When I found out who my sparring partner was supposed to be, the temptation to fling myself off a cliff or find a mermaid to drown me or, hell, walk straight into the fire pit was greater than anything I had felt. And I wish that was an exaggeration. "You are joking, right?" I asked Jack as I looked between him and my "biggest" fan. Felix looked about as pleased about being here as I did except for the fact that I had a feeling his look would change when we started practicing whereas I would keep being upset.

"Pan's order," Jack said shrugging his shoulders in a semi-apologetic manner.

"I'm sorry, did we all miss the point in time yesterday morning when this person," I said pointing at Felix with the knife I was holding, "did his best to make me into a human whack-a-mole?" My question was only met with blank looks informing me that they missed my meaning. "I don't know why I bother to waste perfectly good comparisons on you all," I muttered under my breath.

"Look, Pan ordered it, so it has to be done. I'm not thrilled to do this you know," Felix said in his slow, dragging voice.

"Speaking of your all powerful leader, why didn't he feel the need to tell me this himself? I was under the impression he liked giving me bad news," I said.

"What does it matter? Let's get this over with," Felix said, patience clearly wearing thin. Before I could come up with another retort, Felix advanced so quickly that I found myself with a knife to my throat in seconds. Again. For the second day in a row.

"I wasn't ready," I huffed as he let me go a half minute later.

"That's the idea," he pointed out. "If someone were to attack you, they aren't going to wait for you to pull out your weapon before taking you down. We'll start working on your defense. Your goal for the rest of the training is to not get pinned."

Once he was finished, Felix took on a ready stance. I backed up a few steps before turning my back to sprint into the forest, hoping to put some distance between us. The cool tip of the knife touched the back of my neck before I could even take my lead off step. "Pinned."

"What am I supposed to do then?" I asked him, sighing. Asking Felix for advice was not what I wanted to do, but the idea of getting pinned with a knife every ten seconds was less appealing.

"First off, never turn your back on your attacker when they are close to you like I was. Otherwise you are just asking to get attacked. Keep them somewhere in your vision at all times. You need to turn your natural flight response into fight," he explained.

I nodded, but scoffed internally. Ever since I could remember I have run from things I couldn't deal with: physically or emotionally. "So is there anything else I need to do? I mean, I can't just hope to evade you forever."

"No, you really can't," he grinned slyly. "Try to block me. Just do whatever comes naturally."

And so began the slowest cat and mouse game ever. The comparison was probably over exaggerated, but it felt that way. Keeping him in my line of vision, I maneuvered through the forest waiting for him to do something. Thinking he was maybe waiting for me to make the first move, I decided that striking up a conversation may count as "doing what comes naturally." Lord knows that I speak my mind anyway.

"Why are you doing this if you clearly hate me?" I asked him.

"I don't hate you. I just don't like you," Felix clarified.

"Whatever, same thing. I mean, why did you agree to this training session?"

"Because Pan told me to," he answered. He made a grab for my arm, but I spun away from it and continued avoiding him.

"Do you all just jump when Pan tells you to jump?" I asked. "You shouldn't feel like you have to do something just because he says."

Suddenly Felix moved into action, shoving me against a tree and held the knife to my stomach. "We do what he asks of us because we are loyal to him. Pin," he said releasing me and turning around to walk away. Seizing the opportunity, I quietly raised my own knife to his neck and applied a little pressure. I almost should have expected the chuckle that came out of his mouth. "Good, you're learning."

With that, he turned quickly around and knocked my right hand causing the knife to slip out of it and land a few feet away. I could see exactly where it landed, and made to go after it when I heard a tsk sound coming from Felix. "Considering, well, you," he said with a sneer, stepping between me and the knife, "it's probably best that you figure out how to defend yourself without any weapon."

His advance was quicker this time and I was having difficulty trying to focus on him and not tripping over my feet. The next thing I knew, I had completely lost sight of him. I stopped where I was standing and slowly looked around, trying not to make any noise. My heart rate started to pick up and I kept my breathing quiet as I walked to a tree and leaned against it. The longer I listened to the swaying trees, the more I felt my internal panic rising. Clasping my hands behind my back, I closed my eyes and saw exactly where I had dropped that stupid knife. I wish I had my knife back. At least if I had it I'd feel like I stood a chance against him.

My eyes snapped open once I heard a twig snap right next to me, distracting me from my thoughts. Felix stepped close and put his left hand next to my head and let his right place the knife along my cheek. "That was a good try, Kim," he said, but his eyes held his true amusement at me getting trapped again.

Before he could say anything else, my instincts kicked in. He was too close to my face and setting off all my warning bells about personal space being invaded. So I did the first thing I could think of to get him and his stupid victory smirk away from me: kneed him where it counted, making sure to move my head away from his knife in the process.

As Felix hunched over trying to deal with the pain, I walked over to him and grabbed his face. Tilting it up to see his full glare, I placed the knife that had appeared in my hand only a moment before by his neck. "Pinned," I grinned in satisfaction. It wasn't even two seconds later when it was replaced by a look of annoyance upon feeling another knife in my lower back. "Not quite," came Peter's voice from behind me.

Sighing, I let go of Felix with a little shove before moving so that I could keep both of them in my vision. "Oh, look. His majesty finally decided to grace us with his presence," I said with a mock curtsey.

Ignoring my comment, Pan glanced at Felix for a moment before looking back at me. "That was kind of a cheap shot, don't you think?" he asked seemingly disappointed.

"I think he was invading my personal space, so I did what I had to do," I explained. If you're looking for an apology, it isn't coming, I thought.

"Last bit of advice for today: never assume you're fighting one person," he said in a haughty voice, though the advice seemed genuine.

I took his comment seriously for a moment until I realized something. "Wait a minute. Have you been hiding in the trees all day watching us train?" I asked.

"Of course not," he said with a wave of his hand. Before heading over to Felix, he came over to me and leaned toward my ear. "But I was here long enough to observe some interesting things," he added. He smirked at me before moving on.

Even though he had kept his statement vague, I knew what he was talking about. He had seen the knife reappear in my hand. I hadn't even had time to process how it had happened yet, and already he knew about it. On top of that, I had a sneaky suspicion that piquing Pan's interest in this way would have consequences that I had no interest in finding out.

"Come on. You're done training. For now, at least," Pan added, pulling me out of my thoughts. The two boys walked in front of me while I dragged along behind them. Just another night's sleep away from getting to be on my own, I reminded myself.