Chapter 30

"Alright, everyone pair up!" the defence tactics coach called out.

Our class of recruits was gathered in the academy's gym, sweating and breathless after an intense hour-long warmup session.

Mei had chosen the female recruit who had aced the obstacle track the day before as her role model and had followed her around like a puppy all morning. The recruit didn't mind and agreed to partner up with Mei.

Aidan glanced down at me and shrugged questioningly. I agreed with a nod and a smile.

As the coach walked through the rows of pairs, inspecting them, I noticed that most of the other recruits had picked partners that were similar in build and size to themselves.

When the coach reached us, she stopped and looked at us with a challenging twitch in her eyebrow. I watched her eyes flick up and down between our faces, illustrating the ridiculous height difference between us.

Since she didn't say anything, I spoke up. "It is a given that I will deal with offenders that outdo me in size and strength out in the field. If I can handle someone his size, then I should be able to fend off and restrain smaller opponents too, ma'am."

"This will do for now. But you should practice with people closer to your size too eventually. You will notice how different the angles and leverage points are," she explained and continued her round.

We were an uneven number of people because one recruit didn't show up that day, so the guy who didn't find a partner had to demonstrate all exercises and moves with the coach.

In the first exercise, we practised quick and agile footwork. One partner would move towards the other and try to invade their space, and the second person would use small, quick steps to the sides or backwards to keep them an arm's length away.

I moved towards Aidan first, and he evaded my approaches with fast steps like a boxer. Every move I made, he countered swiftly. We had been told to keep eye contact with our opponent instead of looking down at our steps, so I used this round in which I didn't have to concentrate on dodging and swerving to study Aidan's face.

He had an angular face with sharp features, high cheekbones, a strong jaw and a straight nose. His bright blue eyes that normally had a friendly glint in them were serious and focused while he concentrated on the exercise. I noticed that his eyelashes were the same shade of light blonde as his eyebrows and hair. The sun-kissed tan on his skin contrasted with the blonde. He was handsome, and if I hadn't met Jay and wasn't head over heels for him, I could have seen myself be attracted to Aidan.

"Stop and switch," the coach yelled, and the concentration on Aidan's face lifted and was replaced by a relieved and charming smile.

The fast steps while keeping the knees bent to be more agile were more strenuous on the muscles than I had expected. I shook out my legs and arms for a few seconds, then returned to the alert stance, and Aidan moved towards me.

Evading was much more difficult than attacking, and my entire focus was geared towards the task at hand. I let my vision blur just slightly, and the blue of Aidan's eyes became my focal point while I sensed and kept track of every one of his movements.

By the time the coach ended the round, I was out of breath and my calf muscles were on fire. Aidan grinned and gave me a low five.

The next few exercises showed us how to dodge punches and free ourselves if an offender had managed to grab us. The coach performed them with the recruit first. The poor guy was being spun around and thrown to the ground quicker than he could blink. Then, she gave us some time to practice them with our partners.

Since I had taken a couple of self-defence classes in my free time during college, I remembered some of the moves.

"How hard should we go on each other?" I asked when Aidan and I took on fighting stances in front of each other.

"I don't know. It's up to you. You don't need to go easy on me," Aidan smirked teasingly.

"Okay, gloves off then," I raised an eyebrow challengingly.

"Ready?"

I nodded, and immediately, Aidan grabbed the collar of my sweatshirt with both of his hands. To fend him off, I scraped the tip of my shoe down his shin, softer than I would have done in a real situation, looped one of my arms between his, clasped my hands together and jerked them up and to the side, ripping his grip off my shirt. As I pushed him away, I took hold of his wrist with one hand and pressed my other hand against the back of his shoulder, forcing him onto the ground and keeping him in place by restraining his arm at an uncomfortable angle to his body. A grunt escaped Aidan's throat as he lay on the floor unable to move.

"Upton, well done." I heard the coach comment from across the gym.

"Yeah, well done, Upton," Aidan grinned as I helped him up.

Next, I attacked him a few times, trying to throw punches at his face and body. Each time, he evaded my fists and had me pinned to the ground within seconds.

