Some people destroy things as if they were nothing, but you protect them, keep them safe. The words came rushing into her head mind distracting her for a moment.
Distracted by the memory, Jess missed her opponents move. She snarled in pain as the knife cut deep into her arm. She caught her attacker's wrist and twisted, sending the young man sprawling to the ground, as her mothers words disappeared from her mind. At one time they might have been right, but now, they were a lie.
The man Jess was fighting wasn't clumsily for long. In a blurred motion of blond hair and black leather, Dustin Jumped to his feet.
Jess rolled her shoulders trying to work some of the stiffness out of them and blinked quickly to clear her tired eyes. This match had been going on for too long. She was bleeding where Dustin's knife had sliced through her arm, and she could feel the warm, sticky trickle of blood down her back from a second would on her right shoulder. Dustin's black leather pants had been slit open in the thigh, and he had a deep would on his jaw, which would probably leave a scar when it healed.
Earlier that day there had been other fighters, most had ran out the back door shamefully defeated, within the first couple of minutes.
The fight was a competition of stealth, and hunting ability. In perfect darkness the competitors found and marked one another-a quick knife slice, just enough to draw blood. If a hunter was marked three times, he or she had lost. Jess was pleased to have lasted so long, but only victory would satisfy her pride now. Dustin likely felt the same way. The next one of them to land a blow would win, becoming the leader of Rubier, the best hunterite clan on the face of the Earth.
Somewhere in the building a clock struck, once, twice...
Jess lost track of the clock chimes as she struck again. Dustin cursed as the blade narrowly missed his neck and Jess barely managed to evade an answering strike to her cheek.
They were both getting tired, and tired meant clumsiness welcomed itself into the fight. Only the fact that they had been fighting for hours kept them evenly matched.
The clock finished its tune, and dropped the room into an eerie silence, broken by the heavy, ragged breathing as the two fought.
"Dustin, Jess..."
Jess let her mind wander for a fraction of a second, but her gaze never left Dustin.
"Put away your weapons, this match is over." Rubier's leader, Austin ordered them. Someone flipped a switch and both hunter flinched as sudden, bright lights flooded the room. "I have a feeling this fight could go on for days if I hadn't interrupted." He announced. "But Rubier law does call for a limit."
For a second, I hated that old man.