Blaze noticed the ship sail faster below her, and she eventually decided that it was time to go in. It had only been an hour or two, but the sun was slowly going down anyway, and she figured she would have more time to fly later. She had seen Cole and Flynn talk some more after the bet had been repaid. Cole said he'd pay their way on Flynn's ship somehow. She hadn't thought that it would be with Flynn's own money, though. As the air got colder, she flew down and picked her jacket up from the railing by the wheel. Cole was nowhere in sight, but Flynn was still at the wheel. She heard the dinner bell, and looked to him.
"Aren't you going to go to dinner?" she asked. She had never seen him eat in the mess hall. He must get hungry, being out in the sun all day like he was. She had seen the rest of the crew, and they ate almost like she did after a long day of flying. She was relieved that she could eat normal sized portions now—when she was with the family in Pennsylvania, she had done her best to seem normal, and that meant that eating massive amounts wasn't something that she did. Mostly, there was bread, cheese, dried seaweed, and dried meat on board. As since she hadn't eaten meat in a long time, she stuck to the other food groups. They had also opened a can of peaches for desert. It was a simple dinner, but it was better than many meals she had had in the backstreets.
"I'll go when my crew's eaten," Flynn assured her. She nodded slowly, unconvinced. It had been almost five days on the ship, and she was convinced that he didn't eat or sleep, and instead, he would feast on the view of the sea and dream up adventures at night. Flynn noticed her disbelief and laughed.
"I eat plenty, believe me. And I sleep more than your Azori," he reasoned with her. Azori, she thought. What is that? When Flynn realized her confusion, he almost lost his concentration on the sea. He hesitated, trying to find a nicer way to say what he was trying to get across to her. It wasn't his place to tell her all about him—that was Cole's job, and he had kept a lot from her. Damn the man, he was putting Flynn in a tough position here.
"You choose interesting company," he explained. He looked to her and back to the sea a few times. How did she not know who she was traveling with? By now she must have known that Cole was dangerous. Maybe he'd been able to hide his family name well enough when he moved to the States. Blaze's eyes didn't change as she began to understand what he meant. So his full name was Cole Azori. What of it?
"What does it mean, that his name is Cole Azori? Why does it matter?" she asked him curiously. The way he had acted around the word "Azori" piqued her interest. It irked her how little she knew about him, and how much he knew about her. He knew her fears, her captors, her life as an experiment. All she knew about him was that he was trained at fighting. He was supposed to train her more tonight after dinner, and could ask him then.
She heard footsteps behind them, and turned to see Flynn's father walk out into the open air with a plate of food for him, and one for Blaze as well. It was the first time on the trip that she ate under the starlight, and now she knew what she was missing. Flynn sat on the deck with her and ate as his father steered the ship. At first, there was an awkward silence because he hadn't answered her question, and both of them knew it. After a quick look up, though, the conversation was lost to the stars. Flynn, once he was done shoveling down his food, leaned back onto the deck and put his arms behind his head. She did the same, her head right next to his so she could listen to him talk about the constellations. He knew a lot about the stars, not just from navigations. He had Greek stories about a lot of the little dots in the sky.
However, about halfway through one of them, she remembered she was supposed to be meeting Cole at her cabin in order to practice sparring. As she pulled herself to a sitting position, she saw Cole walk out of the cabin in front of her. They stared at each other for a moment, unsure of how to address that they were supposed to meet at her cabin and not on the top deck.
"If I'm interrupting something, we can practice tomorrow night," Cole told her in a low voice. She pushed her hair out of her face so she could see him better, then looked to Flynn, and then back to Cole. She did sort of want to watch the stars, but she also wanted to learn from Cole. She enjoyed watching herself grow stronger and faster with every block he taught her. She started to work on her arms and legs during the day when she was bored on the ship. She shrugged, nodded a thanks to Flynn for the stories and walked toward her cabin.
"So what are we starting with?" she asked, tossing her jacket onto her bed. Cole had taught her that it was better to use her wings to balance herself than try to hide them if her life depended on it. He also told her that it was better to get shot in the wing or arm than the chest or belly, so to guard her body with her wings if a far-range attack ever happened to her. He doubted it—the scientists' group was less likely to shoot to kill from a far distance. They wanted her alive, and if that ever changed, they would probably use a different way than long-range assassination. Blaze agreed. They wouldn't leave her to be found by the world and with a bullet through her heart.
