Crossbones E-BOOK

CHAPTER ONE

       A fist cut through the air toward my head, and a startled squeak escaped my throat as I flinched reflexively.
       The fist stopped a hairsbreadth from my temple, the downdraft rippling the baby hairs around my face. The near-blow sent my heart tripping in my chest, and I cracked open one scrunched eyelid, grateful to still be on my feet.
       “And you have another concussion.” The deadpan voice came from Sam, who pushed away from the gym wall and crossed the workout mat to critique my less than stellar self-defense skills.
       I released a huff of frustration and tucked the ruffled baby hairs behind my ears. “I don’t get concussions that easily.”
       “Remind me how many you’ve had in the past two and a half years.”
       I searched the ceiling as if it might provide the answer. Two, maybe? But who was counting?
       “Three,” Jordan offered up.
       Okay . . . apparently he was counting.
       Sam stopped beside Jordan, my sparring partner for this lesson, thick arms folded across his chest. “Once you’ve had a concussion, it’s more likely to happen again, and eventually, it leads to brain damage. You need to be quicker about raising your arms to protect your head.”
       “I didn’t know he was gonna swing while I was distracted.”
       Sam blinked twice, the only visible sign he found my reasoning ridiculous. “Criminals aren’t going to tap you on the shoulder and politely inform you they’re about to level you with a right hook, Holly.”
       I bristled with indignation. “They wouldn’t level me. I’m not that easy to knock over.”
       Sam slid a look toward Jordan. “You wanna shatter that delusion of grandeur or should I?”
       Jordan scratched behind his ear, something he did when faced with an awkward or uncomfortable situation he wasn’t sure how to respond to.
       Sam took Jordan’s silence as his cue to continue. “You’re five feet tall and a hundred pounds, Holly. A sneeze could knock you over.”
       “That’s not . . .” My prickly bristles retracted as realization washed over me. “That was an exaggeration.”
       Sam never exaggerated—and that, in itself, was not an exaggeration. The words that came out of his mouth were almost always logical and calculated.
       I mounted my hands on my hips. “Mr. Logic just exaggerated.”
       Jordan glanced at his watch. “Note the date and time.”
       Sam’s neutral expression didn’t change. “My statement is more fact than hyperbole. I once saw her stagger after she sneezed.”
       “I had an ear infection. My balance was off.”
       “When is your balance on?”
       I opened my mouth to fire back, but I was instantly bombarded by the numerous times I tripped over the edge of a rug or nearly face-planted on the sidewalk because I misjudged the height of the curb.
       I snapped my mouth shut.