, the nurse. And then a few years later it was Harriet Tubman,” I say, the memories rushing back to me. “I got to both of them on their death beds.”

I watched and followed these women for years after they gained recognition for their heroics. Both were very impressive and very brave, though I never found the right moment to recruit them until they were old and dying. I gave them more water to drink than I was given and watched in amazement as they transformed from elderly, wrinkled women into much younger, glowing versions of themselves. Their worthiness to join the tribe was unquestioned by the Keeper and me but not by Cassie and the Queen Clan, who became increasingly belligerent due to the amount of ‘commoners’ joining our ranks. Cassie didn’t understand how the Keeper was so accepting of women ‘who never possessed any real power.’ It was a good thing for me that she never wanted to leave the water long enough to recruit more queens.

In hindsight, I realize just how nervous I made Cassie and her clan. She was still very tight with the Keeper – and she was the most senior Amazon in the tribe – but with every woman I recruited, she lost a little bit more influence, her clan became a little less feared.

My mind suddenly hits a wall. I
feel
like there were other recruits but they’re not coming to mind.

“How many more were there?” I ask.

“Only one,” Celeste answers. “Recruiting Mary might’ve been tricky, but it was nothing compared to your fourth and final recruit. That one was so dangerous that I no longer wanted you risking yourself. I’m surprised you don’t remember her, especially after what happened yesterday.”

I’ve been reliving so many memories that it feels like a lot more time has passed since yesterday’s police chase and biplane escape…

The plane! During our flight on the biplane, I had flashes of being in
another
plane, though I didn’t know what it meant at the time. I try to recall that flash of a memory – a
beeping
sound, a flashing red light, the tight confines of a plunging silver plane – but most of it remains foggy. I’m tempted to ask Celeste about it but she’ll probably tell me it’s best if I wait to remember on my own. Such a response would’ve frustrated me before but now that I know how quickly my past is returning, I’m able to focus on the here and now.

“I better call my mom,” I say.

I dial her cell phone and listen to ring after ring, the feeling of dread clutching my heart tighter and tighter with every second she doesn’t answer. I hang up before it reaches voicemail and immediately dial again. Still no answer. I feel another tingle of worry, though it’s not exactly the same sensation suffered when seeing Cassie in trouble.