Maya swatted at Nina’s fingers. “Smack him with it, jam the end into his balls, crack it over his head.”
Nina stopped in front of the treadmill. “Armpits.”
Maya almost missed a step. “What?”
“She said armpits.” Dani paused, her chin hovering just above the steel bar. “Something as long as a pool cue telegraphs, so you probably won’t land a shot on some guy’s balls. He’ll just twist out of the way. But if you jab him in the armpit—”
“He won’t see it coming, so he won’t guard,” Nina finished. “And it fucking hurts.”
“Okay, armpits. Check. Or I’ll just kick a chair into his legs. If he goes down, I get to go back to plan A and haul ass out of there.”
“Hey, you know what you need?” Dani looped one arm over the pull-up bar and swung from it. “A sock in your pocket.”
Maya burst into breathless laughter. “Did you spike your coffee with something?”
Dani scowled. “It’s for the billiard balls. Pop one in there, and boom—instant improvised flail. I knew this lady who would put anything solid and heavy into a sock and whup your ass with it. I saw her break a guy’s arm with that trick once.”
“Okay, so I put the eight ball in a sock and start breaking arms with it. That’ll definitely cut down on people trying to buy me drinks. Might be worth it for that alone.”
Nina thumped one of the treadmill’s handrails. “Focus.”
“Better idea.” Dani dropped from the pull-up bar, her athletic shoes slapping against the polished wood floor. “Lose the boots and back up all those glib words, Maya. Spar with me.”
Maya smacked the treadmill controls. When the belt whispered to a stop, she hopped off and settled on the edge of the mat to pull off her boots. “As long as we all know this is totally unfair.”
Maya had a point. Her brain may have been altered to give her perfect auditory recall, but Dani had modifications of her own. Her entire nervous system had been rewired in an experimental procedure that granted her superhuman reflexes and reaction times. Fighting her at full speed was like fighting a blur.
“Don’t worry.” Dani stretched her arms across her chest, one after the other. “I’ll slow it down, just for you.”
“Uh-huh, sure you will.” With her boots stripped off, Maya resecured her long braids on top of her head, mimicked Dani’s stretches, and stepped warily onto the mat.
They circled each other for only a few seconds before Dani lunged, coming in for a shot to the gut. Maya blocked and spun away, and Dani barely gave her time to recover before throwing a right hook directly at her jaw.
It didn’t land. She might complain about having to train more than once a week, but Maya was making progress. If some asshole off the street started hassling her, she’d probably be able to handle it, even if she wasn’t armed. Of course, all it took to end your life—or, at the very least, to grandly fuck up your day—was a single lucky shot.
So, she had to keep training.
Dani and Maya continued to throw punches and kicks, to block and parry, while Nina circled the mat, studying them. Once or twice, Dani had to move at her normal speed to avoid having Maya’s feet or fists connect, and every time Maya let out a well-deserved laugh of triumph.
The slap of blows being deflected. The scuffle of feet on the padded floor. The sounds were hypnotic, lulling Nina into memory. She’d practically grown up in rooms just like this—bright lights and the smells of sweat and disinfectant. Brusque trainers demonstrating throws and yelling out corrections.
Dani’s back hit the mat with a thud, and the all-too-familiar noise reverberated through Nina as if she had been the one to fall. The training rooms at the Franklin Center had been larger, so sound echoed more, and lined with mirrors on all four walls, so that every person was reflected off the surfaces and multiplied.
An especially dizzying effect in a scientific facility full of clones.
Her cluster had consisted of the standard three, and they may have looked identical, but their differences had gone far deeper than superficial physical attributes. Ava was the cool, logical one, the brilliant tactician who could instantly size up a situation and outmaneuver any enemy. Hot-headed Zoey, on the other hand, had felt so sharply and so deeply that she made every single