Schooled in Revenge (3 page)

“I don’t know Takeda’s reasons,” she said. “And I don’t really care. I’m here to focus on my own.”

Jon nodded, turning his gaze back to the water. “Probably for the best.”

She sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to be bitchy.”

He chuckled. “Not at all. You’re here to work. I get it. And you’re right; we all have our reasons for being here. Takeda’s don’t really have anything to do with us.”

“What are your reasons for being here?” Ava asked, turning to him. “If you don’t mind my asking, that is.”

“Ava…,” he began.

She caught the hesitation in his voice and was embarrassed by her pushiness. She smiled. “You know what? I’m sorry.” She laughed a little. “I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s none of my business why you’re here. I think I’ve been out of the social loop too long. I don’t even know how to talk to anyone anymore.”

He shook his head. “No apology necessary. I guess I’m still getting my head around everything that happened… everything that led me here. Another time?”

She smiled, nodding. “Sure.”

He held her gaze, a current of warmth moving between them. Ava was still caught in his brown eyes when she noticed movement in her peripheral vision. Someone was moving toward
them from the shadows. As the figure came closer, Ava saw that it was a woman, tall and slender, her blond hair a glimmer in the moonlight.

She stepped next to them, although slightly apart, and turned her attention to the sea.

“This was where I used to come, too,” she said.

“Who are you?” Ava asked.

The woman hesitated before turning her striking brown eyes on Ava. “My name is Emily Thorne.”

Emily crossed her arms across her chest, her blond hair billowing out behind her like a handful of flaxen ribbon.

“I spent so many nights here, trying to find some kind of comfort, some kind of peace.” She gave them a small smile. “It never really worked. But still… it beat tossing and turning.”

Ava was surprised by the revelation. “You’ve been here before, then?” she asked.

Emily nodded. “I trained with Takeda a long time ago.”

There was something strong and dignified in the way she held herself, like she’d weathered more than one storm. Ava wondered what had brought Emily to Rebun Island in the first place—and what had brought her back.

“Why did you come back?” Jon asked, as if he were tapped directly into Ava’s brain.

A wall seemed to drop over Emily’s face, her expression unreadable. This was someone very accustomed to keeping to herself.

“I have my reasons,” she said cryptically.

A ferocious breath of the night air sent shivers down Ava’s
spine. Even Jon shook a little with the cold. Emily didn’t seem to notice it at all.

“And did it help?” Ava asked, following Emily’s gaze out over the sea. “Coming out here at night when you couldn’t sleep?”

Emily smiled a little. “Sometimes. Mostly, it just takes time.”

“Does that mean it gets better?” Ava wanted—needed—to know.

Emily didn’t answer right away, and for a minute Ava wondered if her words had been snatched by the wind before they could reach Emily’s ears. But a moment later, Emily glanced at her, brown eyes shining in the faint light of the moon.

“I’m still trying to figure that out,” she said.

She gave them a small nod and headed for the tera.

“So then this is the right thing to do.” The words were out of Ava’s mouth before she could stop them.

Emily stopped, turning toward Ava and Jon. “The people who wronged you, do they deserve to pay for what they’ve done?” The question was matter-of-fact, Emily’s voice even, as she fixed her eyes unflinchingly on Ava and Jon.

They nodded.

She gave them a knowing look. “Then how can their punishment be anything but justice?”

She turned and walked away, the darkness swallowing her whole.

Rain pelted Ava’s face as she and Reena tried to maintain their balance above the rocky shores of the channel. Above, the sky was gray, offering little light or warmth, and the sea smacked violently against the base of the cliffs below as the women tried to steady their hands and feet on the indents in the cliff face.

Ava had been at Rebun Island for almost a month and had easily fallen into the routine: sleep, eat, train. Sometimes training was working with the wooden bows on the sandy beach. Other times it was sparring with a foil or climbing the cliff using the ropes that dangled there. Sometimes they stayed indoors, conversing in Japanese or discussing the psychology of their mission.

The psychology of revenge.

It consumed every waking minute and every sleeping one, too, the ghosts of Ava’s past chased through her dreams by the promise of retribution.

