Love at First Fight - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Thirty

If you can go your entire life without ever hearing the snap of a broken bone, I highly recommend it. It's a deep, almost hollow sound, sort of like stepping on a twig or popping your knuckles, except it's always worse than that and it's always followed by a scream.

It's that scream that'll get you. Maybe you expect the snap, but that scream is always going to be louder than you think. Sometimes it's satisfying, because it's coming from someone you want to hurt—and would hurt more, if only you had the time. Sometimes it's heartbreaking, because it's coming from someone you want to protect with all your might.

I didn't know how I felt when I heard it come from Bill.

It wasn't even three seconds after my cue before Luke broke Bill's arm. Bill is strong—really strong—but Luke's got a better fight. His technicality was spot on, every little move. Fighting was an art to him. A craft. A truth he knew by heart. In the end, Bill didn't stand a chance. He was out cold in seconds.

Which still left us four against two. I didn't like the odds, but I didn't have a choice.

I went after Hughes first. I owed him a few punches. As I stormed towards him, I didn't see his face—I saw Charlotte Woods. I saw Grandpa Joe. I saw all of the people he had hurt as I swung, waiting for the sweet, sweet impact of revenge.

But, of course, he saw it coming. "I taught you everything you know, Goode," he said. "Do you really think you're going to win this fight?"

"Don't gotta win," I huffed. "Just gotta get past you."

It was like fighting my own reflection. Every move I made, he mirrored perfectly. Every hit I took, he blocked. I had spent too many hours fighting this man—too many long, hot days of showing him every move I had. Too many long, hard nights of him teaching me every move I didn't. He was right. He had taught me so much of what I knew and I wished more than anything that I knew how to forget it. I wish I knew how to reset my brain so that Blake Hughes didn't have anything to do with how my kicks landed.

"You're wasting your time, Virgo," he said. The name made my skin crawl, but I didn't let it stop me. "Come with us. Stop fighting."

"You know," I said. "I don't think I will."

He took a shot at my legs, but unfortunately for him, I knew all of his moves just as well as he knew all of mine. "You'd rank so highly—you'd practically be royalty with us," he said.

"Yeah, why is that, exactly?" I grunted. "You know what they say, Mr. Hughes. I'm my father's daughter and, if I recall correctly, you guys aren't a big fan of him."

I went for the swing, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me in close—uncomfortably close. I could smell the mint on his breath and the cologne on his neck, so strong that I had to look away. His words landed as a breath across my skin, sending goose bumps down my back. "But you're her granddaughter," he said. "Oh boy, are you ever her granddaughter."

And he wasn't talking about Grandma.

Hughes had once told me the story of the girl who had stopped World War III. There had been a time when I had thought he was talking about my mother—about her quest across the globe, hunting down Circle leaders one life-threatening situation after another. I know now that I had been wrong. He had been talking about my grandmother. He had been talking about Catherine Goode. "I'm nothing like her."

"You're everything like her," he said and those, I think, may have been the words that I was dreading. "And that makes you very valuable to us."