Surviving the Mercers

Kalen Excerpt #2

An old written piece done in Kalen's POV, thought I'd throw it up here :)

“Have you and Montoya ever been in a fight?”

The soft whisper startled me and my body jerked before I could stop it.  Trying to calm my stuttering heart, I glanced at Een even though I couldn’t make her out in the dark.  She was curled up on her side with her knees pushed against my ribs, and until now I’d thought she was sound asleep.  I shifted on the mattress to get comfortable, and eventually replied.

“What kind of question is that?  We fight all the time.”

“You know what I mean.  Have you fought each other before?”

Sighing, I rubbed at my eyes.  “Um, couple times, yeah.”

“What did you fight over?”

I was trying hard to think of a smooth way to change the topic, but my head remained blank.  For some reason, I didn’t really want to go into the ins and outs of why Justice and I had gotten into it over the years.  I’d much rather count my blessings - still being alive after the fights was something I rated right up there with miracles and one in a million chance type things.

Not one to lie to my sister, I went for vague instead.  “This and that.”

“Girl troubles?” she pressed.

A snort escaped me at that.  “Yeah, no.  Definitely not girl troubles.  We have way different tastes.  I’d kill myself before I went after the girl he was hot for.”

Een yawned and shuffled, and I grunted when she dug her knee in against my side.  “Sorry,” she muttered.  “But really, why did you fight?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Why don’t you want me to know?” she retorted.

Realising there was no way out of this conversation unless I pretended to fall instantaneously asleep, I relented.

“We were made to the first time.  Our uh, bosses, wanted to see how I fared against him.”

“And?”

I smiled a little.  “And I still thank God every day that I came out of it with all of my body parts intact and working right.”

Een laughed.  “That bad, huh?”

“I got a few good hits in,” I murmured.

Well, more than a few, though I’d suspected Justice let me get half of them in out of pity.  The whole thing had just seemed a hell of a lot easier than it should have been.  Yeah, he’d still won, like I had no doubt he would have, but he’d been… hesitant.  Reluctant.  And that had pissed me off more than anything.

“The other times?” Een wanted to know, scooting some more until her forehead was pressed against my shoulder.  Jesus, girl was twisted like a pretzel  with her knees high, her head bent, and one of her arms tucked awkwardly underneath her and yet she still managed to sigh contentedly like being bent out of shape while you slept was just the best thing ever.  If she woke up stuck in the middle of the night, I wasn’t going to help her.  I’d told her countless times to sleep like a normal person.

Like now:  “You’re going to give yourself a cramp if you fall asleep like that, and when you do, I’m going to laugh at you.”

“Shut up,” she said through another yawn.

I clucked my tongue at her in mock disapproval, then answered her earlier question.  “The second time, I wanted a rematch for the first.”

“You’re such an idiot,” she said promptly.

Didn’t I know it.  Montoya had heard everything I’d said about wanting a fair fight, no holds barred.  And he’d given me everything I wanted.  The fight was over before it began, and afterwards, when I’d been laying on the ground in pain and out of breath, he’d said, “Did you get what you wanted out of that?”