know exactly what." At first I think she's going to be angry, but then she starts to laugh. "You have a crush."
"I do not. I don't even know him."
"All the better." Maria takes a seat on the couch and pats the seat next to her. "C'mon. I really didn't come to harass you about Alex. I wanted to talk to you about something."
I clear my throat and step over to the couch to have a seat, sure that I'll bump something along the way. In my experience, it's never a good thing when someone says they want to talk about something. And being here, I can only imagine that it's even worse to have someone want to talk to me about something.
Maria looks around the apartment taking in all the details of the old newspapers and the bookshelves full of books and binders. "Wow. This place is almost exactly what I expected."
"You mean you've never been in here?"
She shrugs. "No. I never really had a reason to before. This place is," she pauses and looks around again, "stuffy. Can't you open a window or something?"
"I tried. They won't open. They're practically glued shut. I'd guess Henri doesn't spend a lot of time here."
Her eyes open wider at the use of Henri's first name, but she doesn't say anything about it. It's probably best to be careful with the way I'm using his name. He's more than just a leader to most of them. He's a historical figure. "Anyway, I wanted to ask you if you'd want to go with us to watch some sparring." She smiles at my blank look. "Brandon wanted me to invite you. Tomorrow. They're going to get together and do some practice fights. It's pretty fun to watch."
It is boring stuck here at Henri's house, but I don't know that I really want to go. This new quiet is nice. It's safe. Outside, I'm not sure what to expect.
"So here's the part I wanted to talk to you about. You shouldn't refuse." Her eyes shrink as a gentle smile appears on her lips. "Brandon sent me to do the asking mostly because he doesn't want to force you, but this is sorta important. It's the higher ups who'll be participating. Kyrene, Angel, and maybe even Mike. He wants you to come because it's a small gathering of people close to him. He's basically claiming you as family by inviting you."
I swallow. "But he doesn't want to force me."
"No. He probably would rather I didn't even tell you this, but I'm sure he knew when he asked me to do it that I would." She shrugs and tosses a hand into the air. "Complicated. But I'll be there. Mitchell too."
"Will you spar with them?"
"Probably not. Unless I catch them by surprise."
Maria's smile becomes a mischievous smirk between the two of us as if we shared some common ground other than just our age. I latch onto that smile though, needing someone else I can confer with, someone like her who will obviously tell me the things I need to know, even the things Brandon wouldn't tell me or wouldn't want to tell me.
"When?"
"Tomorrow. I'll come pick you up."
Seventeen
"Looks like we're early." Maria grins at me as we come to a stop in a patch of dead grass and dirt next to an old brick building with broken windows. "I know what we can do. We can practice."
My mouth, partially open as I stare up and down the old broken and burned building, snaps shut as I turn to her and raise my hands between the two of us. "I don't know how to fight. I have no reason to."
"You had no reason to. Before. But here you need to know how to defend yourself. Look, it's really easy. I promise. I'll just teach you the weak points and how to get at them and we can go from there, okay?"
I shake my head, but she grabs me by the arm and pulls me away from the building and the shade and into the sunshine. We stand at the back of some sort of industrial building with broken out windows and boards nailed up on the inside. The building is abandoned according to Maria, though it still tells tales of the Revolution thirty years ago. Some of the boards hang down, others have rotted away. At some point, people probably tried to hide out in this building, but if the destroyed front is any indication, they weren't able