"Close-range. Fight," Cole instructed, and the sparring began. Cole came at her with a kick to the side. She blocked with her wing so she could open up his side. He spun with the momentum from her wing pushing him away, and came at her other side with an open fist. She knew he was pacing himself to be on her level, but she did not know to the extent he was handicapping himself. The word Azori that Flynn had mentioned stuck in her mind. It was a last name, but Flynn had talked about it as if it was a breed of human. She dodged to the side of his fist and pulled his arm forward to unbalance him. He allowed himself to fly forward toward the floor, and then he sprung off his hands back onto his feet. She brought her heel down where his head had been positioned moments before the strike, but all she caught was the breeze off his shirt.
"Good," he commented, tossing quick jabs to her stomach that she blocked using the techniques she had learned last time they sparred. She threw a few of her own jabs, mixing them up so that he had to deal with rapid fire punches. He blocked every single one, as she knew he would. It wasn't that she was predictable, but rather that he was always ready, and very attentive to his opponent's position.
Cole swung his leg around to trip her, but she jumped into the air with a flap of her wings so that she would be able to hover for a split second before falling back onto her feet. Cole used the opportunity to grab her arms which she had positioned in front of her to protect her body. She was caught off-guard as he pulled her down close to him. He had done so more gently than an attacker would, though, so it wasn't a true test for her. With any luck, she wouldn't have a final examination in which she'd actually put it into practice.
As he pulled her down, he spun so her back was against the wall, her wings pressed against her shoulders. If it were a real fight, her wings would have been crushed by the weight of her body slamming against the wall. Instead, the impact on her wings was similar to leaning back against the wall very quickly but casually. Her wrists were pinned next to her against the wall, but his grip was again, gentle. She had been so surprised by the move that she had forgotten to breathe. Cole was close to her, his shoulders positioned in line with her own, but his legs were off to the side, so a kick would be ineffective.
"What would you do now," he asked her quietly, his dark eyes not as hard as she remembered them the first time they had met. He was close enough so that she could hear his almost silent breathing, and she could feel it brush lightly against her ear. A piece of blond hair was stuck to her eyelid, making her eye itch and breaking her concentration. Cole smirked lightly when he saw her try to blink it away. He let go of her right hand and gingerly pushed the hair back by her ear. Her hand didn't fall, though, because she knew the exercise wasn't over. That, and she was surprised that he would pause the exercise to help her get hair out of her eyes.
"What do you have left?" Cole tried to help her along the thought process. Her limbs were rendered useless. She realized that she had her head free. Her pupils dilated and he nodded as she got it.
"This is the time that you surprise your opponent. Head-butt them, bite them, or use your imagination," he suggested, emphasizing that he wouldn't use the third option unless he were confident that it would work. His dark eyes searched her violet ones for an answer to what she would do with the situation. He had given her a few of many options to choose from. He was prepared to dodge a bite to the arm or a head-butt since he had mentioned them as options. That wouldn't surprise him, then. Flynn had said that Azoris were always on their guard, so surprising them was impossible. She stared into his calm dark eyes as he waited for her response. His head was too close to hers to do much damage by heading him in the face.
A glimmer crossed her violet eyes, and she pushed herself off of her heels and onto her toes. Quickly, and before he could react, she brushed her lips against his and stayed there for a few seconds. His eyes widened with surprise and he loosened his grip on her wrists. That's when she slid her hands down, ducked under his arm, grabbed a knife she'd found in the bedside drawer and held it to his neck, beaming with pride.
He stood there with his hands against the wall, his head turned toward her as the cold metal pressed against his bare neck. She kept the blade there, but made sure to not actually cut through his skin. She was not sure how she had come up with that plan. It just sort of made sense to her at the time.
"That was not part of the lesson," Cole said slowly, pushing her arm away gently as he turned to face her fully. "Nor is it an effective way to fend off an attacker," he added, shaking his head quickly as if he was trying to get a grip on what just happened. He brushed his lips with his fingertips, raise his eyebrows, and leaned back against the wall.
It was a good feeling, throwing him off-guard like that. Though his eyes were back to normal, if not a bit more dilated than before, and his voice was calm, she could tell that he was still trying to comprehend what just happened.
"Well, it took you down," Blaze reasoned, raising an eyebrow. She felt as if she was playing with fire with that statement. With what little she knew about Azoris, she figured they didn't lose fights, and also that if they did, the other person would lose somehow too. He stared at her with those pitch-black eyes, then shrugged.
"So it did," he chuckled. Blaze set the knife back on the bedside table, turning her back on him to hide a smile.