Devereaux

Chapter Three

Recap of Phoenix Knight ((As requested)):

Sadie Walker’s world is turned upside down when she approaches Phoenix Knight one day in the parking lot of her senior school. She watches as a man is shot, as another is tortured and then has to deal with her blooming feelings for bad boy, Phoenix Knight as well. On top of this, Sadie is forced to live with an abusive father who is eventually sent to jail with the help of Phoenix Knight. After all, Phoenix has just as much reason to get rid of him seeing as her psychopath of a dad is also the killer of Phoenix’s parents.

Sadie soon finds out that Phoenix Knight is an assassin. Not just this but he also works for a covert sector of the British Government!

Despite this, all seems perfect when finally Phoenix seems to show some feelings for her but her joy is soon cut short when he is shot in their school parking lot. And his last dying wish to her?

She has to kill his killer.

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Chapter Three

“Straighten your arm, Barbie,” he growled a third time. Phoenix raised his right hand and hit the bottom of my crooked elbow so that I held a firmer stance. “You’re trying to cut off his airway, not knead some dough.”

I had spent the good part of an hour trying to show Phoenix every martial arts move I had been coached to execute. And I said “trying” because so far, I had only managed a total of two moves since both times he insisted on interrupting and perfecting every detail of the action. I understood that it was for my own benefit but I was only getting more and more frustrated with every passing moment.

“I know,” I snapped in irritation as I pulled out of the move and squared my shoulders. “You’ve corrected me about a million times.”

 Phoenix sighed and leant further on the well-finished walking stick in his left hand. “You don’t understand, Phoebe –,” he started.

“Sadie,” I interjected snippily in a harsh tone. I was not in the mood for his old bullshit today.

“Sadie,” he correctly flippantly, “You can’t expect to injure anyone when your attacks are less than extraordinary.”

“My instructor said I’m doing extremely well,” I defended angrily. My hands were balled into fists by my side.

“And that is true,” he paused, “but it’s not good enough. Not against someone like Devereaux.”

I sighed and gazed about my surroundings. We were standing at the heart of a large expanse of land around the back of the old gun range where I had regularly come to train. A light gust of wind billowed past and gently rustled Phoenix’s hair. His raven locks were significantly longer due his not having seen a barber for a long period of time and the silky tendrils took this opportunity to slip from their hold atop his head and cover his eyes. I quite liked the look of Phoenix Knight with longer, even messier hair.

I quickly realised that I had gradually fixed my eyes on him and his were steadily fixed on mine.

My gaze shifted from his direction as I cleared my throat uneasily. “I’ve been working on my back handspring as well, would you like to see?” I offered once the silence was seemingly all-consuming and his hard, un-breaking gaze rendered me uncomfortable and slightly self-conscious.

His eyes didn’t leave my face. “First of all,” he began in a low tone, “that move – while not entirely difficult – took even me a while to learn and perfect as a beginner so I find it difficult to believe that you can do it without snapping your neck; especially at your age. Secondly, it’s irrelevant out on the field so I insist you put less time towards practicing it and use those efforts to learn more about pressure points.”