Kindling (The Hunter Trilogy Book One) Read online

  Whatever. It’s not like I had an impassioned hatred for the man or yearned that much to know him or even thought about him that often, because I didn’t. Just today. And I was more annoyed with him than anything else.

  I noticed the sun was high, by then, and I was getting hot and winded. Papá and I had been jogging for awhile – over an hour and a half – and we were nearing the springs. I knew it was time for a rest before we headed back home, so my papá and I began to slow. It was our favourite spot, but I was tired and I knew, even after the hour and a half return home, he was going to make me train.

  Oh, yeah, training. I’ve mentioned training a few times and I’m sure you’re like, what the hell was she training for? Basically, papá has been training me in mixed martial arts focusing on defensive combat techniques since I was about four. Yeah, I know, it was so super crazy. What 17-year-old girl knows defensive combat? I was always embarrassed to talk about it with anyone because who trains their daughter in MMA? NO ONE except Mercutio Chavez. I guess, back in the day, papá used to be a cage fighter. Apparently, he was pretty amazing and fighting even put him through college. Everyone on his side of the family just goes crazy for martial arts and they’re so proud that he was a fighter. And everyone does some sort of martial arts in the family, both of my grandparents do Jiu-Jitsu and even my great-grandmother still trains in Aikido and she’s in her 90s or something.

  Mom forced my papá to stop fighting when they got married, but he trained me because, I guess, that was the only way he could think of bonding with me when I was little. He trained my sister, a bit, and I guess he planned to train the twins when they were old enough, too. Gabriela was four years younger than me, but papá had only trained her in self-defence and she didn’t like fighting at all – she whined 100 times more than I ever did ... well, maybe not ‘ever’, but she whined a lot. Me? I got the full-blown, intense workouts and, I don’t like to brag, but I’m pretty good - like, by the time I was Gaby’s age, I could take down a grown man in under a minute and I run a mile at about six minutes and I’ve won loads of junior competitions for martial arts.

  Papá was relentless on my training. He always pushed me to be harder on myself, be faster, be brutal. I used to get so upset, sometimes, because all this training took a lot of time. Like, years and years and years of daily, constant training and exercise and bruises and sprains and hairline fractures and muscles so sore they could fall off and tears from the pain and throwing up because he made me run even after I engorged myself on almost an entire pizza and fighting with my parents because OH MY GOD I DON’T WANT TO FIGHT TODAY OR I WILL PUKE. But, no matter how much I begged, pleaded, screamed, threw fits, and said ‘I hate you’, neither of my parents relented. Every day, run in the morning, train after school; on weekends, run in the morning, train in the afternoon, no excuses and no breaks. It’s a lot of time – a ton of time and, especially when I was younger, I always wanted to get out of it. I was such a little piss that there were times when my father would get just as frustrated as I was and there were many times I think I had almost taken him to his mental breaking point, but he never broke.

  Once he finally got me outside, I would whine during our whole run then I would whine when we were at the gym and then I would whine about putting on my sparring gear and then I would whine about having to fight and then, after he eventually got me to spar, I’d be a real shit and not put any effort into it. My papá would say, “What if someone was attacking you? You would be dead!”

  “But no one is attacking me, papá. It’s just you,” I would say.

  “But, what if, Catalina. You have to think about that every time we spar.”

  “What if I sprouted wings? Then I’d be flying, papá,” I would said in the snottiest voice I could manage and he’d throw his hands up in frustration and he would have to walk away from me for several minutes. Eventually, he’d end up threatening to stay at the gym “all damn night” until I put some heart into it and attempted to beat him.

  But, over the years, I had come to recognize that this was my papá’s and my thing. He got so much joy out of showing me how to defend myself and I was spoiling it by being a brat. Just like my papá and my sister’s thing was hiking and camping – which they would be doing that night if it wasn’t my birthday party. Even though I grew to love fighting, I understood why Gabriela didn’t like it. She had to grow to love hiking and camping and, honestly, I would rather skewer myself in the stomach than go camping, but she lives and breathes sleeping out in that tent under the stars. It’s a bonding thing with papá and, as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to recognize the training and all that goes into it – the running and the conditioning and the agility and endurance tests – as a really special time, even though, sometimes, I still would rather curl up in bed and sleep for a week and a half.