Ava’s mind and body were changing, her muscles becoming leaner and stronger, her mind becoming clearer and more focused. Even Reena had become more cautious in her treatment
of Ava—both in and out of the training room. As if she sensed the change in Ava and knew the day was coming when Ava wouldn’t take her shit.

“If you cannot change your surroundings, you must find a way to control them,” Takeda instructed, standing on the cliff above the beach with the scarred young woman who joined them in their exercises but never spoke.

Ava grabbed hold of a rock, hoisting herself toward one of the ropes. She and Reena were in a dead heat, both of them dangling above the stormy channel while Jon and Cruz climbed above them, each with a white flag on his back. They had started on the beach, the men given a slight head start as they began their ascent. The women were supposed to retrieve one of the flags before the men reached the top of the cliff, and Ava and Reena were both determined to win, working their way furiously up the cliff face despite the punishing wind and rain.

Forgoing the ropes for speed, Reena scrabbled for whatever she could find protruding from the cliff, gaining on Jon fast enough to take a swipe at his flag. She missed, and the momentum of her reach caused her to lose her balance. For one terrifying moment, Ava stopped climbing, watching as Reena scrambled for something to hold on to before her hand finally closed around one of the ropes. She cursed, swinging wildly in the air as Ava resumed her climb.

Suddenly, the gray skies opened up with a violent clap of thunder, the rain intensifying to a roar that made it difficult to hear Takeda’s instructions.

“Remain steady as the world around you falls into chaos,” Takeda called out calmly, standing without shelter on the cliff ledge above.

Ava’s arms screamed in pain, her legs aching from the work of balancing her body on the vertical cliff face. But Reena was still swinging, still regrouping from her near fall. For a few seconds, Ava was mesmerized by the small circle tattooed on the back of Reena’s neck, visible under her ponytail as she swung back and forth in front of the cliff.

Ava refocused. This was her chance to gain an advantage, and she forced herself to move faster, pushing her body to its limit as she climbed toward Cruz.

She was so close she could see the treads in his shoes when she took a swipe at his flag, but it was a miscalculation, and she missed, although thankfully she didn’t lose her footing.

Angry with herself for being impatient, for not waiting until the time was right, Ava shoved her foot harshly into a crevice on the cliffside and let go of the rope. She grabbed on to the rocks, slick with rain and something that felt suspiciously like ice. She wanted to wipe the water, running in rivulets from her hair and forehead, from her face, but she needed both hands.

She heard Takeda’s voice from another exercise:
Obstacles are not bad. They are not good. They simply are. Do not see them as your enemy but as necessary steps in your journey.

She pushed the thought of the rain from her mind and kept climbing, focusing on keeping a sure hand, a steady foothold, on the rocks as she made her way upward. A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky followed by an earsplitting strike of thunder.

“Do not be rattled,” Takeda intoned. “And expect to be surprised.”

Ava glanced over at Reena, unsurprised to see that she was back in the game, using one of the ropes to climb toward Jon,
who was moving rapidly toward the top of the cliff. He was fast, faster even than Cruz. Ava turned her attention to Cruz, a more reachable target.

A minute later, Reena’s shout found its way through the rain. “Son of a bitch!”

Ava glanced over, unable to suppress the grin that rose to her lips as she watched Jon pull himself over the top of the cliff.

She stopped watching and started moving again when Reena turned her attention to Cruz, the only remaining target.

“Want me? Gonna have to catch me!” Cruz called, hanging on to one of the drenched ropes as he climbed.

Ava couldn’t be sure if he was just slow or if he was so cocky that he wasn’t in a hurry, but she was gaining on him. And so was Reena. Cruz was positioned between them, Ava slightly ahead of Reena as they all approached the top of the cliff. Taking a chance, Ava pushed off with her feet, clinging to the rope as she swung toward Cruz, reaching out to try to take the flag as she came close to him. She felt the silky fabric of the flag in her fingers for a split second before she lost her grip on it, swinging back and crashing into the solid rock.

Damn it! There was no way Reena was going to win.

