I am Fire

4. "They Say Fight Fire With Water But You Have To Fight Fire With Fire"

I hate to admit it but I fear the One Direction guys were right. Art put me with Anuerin McKay as revenge for me losing my temper with him and frying his ass. Anuerin McKay was a serious grade one a-hole with severe attitudinal problems; it didn't matter that he was bloody hot. He was a right son of a bitch.

I began my so-called training at 0900 hours sharp every single morning. And every single morning, McKay made me do the same routine over and over again and I would not have breakfast until McKay thought that I had worked my butt off and usually my lunch at 1200 hours was also my breakfast. As you can imagine, I was surely and steadily getting incredibly pissed off at McKay and the others.

The evenings were my times off. Most of the time, I locked my self in my assigned quarters; in my sad excuse of a bedroom, I had a Bobo doll, which I locked in a closet down the hall every night as I still was not quite over my fear of clowns, and every evening I would beat the living shit out of the Bobo doll, pretending it was every member of Jove's Elite Unit, especially Art and Anuerin; the Bobo doll smiled and bounced back as always, not at all tired of being abused. It became my best friend . . . almost.

Day 13.

Yep.

I had endured twelve days of the same old-same old.

As perusual, Colin and Nyssa Ceres came into my room at 0800 hours with that bloody loud bell of his, shouting, "Get up! Up and at 'em, Valyn! Rise and shine! The sun is up; you better hurry up before Anuerin comes up here himself to get you outta bed! Come on! Or we'll shove you out of bed."

The first time the Ceres twins did this, I swore at them in Dutch until I was blue in the face. Then Art came in like a tyrannical general and literally barked at me; he was asking for another fireball, and this time one to the face, but I had resisted the urge and for once had done as I was told.

Colin went out of the room; Nyssa helped me to get dressed. Same as in the past twelve days. The Ceres twins were some of the only decent Elite foot soldiers in Jove's force. Nyssa then took me to the same room where she and Colin had taken me after I woke up from an almost-a-week-coma-like-state.

"Good morrow, Anuerin," Nyssa said to my tyrannical 'mentor' in a sarcastic manner; she greeted him the same way every single morning. I think she was still hacked at the fact Art chose him to mentor me and not her and Colin.

She then turned to leave, gave me a quick hug before she did, and left me once again alone with Mr. Permanent Frowny Face.

Anuerin didn't say anything to Nyssa or to me, but I had gotten to this anti-social trait of McKay's by now. He glared, well it was looked but his eyes were so cold that any stare was just as hard as ice, at me as he stepped onto the training ground. I rolled my eyes and did the same.

"Slept well?" he asked.

What?

Were my ears deceiving me?

Anuerin . . . asked me . . . whether or not I slept well? Seriously?!

"Same as usual," I answered coolly, not making eye contact with him. "Which is to say, badly."

A ghost of a smile sketched onto McKay's countenance. "Nightmares," he said, as if he knew what I was talking about.

"Of a sort," I replied stiffly.

Why was Anuerin not shouting at me like he always did? I had gotten used to his barking and snarling about doing laps around the arena and running like a granny and blah, blah, blah, etc, etc.

As if he could read my mind, he said, "Do you really think that all I can do is shout at you?"

"Yes," I answered truthfully, still not looking at him.