  And, when the twins were old enough, my papá would start traditions with them, as well, and whatever those traditions will be will probably be something that will annoy them as much as fighting used to annoy me and I will be like, kids, he did the same thing to me and Gaby – get over it.

  Finally we were at the springs. The air was wet and heavy with mist. We were so warm and the water was nice and cool. Papá and I took off our shoes and waded into the water. The air was already beginning to thicken with heat and sweat poured off of both of us. I sat in the dust and re-lathered myself with sunscreen as we chugged our water bottles and listened to the sounds of the earth around us, the birds and the water bubbling and the insects beginning to hum.

  Suddenly, we heard a noise like something was moving about to our right and we were both startled. Sometimes we saw mule deer or even elk up there, but it really wasn’t the time of year for that. I was more worried about mountain lions or something that could take a bite out of one of us. We weren’t really on a frequently used trail, so anything was a possibility out there. But when we looked towards the noise, there was nothing, not even a shaking limb. We looked at each other and shrugged but, then I noticed to the left of my papá, two weird-looking guys standing there. I mean, they weren’t Neanderthals or anything, they were just ... odd, and I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly it was about them that was strange, but it was something. My father saw my face change and looked behind to see the strange men. His mood changed immediately. His straightened and tightened his fists and he was upset and nervous.

  After my initial shock of seeing two young men on a relatively unused trail, I noticed they were absolutely gorgeous, like they were both kind of buff and I could make out their toned physiques beneath their shirts. Still, something was off about them, but they were around 25 or so and they were dressed funny for both the time of year – early summer – and for where they were – basically, the mountains. The shorter of the two was olive-skinned and dark haired, really model-gorgeous looking, and he wore a leather jacket, blue-gray t-shirt, jeans, and sunglasses. He looked like he spent a lot of time on his hair and perfecting his five o’clock shadow. The other guy was taller and a bit lankier – still unbelievably hot, with soft brown hair and blue eyes – and he wore a blazer, khakis, a sweater-vest, and a v-neck t-shirt - not the typical camping clothes. They were a strange mixture of oddness and perfection. And their faces, while model beautiful - like, holy hotness those two were beautiful - they looked just a tad bit weird, like they had on too-much makeup or were cut-outs from a magazine that had too much Photoshop done on it. Something was strange about the whole situation, though, with the photoshopped men and their clothes and, to top it off, papá and I rarely ran into people out there and, when we did, it’s always been a jogger or a camper. These guys, though, didn’t look like either. Maybe they were lost or something, but it just didn’t seem like it.

  By this point the silence was weird and I realized I was totally obviously checking them out. My face reddened, but no one seemed to notice my embarrassment. My papá and the guys were basically having an angry staring contest, which was super confusing because my papá was usually ext
remely friendly and helpful to strangers. I looked at him and tried to gauge his emotions. He was angry, above angry, and ... scared? My tough, cage-fighting, mixed martial arts loving daddy was scared of two, skinny boys, one of which was wearing a sweater-vest?

  I didn’t understand - maybe my papá was just having a bad day, what did I know? I decided to break the silence. “Are you guys lost?”

  The one with the vest smiled a grin that made me feel uncomfortable, like it was forced. “A little,” he said. He had a Scottish accent, which basically just doubled his hotness scale for me. What? I totally had a thing for accents. “We camped last night and are trying to find the best way to get down.”

  I looked at my papá again and, still, he had the same, furious look. “Well, where are you headed?” I asked.

  “Just trying to find the best way down,” Vest Boy said again. He didn’t even seem weirded out by my papá. He reached into his blazer and pulled out a folded map. “Could you show me the trail?” I nodded and stood and, I don’t know what happened, but suddenly my papá jumped up and he was so quick I hardly saw him run to the guys.

