16

                                        

                                              
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chapter sixteen



MADDIE




I can feel the blood hot in my mouth as Tory rips her foot across my face for the third time. 
My jaw jolts upwards, my tongue getting caught between my teeth. Pain ricochets down my throat, causing me to stumble backwards. After an hour of training in the gym, I've only been able to land two hits on Tory. While she's landed five. Just when I  thought my life couldn't get any more distracting, I'm proven wrong. 
"Maddie, what's going on?" Tory asks, wiping her mouth as stepping back. "You've been off."
"Why, because I'm not brutally attacking you left and right?" I question, pulling my jumper off and throwing it to the ground beside me. Sam's runs forward, pulling it off the mats and throwing it to the side. 
Tory moved into her stance again, preparing herself as I jump forward intime to slash my heel across her cheek. She stumbles back, before moving forward. I block all her movements, throwing as many as I can into the litter. As I step back, preparing my spin to take her out, she lunges forward, her first slamming against my cheek. 
With a groan, I fall to the floor, holding my jaw as I just lie there. With my forehead digging into the mat, I just sit there on the ground. Banging my fist on the ground once, I grit my teeth. Before doing it over and over again. Until my skin rips and bloodstained knuckle prints lie on the mats, I just continue punching it. 
"Don't touch me," I hiss as Sam steps forward to place a hand on my back. 
"Maddie," she says, leaning down to my side. "What's going on?"
As I move to punch the ground again, she grabs my hand, holding it in hers. I glance up at her, tears in my eyes. "I can't fight. I used it all up when I fought like Kreese and Silver. And a boy died. When I fight, I fight like them. And I can't hurt someone again."
Tory sits down cross-legged beside me, mirroring Sam. "Hey, that's not what's going on."
"It is," I say, pushing myself up from the floor to crouch. "I did the Quicksilver, and he landed beside the knife. He found it because of me."
"He did not find it because of you. He found it because Kreese brought a knife into battle," Tory tells me. Her voice is so stern, yet so comforting. "Kreese is to blame because he brought it. Kwon is to blame because he used it. Axel is to blame because he threw the final kick."
"Axel was protecting me," I say, wiping my eyes with the back of my hands. "He didn't know there was the knife. His kick went wrong because I jumped onto him and pulled him away."
Breathe. 
"Don't blame him." I turn to look at Sam. "You wanted to train today and I'm ruining it."
"You're more important than training," she says. "It wasn't your fault. I promise."
Keep breathing.
With my air caught high up in my throat, I can feel the oncoming stress. Because the two sensei's in my life that have hurt me are always there. They always hover over my head and I always preform the moves they would want me too. I can't get them out of my system, no matter what I do.