When he attacked again and tried to push me up against the nearby wall, I ducked under one of his arms and wrapped my arms around his chest from behind. I kicked Aidan in the back of the knee and pushed my hip against him which made his legs buckle, and he sank down just enough that I could reach around his neck and pull him back onto the floor. The sound of his heavy body slamming onto the mat echoed through the gym, and most of the recruits stopped what they were doing to look.

Surprised by how well that move had worked, I covered my mouth with my hand to cover my grin, but Aidan laughed too and accepted my hand when I reached out to pull him up.

We continued practising the moves and were then shown a few techniques to fend off an attacker in a situation where we were on the ground and the attacker was on top of us. In these exercises, our differences in strength and weight showed.

Aidan was on his back, and I straddled his torso and was supposed to be pinning his arms down on either side of his head, but even though I put my entire weight and strength onto his arms, he just pushed his arms up into the air and me with them.

"This is easier than doing a pushup," he noted and repeated the movement a few times.

I chuckled and let go of his arms. "Yeah, you should probably practise this with someone else," I resigned.

Adian stared up at me for a moment with a look in his eyes that I couldn't quite pinpoint, and I suddenly realised how suggestive the position we were in was.

"Um," I coughed and rolled off him. "Can we try the second thing she showed us in combination with this next?" I asked hastily.

"Sure," Aidan agreed and got up to stand behind me.

I saw a hint of a smirk on his lips and wondered if he'd noticed how flustered I had become.

He brought his foot into the back of my knee to get me on my knees, then grabbed my shoulder and pulled me backwards onto my back.

His touch and the sequence of movements triggered a déjà vu in my head. For a moment, the room around me went dark and the person looming over me wasn't Aidan but Wright who's mouth was twisted into a menacing grin.

My heart started hammering in my chest, the blood in my veins froze, and panic rushed through me. I reacted by swinging my fist up to punch the evil expression off his face.

When it was a mere inch away from his face, I saw Aidan's eyes widen in surprise but I only had enough time to take most of the strength out of the blow but not stop it completely. My balled up hand connected with Aidan's jaw with an audible thump.

"Ow," Aidan grunted and climbed off me, rubbing his jaw. "That wasn't by the book."

"Aidan, I'm so sorry!" I blurted out and sat up to kneel in front of him.

"What happened? Are you okay?" he asked in a concerned rather than angry or annoyed tone.

He had seen the terror in my eyes.

"I'm really sorry," I repeated, mortified, then paused for a moment. "I was attacked a few weeks ago and had a flashback to that night just now. But that's not an excuse for punching you. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it's fine. I'm sorry that happened to you," Aidan said in a serious tone. "How should we continue?"

I looked around the gym quickly, glad that the coach hadn't seen my lapse in rationality. "Continue where we left off?" I asked hesitantly.

Aidan agreed, and I lay back down. Carefully, he climbed back on top of me, grabbed my wrists, and pinned them down. I knew what to do to get out from under his grip, but feeling his weight on top of me and the extreme strength behind his grip on my wrist, made an uneasy, unsettling feeling form in the pit of my stomach. My arms were locked in place, and I couldn't move them an inch. To get out from underneath him, I thrust up my hips which launched him forwards and over my head, and simultaneously, as he had to loosen his grip on my wrists to catch himself, I pulled my arms down and rolled out from underneath him.

After spending the second half of the day learning more about law, I arrived at Jay's apartment and let myself in. He wasn't home yet, so I settled down on his couch and used the time before he arrived to update my flashcards and study guide.

A few minutes later, Jay called, and I answered the phone and put him on loudspeaker.

"Hey, are you at my place yet?" he asked, and I could hear that he was driving.

"Yeah, I'm on your couch," I answered and finished writing out a flashcard.

"I was about to head home, but something urgent came up that I need to take care of first."

I perceived a strange tone in his voice which evoked an uneasy feeling in my chest. "That's alright. Are you okay?" I asked, and picked the phone up off the coffee table to hold it to my ear.

"Yeah, don't worry. I have to go now. I'll be with you as soon as I can."

Just before he hung up, I heard his car accelerate.