  “What the hell, papá?” I yelled. My father was so intent on the weird guys that he didn’t respond or even look at me and I wasn’t sure if he even heard me. I watched him lean in and tell them something. Vest Boy laughed but I could tell what my papá said wasn’t supposed to be funny. My father was furious - his neck was super red and his fists clenched and unclenched in unison. He looked like he could easily kick their asses, so I hoped he wouldn’t start a fight.

  “Leave.” I finally heard my papá said. “I don’t know why you’re here but you should leave. Now.” Leather Boy smiled a little and Vest Boy’s grin got wider. Both were becoming a little scary.

  “Mercutio, you know exactly why we’re here,” Vest Boy said. He glanced at me and raised his brow. “Does she?” He gestured back with his chin and my papá and Leather Jacket turned towards me. Vest Boy took a long look at me, kind of hungry-like and sexual. I was uncomfortable but I stood firm, in a fighting stance papá had shown me countless times. But, really, I was just confused as anything. How did this guy know my papá’s name? What did my papá know about them being here? And, uh, yeah, who the hell were they? “I never thought the kid would be a girl, though,” Vest Boy said after staring at me for close to a minute.

  “I know the rules,” my father said. “No dieciocho años,” he added. “No se puede luchar.”

  I couldn’t fight until I was eighteen? What did that even mean? Things were getting super weird and weirder by the minute. What was going on?

  “Una advertencia,” Leather Boy finally spoke. “Para la niña.” A warning for me? How did they know who I was? I was so confused, but Leather Boy grinned a little at that last part. He sounded totally Argentinian. I was so torn because I was a little scared, but I was also really really really attracted to these guys. I obviously shouldn’t have been as attracted to them as I was - my papá’s dislike for them was evident - but I had no idea what was going on and these guys were gorgeous. And they had accents. And did I mention they were gorgeous guys with accents?

  “You warned her now you should go,” my papá said. He was real quiet and I could tell he was a little scared of these guys. Why would he be scared of them? I didn’t have a clue and I was totally lost because these guys were kind of scrawny compared to my dad. My papá wasn’t that big, but he’s fit and muscular and, hello? He was trained in martial arts and was a flipping cage fighter for goodness sake!

  Leather Boy sobered and narrowed his gaze. “No suficiente advertencia,” he said. The warning was insufficient - Leather Boy was more than a little foreboding. His change in mood was more than enough to catch my breath. I didn’t have a clue what was really going on, but I knew my father and I were in danger.

  We were all quiet for nearly a minute. Finally my papá looked at me and had this real pitiful look on his face. “She’s not ready,” he said. He stared at me and I wasn’t sure if he was trying to tell me something or not, but then he looked at the men. “She doesn’t know,” he said.

  It was the guys’ turn to look surprised. They thought over what my dad said and, finally, Vest Boy smiled. “How fast can she run?”

  “No, no!” My father yelled. “Listen to me. Listen to what I’m saying. She’s not been trained for that. She knows nothing of that life.”

  The men looked at me again, obviously not believing my papá. I had no idea what was going on so I just stood there, mouth agape and eyes wide. “You want us to believe that?” Vest Boy said. “A normal teenage girl doesn’t look like that,” he pointed to me - specifically, I could tell, to my biceps. I’ve been training in martial arts since I was an infant, so I was a bit buffer than the average teen, true. That didn’t mean I wanted to fight these guys for no apparent reason, though. I had never even been in a real fight!

  I could tell my papá didn’t know what to say or do. To admit I had some training seemed like a mistake, but papá said I hadn’t been trained for something specific, for “that life.” What “that life” was I had no idea, but I knew this situation was getting progressively worse. As befuddled as I was, papá looked equally terrified.

  Papá glanced from the men back to me. His face was stoic and firm, but his eyes told me we didn’t have much of a chance against these two.