Another lightning bolt momentarily illuminated the sky as the rain teemed harder. Cruz, now evenly situated between Ava and Reena, steadied himself and continued to climb.

“Embrace the challenges of the task at hand,” Takeda reminded them. “In revenge, obstacles must be thought of as guideposts, guideposts that can help you figure out the proper course. To find a way around these guideposts requires you to take the path others have not.”

The words rang in Ava’s ear, the rain suddenly fading into the background as her mind grasped for the seed planted by Takeda’s words. A moment later, she had it, and she reached for one of the loose rocks on a protruding boulder near her right hand.

“Hey, Reena! Something in your eye?”

Reena glanced over, and her gaze came to rest on the rock in Ava’s hand. She flinched, ducking, and Cruz turned his back on Ava, positioning himself to protect Reena from possible assault. In that moment, his flag was completely exposed.

Ava reached out and took it, clambering up the last few feet of the cliff with renewed energy. Heaving herself over the edge of the cliff, she dropped onto her back. Her clothes were soaked through and stuck to her skin, but euphoria hummed through her veins. For the first time in a long time, she felt in control.

Cruz and Reena pulled themselves up over the ledge, and everyone lay there in silence, catching their breath. A couple of minutes later, they got to their feet and assumed formation in front of Takeda.

He walked down the line, surveying them calmly as if the rain weren’t still soaking them all to the bone. Stopping in front of Ava, he surveyed her with clinical eyes.

She bowed, offering him Cruz’s white flag. “Sensei.”

Takeda nodded, accepting the flag. “You knew Cruz would protect Reena, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Sensei,” she answered quietly.

“He cares for her,” Takeda said. “Now you see how that gets in the way.” He turned his attention to the group, speaking
loud enough for everyone to hear. “How it makes you weak. How it makes you vulnerable.”

They were standing in the wake of his silence when a harsh ring cut through the air.

Takeda removed a satellite phone from his belt and walked a few feet away, turning his back on them. His voice was low but not inaudible.

“May first? That’s less than five weeks away.” A pause as he listened to the person on the other end of the phone. “Then we don’t have much time.”

He hung up and returned to the group, but Ava’s mind was reeling. She didn’t know what May first meant to Takeda, but it meant only one thing to her: the Annual Starling Vineyards Gala.

A band marches steadily on the pavement outside the California State Capitol in Sacramento as a crowd of thousands rallies enthusiastically, police stationed around barricades to keep them at bay.

But Reena isn’t paying attention to the crowd. She’s too busy flirting with Cruz Benton, her mother’s chief staff assistant.

“I like your hair up like that,” he says, appraising her.

She’s not buying the smooth-talker routine, but at least he’s cute. “My mom says it makes me look older, but I think she means boring.”

Cruz grins. “Boring is probably the idea.”

She holds up her smartphone, revealing the home page for popular gossip website EyeCandyCorn.com, a photo of a hard-partying Reena guzzling a bottle of Dom Perignon.

“I take it you’re referring to my extracurricular activities?”

He opens his mouth to speak but is cut off by the roar of applause as Reena’s mother, lean and elegant in a white pant-suit that accentuates her dark hair, takes the podium. Reena
and Cruz turn their eyes toward her as she speaks into the microphone.

“Inside this building, inscribed below our State Seal, are the words ‘Senatoris est civitatis libertatem tueri,’ ” Senator Gloria Fuller says to the crowd. “This translates to: ‘It is the duty of a senator to protect the liberty of the people.’ That’s exactly what I’ve been doing since my election to this position. And by the turnout here today, I’d like to think you feel that way, too.”

The crowd erupts into applause. Cruz turns back to Reena.

“Extracurricular implies that you’re going to school,” Cruz says with a smirk. “I thought you dropped out.”

She rolls her eyes. “Let me guess, you’re a Harvard boy?”

Cruz shakes his head. “My brother, Simon, goes to Harvard. He’s around here somewhere, too. But yeah, Yale was all like, ‘Please, Cruz, we’ll give you a full scholarship, we love you, we need you!’ So, you know, how could I let them down?”

Reena laughs, amused by his cockiness. Just her type.