I put my phone back down and stared at it for a while. I didn't know what was happening, and the troubling feeling I had lingered while I finished my school work. When I was done and Jay still wasn't there, I picked up my phone and called Zoe to distract myself.

"How's my best, badass, soon-to-be cop friend doing?" she chirped into the phone when she'd picked up.

"Hey, Zoe. I'm sorry, I wasn't sure if you're working tonight or not," I said and got comfortable on the couch.

"Yeah, I'm at work. I quickly snuck away into your office when I saw your call," she replied. "No, wait! My office!"

That made me smile.

"I'm still getting used to my new job, but so far, everything's been going really good. Your mum and I work well together," she added. "How has the academy been?"

I gave her a run-through of the last few days of training and told her about Aidan and Mei. She was highly interested and curious about what I told her.

"I haven't seen you since your date night with Kevin, how did that go?" I asked when I was done talking about me.

"Really well. We talked until about three in the morning and then spent all of Sunday together. We've made plans to see each other again, but because I work evenings, it's a little difficult. I'm not working tomorrow evening. Let's hope he gets off work at a decent time."

I was thrilled to hear how good things between them were going.

"I think I'd better get going, Hailey," Zoe concluded. "We're pretty busy tonight."

"Yeah, sorry. I'll let you go. I'm really happy about you and Kevin."

"Thank you!" I heard the smile in her voice. "I have you to thank for that. I'll talk to you soon. Bye!"

She hung up, and I put my phone down. I considered calling Jay but didn't want to interrupt whatever he was doing and just lay on the couch staring up at the ceiling instead. The sun was setting, and I felt my eyes get heavy as I watched the last rays of sunlight dance on the white ceiling and wall above the shelf.

I woke to the sound of the front door opening and shot up from the couch. By now, it was completely dark outside, and the only source of light in the room was the lamp on the side table.

I rushed over to the entrance.

"Hey," I greeted Jay and saw that the knuckles of his hand were bruised when he hung up his coat. "What happened? Does this have something to do with the case you told me about?"

Jay kicked off his shoes. "Hey," he sighed and pressed a quick kiss on my lips. "We thought we had convinced her to help us, but then she changed her mind. I arrested her husband for domestic assault, but he was released when no complainant showed up," Jay explained as he headed to his couch and let himself fall onto it.

I went to his fridge to fetch an ice pack, and when my eyes fell on the bottle of Whisky on the kitchen counter, I brought that too. I sat down on the couch next to Jay and draped my legs across his lap as I handed him the ice pack and a glass of the alcohol I had poured.

"It's a double," I pointed out.

He took it and smiled thankfully. "Thanks."

"What happened next?"

"When I found out that he'd been released, I rushed to their place. I called you on the way there. When I arrived, I found her on the floor with a swollen eye," he recalled and his mouth twisted into an angry line.

Jay looked down at his injured knuckles, and I knew what had happened next.

"She's on a plane with her daughter, and her brother is going to pick them up in Phoenix."

"That's great news," I remarked with careful optimism.

"It is if she stays away from her husband," he said pessimistically, clenching and unclenching his fist.

"All you can do is buy her the ticket. The rest is up to her," I shrugged and took a sip from my drink.

Jay stayed quiet for a few moments, looking down into his glass. "I don't know how you went through this growing up," he mused, looking back up at me with a crease between his eyebrows.

"Every situation is a little different. But you know, I would wish that somebody would come in and just put my dad in his place," I mumbled and took his hand in mine. I traced my fingertips around the split skin on his knuckles. It was cold from the ice pack. "Do what you did," I continued and held his gaze. "You did a good thing, Jay."

His expression was compassionate, and his eyes held sadness for me as well as the woman and her daughter sitting on the plane.

He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me against his chest.

"You know, I punched someone today too," I murmured with my cheek resting on the soft fabric of his jumper.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I punched Aidan in the face during self-defence training."

Jay chuckled lightly. "Poor guy."

"I don't think it was very hard. And he wasn't mad about it either."

Jay stroked his hand over my hair and turned his head to kiss my forehead.

"I couldn't think of a better way to end a day like today than this, right here, with you," he whispered, his lips brushing against my skin.