  The men, however, were grinning. Vest Boy nodded to Leather Boy and he took off his glasses. His whole face grinned, but not the you’re-so-cute-go-out-with-me kinda grin that I wished for when I first saw them, more like a I’m-going-to-enjoy-ripping- your-larynx-out kind of grin. Then he looked at me and I gasped. His eyes – no joke – were red. Not bloodshot red, but his actual iris was a bright, bloody red sphere.

  He started taking his jacket off and, suddenly, stopped with it halfway down his arms. Both of the men were looking behind me and their mouths hung open. Their eyes grew wide and they took a step back, obviously terrified of something behind me. I didn’t really want to look, because I thought it was probably like a cougar or a mule deer ready to skewer me or a Javelina about to charge or something that was going to maul me with horns or teeth or hooves. I turned, anyway, and instead of a wild animal I saw a very large, very blonde man holding a crossbow.

  My 17th birthday was turning out remarkably different than how I imagined.

  The blonde giant was terrifying. He loomed above us all. He looked like The Terminator or something, with his jaw set and dark sunglasses on a pale face. Immediately, I was more scared of him than I was of Vest Boy and Leather Boy, because it seemed like I could probably fight those two off but, the Blonde Giant? No flipping way. He was easily six and a half feet tall and his muscles - holy crap, his muscles on top of muscles on top of muscles - bulged and stretched out his black t-shirt and black jeans. He was wearing a belt with a strange insignia on the buckle and he had a long, black tattoo on the back of his forearm, all of which increased his menacing exterior. I couldn’t help but feel he looked slightly familiar, but I was too shocked at the moment to do or say anything.

  “I think it’s about time you boys moved along,” he said. His voice had the slightest tinge of an accent, but it was so light I couldn’t place it. My papá, surprisingly, looked relieved and came over to me and the blonde giant. Vest Boy and Leather Boy stood there, looking dumbfounded. I guess I looked a bit dumbfounded, too, so I could hardly blame them, but at least they seemed to know what was happening. “They send you because you don’t have too many offences with me, huh?” Blonde Giant asked. He narrowed his eyes. “I know whose boy you were,” he growled to Vest Boy. Vest Boy narrowed his gaze and snarled a bit and tightened his fist. Then the Blonde Giant smiled a little and raised the bow towards the men. I seriously thought he was going to shoot them and I cringed in preparation. But, he released the arrow just slightly above Vest Boy’s head, so close that his hair blew from the wind.

  “Okay, okay,” Vest Boy said. “We weren’t going to do anything, anyway. We’ll be leav
ing.” He paused and looked at me. “We’ll meet again, I’m sure.” And then he winked at me.

  Okay, so right when the arrow shot from the crossbow I felt like I had gone so crazy my mind had become completely numb and I was on the verge of blacking out. Everything felt wrong and really scary, like we had just lived through a near-death experience that seemed, on the surface, way less serious than I intrinsically knew it was. And I was totally weirded out by the combination of my papá, the Blonde Giant with a crossbow, and the modelesque forest boys, all of whom discovered my papá and I on a relatively unused trail and they seemed to somehow know us and they planned to do ... what? I hadn’t a clue. All I could do was stand and watch the woods for nearly two minutes after Vest Boy and Leather Boy left, on edge in case they decided to come back.

  Finally, the Blonde Giant broke the silence. “Are you guys okay?”

  That knocked the life into my papá. “Heinrich, you ass,” he started yelling, but he really wasn’t mad. “You couldn’t have come five minutes ago? I almost wet myself!” My father’s serious face faded and he grinned. The Blonde Giant and my papá laughed and playfully punched each other and hugged.

  So, okay, my father knew this guy.

  Weird.

  Way weird.

  Could that day get much weirder? I didn’t think so, unless I give into the urge of the moment and broke down in tears.

  “You’re okay?” The Blonde Giant - Heinrich - asked again. My papá nodded and they looked at me. I know I looked like an idiot, with my mouth hung open and my eyes wide and not really looking at them, but I couldn’t say anything. “Katja? Are you okay? They didn’t hurt you?” Heinrich asked.