Senshi (A Katana Novel) by Cole Gibsen Page A

flashed through his eyes and I fought the urge to squirm underneath his gaze. I knew this look. It meant things were about to get interesting. I tossed back my shoulders, dipped my chin, and narrowed my eyes … right before I punched his face. Or at least I tried to, but he dropped into a crouch seconds before my swinging fist would have connected with his chin.
    He laughed as he stood. “You’d really rather fight than talk about what happened?” Before I could answer, he settled his weight on his back foot and lashed out a front kick with his other.
    The hair that stood out from my ponytail tickled my scalp as his foot brushed past. “Talking is overrated.” I ducked low and swept my leg behind Kim’s legs, knocking his feet out from under him.
    Rather than land on his back, he lifted his arms over his shoulders, touched down on his hands, and used the momentum to swing back to his feet.
    “Hey!” Michelle called from across the field. She ran toward us, stuffing her red curls inside a rubber band. “No fair starting without us!”
    “Who’s starting?” I asked. “Kim and I were just having a friendly discussion.”
    “ Riiiight ,” Braden said, jogging to Michelle’s side. “Nothing says How have you been? like a punch in the face.” He pushed a stray lock of auburn hair beneath a bandana.
    “Which reminds me.” I held my hands up in a fight stance and motioned him closer with my fingers. “I haven’t had a chance to say hello to you yet, Braden.”
    “Funny.” He rolled his eyes but didn’t move.
    “So how are we going to do this?” Michelle bounced from foot to foot. “Teams?”
    “Great idea,” Braden told her. “I’ll be on a team with you and Rileigh. We should do shirts versus skins, and as an official representative for our team, I call dibs on skins.” He whipped his shirt off and tossed it to the ground and flashed us an innocent look. “What are you waiting for?”
    Both Michelle and I groaned.
    “Wait for us!” Drew yelled from his spot in the shade. He and Quentin trotted over and took their positions on either side of Kim.
    At Kim’s signal we met in the middle in a whirlwind of fists and kicks. To an onlooker it might have looked like we were actually trying to kick each others’ teeth in. In reality, each calculated move was softened in the event of impact. Each punch carried with it an opportunity to learn, each kick a chance to reinforce what was already known.
    And that was why, despite refusing the past for so long, sparring with the other samurai was one of the few occasions my skin seemed to fit my body. Most of the time I felt trapped inside myself—buried beneath layers of blood, bone, and tissue. Suffocated. But when I fought, I could hear the thrum of my heartbeat, taste the sweetness of adrenaline, and feel the pulse of my blood as it buzzed through my muscles like a jolt of electricity. As someone who could remember the tight, hollow feeling of her dying breath, I craved my living moments like a starving girl sinking her teeth into an apple.
    “I’m out!” Braden stumbled away from the group to a nearby tree, which he used to lower himself to the ground. He draped an arm over his face, his chest heaving sporadically. “Holy hell, I’m gonna be sore tomorrow.”
    Quentin flopped on the ground beside him. “I’m so with you.”
    Drew propped an arm against the tree and used the edge of his T-shirt to wipe the streams of sweat along his temples. “Me too.”
    Michelle hunched over with her hands braced on her knees. “Me three.” There was a hint of a wheeze between her words. “How long have we been going at it? Twenty minutes? It feels like twenty hours.”
    I had no idea. I only knew that my body hummed in excited waves, a feeling I wanted to cling to for as long as I could before the exhaustion set in. “Go ahead, you guys. I’m not done with Kim yet.”
    Braden made annoying kissing noises while Michelle giggled.
    “Fine with me,” Kim said.