Their Broken Angel

Chapter Nineteen

"Where are we going?" I ask as I follow Roman down yet another hall I have yet to explore.

"You'll see." He replies with a smile.

"One of these days I'm going to demand a proper tour of this freaking maze of a house." I mutter as we turn down another hall. "Seriously, does it never end?"

Finally, Roman stops, opening a door I didn't even see until he pointed it out.

"It's for protection purposes." He tells me before I have a chance to ask, "We keep a lot of weapons and gear in here so it's better for everyone if it's a hard room to find."

I can't help but gape as I walk into the room. Is it even a room? There's a fucking rock wall in here! A full-sized basketball court sits in the far corner, looking almost small compared to the rest of the space. A boxing ring, the aforementioned rock wall, a sparring area lined with pads, all sorts of weightlifting machines, I mean the place is decked out.

Oh, and did I mention, the walls are covered in weapons? Yeah. Guns of all shapes and sizes, knives, swords, bows, everything you could think of are there, on display.

"You might want to shut your mouth sorella, you'll catch flies." Roman snorts, smirking at my obvious shock.

Snapping my jaw closed, I spin in circles, trying to take it all in. "You mean to tell me that this is all inside of your house?!" I ask, gesturing to the various activities in this monstrosity of a room.

"Our house." He corrects, "And yes, it's all really inside the house."

"But it's so big! Why on earth would you even need it to be this big?"

"We have some friends that like to come over to train with us." He answers with a shrug. Yet another vague answer... There's enough space in here for thirty men to comfortably train.

"Where do we start?" I ask hesitantly, slightly overwhelmed by all the different options.

"Why don't you head on over to the sparring pads in the corner and I'll come join you once I grab a couple things." Roman replies, walking over to a closet on the far wall.

I amble over, inspecting everything along my path as I go. I can't help but stop to look at their collection of knives on the wall, I've always wanted to learn how to use one properly. They're so small, you could easily hide several on your person without anyone being the wiser. No one would ever touch me again if I had those.

"Ember?" Roman calls, lugging a tote of... something towards me. "You like the knives huh?"

"Yeah, they're kinda cool." I say, trying not to let him see just how much the thought of stabbing something appeals to me.

"Maybe I can show you a thing or two once you're all healed up. If you'd like to, that is."

"I'd love that." I reply softly, unable to help the smile that spreads across my face at the gleam in his eye.

"Well, for today we're going to stick to the basics, what to look out for, how to escape an attacker, and how to throw a punch. Before we start though, I have a couple of rules;

"Number one, if at any point you are too weak, tired, or in pain to continue, tell me immediately and we'll stop. I don't need Elijah getting on my ass because I didn't take good enough care of you.

"Number two, trust that I know what I'm doing. If you're nervous or scared, feel free to tell me and we can work through that, but trust that I'd never ask you to do something you aren't capable of doing.

"Number three, what I say goes. If I say we're done, we're done, no questions asked. If I say not to do or touch something, it's for your own safety. Sound good?"