A Parthan Summer, Julie Steimle [best ereader for pdf TXT] 📗

backward into the bush as Zormna marched into the clearing, assessing the scene before her. Jeff Streigle was heavily bruised and bleeding. Held against a tree, his head hung down as his chest heaved for breath. His shoulders and neck strained as his arms struggled to break himself free from the two holding him there. Damon pummeled into Jeff with his fists.

A thousand sensations flooded over Zormna as she saw this. The first sent her charging at Damon with one flying kick.

“Oh!” Joy screamed, lifting her hands over her face. She watched Zormna spring at Aaron next, who stared in shock at Damon’s unexpected collapse.

Zormna’s fist connected with Aaron’s jaw, sending him reeling backward—though his hands had not quite let go of Jeff’s arm. The other two boys wrenched around the tree with him. Zormna latched onto Aaron’s grip on Jeff’s arm and dug her nails into his hand while ramming him in the gut with her heel.

He let go and toppled over.

Joe yanked Jeff aside, throwing him to the ground. His fists clenched when Zormna wheeled around to face him. She had felt Jeff’s arm slip from her hand. Delivering a roundhouse kick into the side of Joe’s head, he flopped to the earth.

Lifting her chin with a look over the clearing at the boys, Zormna surveyed the damage.

Joy hopped over to where Jeff was, straining to lift himself off the ground. “Are you ok?”

He drew in a breath, his eyes cracking painfully open through bruises with a gasp, waving for just a moment to catch his breath. As he did so, Damon stumbled back to his feet, and so did the Monroe boy who had been guarding at the bushes. Aaron also started to rise, glaring at the tiny Pennington cheerleader who now stood in center of the clearing with her fists clenched, a murderous look on her face and her feet set like Bruce Lee. She was fully prepared to continue the fight.

The boy who had been on guard abruptly sprang through the shrubbery, running from them up the rock and away.

Joy popped up her head and stared after him.

“Go,” Jeff wheezed out to Joy.

She jumped to her feet, nodding. “I’ll go get help.”

And she darted off as if to race that wrestler back to camp.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Damon shook his head at Zormna. “What are you interfering for? You hate him, don’t you?”

Zormna lifted her eyes, glancing once at Jeff. “That is none of your business.”

“This fight is none of your business, you b—”

“Fight?” Zormna snapped, infuriate at being called a dirty word. “That didn’t look like a fight. But if you want a fight, fight me.”

“You’re a girl!” Damon stepped back from her, waving at her as if to shoo her off.

Jeff grabbed his head and tried to crawl off to the side of the clearing. He sat up, squinting at them through swollen eyes.

Both Joe and Aaron looked over at him.

Clenching her fists tighter, Zormna’s eyes narrowed into slits. “That’s never stopped me before.”

But Damon snorted and turned to take his frustrations out on Jeff again.

Zormna sprang in between. “Hands off!”

Joe and Aaron rushed up to get her out of the way. Yet, Zormna twisted back, kicking Joe into Aaron. Then she flipped back into her first task of keeping Damon off of her ridiculously wounded ‘bodyguard’. She put herself right in front of Damon—between him and Jeff.

Damon feinted right then left to get around her. But she swiped her foot under the thick-necked wrestler, knocking him off balance. And though he tried to catch himself, she kicked another blow into his side. Then she threw him to the ground and pounced.

It was not her weight or even the strength of her grip that heavily pinned him there to the dirty pine earth. It was the severe pinching of nerves that shot down his spine and made his arms ache with the disturbing comprehension that she could break them off one by one if she really wanted to. Her voice hissed in his ear with an uncommon disgust. “Do you want to get close now? Because this is as intimate as I get with men. Do you understand?”

Damon clamped his teeth together, struggling to get free against the mortifyingly tiny cheerleader’s hold. No good, though. With his cheek forcibly pressed into the dirt, he could barely even lift up his head let alone his chest.

She said before letting up. “When you take on Jafarr, you take on me. Understand?”

The words echoed like a surreal nightmare into the wrestler’s head. Her light airy Irish trill was just another reminder that he was flattened by a five-foot tall cheerleader. It was too absurd to be real.

She rose off of his back and stepped next to where Jeff was attempting to gather his bearings after such a beating. Damon found it impossible to meet her eyes when he righted himself.

Aaron and Joe were already on their feet, though they were now hesitant to go at Jeff again. They didn’t even dare get near Zormna Clendar.

Brushing off his shorts and legs again, Damon lifted his chin, squaring his jaw as he attempted to regain his dignity. “I told you, my fight isn’t with you. It is with Streigle here!” 

Aaron and Joe waited for Damon to act. They still didn’t dare move against her.

“And I told you,” Zormna snapped in response. “You pick a fight with him, then you pick a fight with me.” 

Jeff laughed, drawing his arm across his stomach with a wince for each chuckle. He propped himself against the nearest pine tree, leaning back.

“Why are you laughing?” she said without looking back at him.

Jeff replied, “I can’t help it. It is a knee jerk reaction to humiliation.”

“Humiliation?” Zormna huffed. “Give me a break, I thought you were more mentally advanced than these thugs.”

He muttered. “But I was supposed to be the bodyguard.”

“I told you I didn’t need one,” she replied.

 He chuckled, muttering under his breath, “Al orn veed’orn sa.”

“Del’rein smeshral’kai Jafarr.”

Jeff laughed even more in spite of her glares and his pains.

“What the heck are you saying? That ain’t English!” Damon shouted out at the both of them, looking from Jeff to Zormna.

Jeff set his hand to his head and moaned with a pain that seemed more like he was embarrassed. “So what. It wasn’t meant for you anyway.”

“I’ll kick your—” Damon stepped forward.

Zormna stepped in between to take him on.

“Doubtful,” Jeff replied with a chuckle. “Though I’m sure Zormna would love to kick your butt all day if you want to keep trying.”

Damon looked from Zormna to Jeff and back again. But instead of attempting another attack, he stomping towards the trail. He pointed at Jeff with his fist, flexing his muscle as if that could menace the small blonde by the size of the veins in his arms. “This isn’t over yet, Jeffey boy.”

“Yes, it is.” Zormna snapped back, more than ready for that fight.

Stuck between vindictive rage at Jeff and fear at further humiliation, Damon yelled at her. “He broke my friend’s leg! Do you think I can just let him get away with it?”

Zormna peeked at Jeff, shrugged, and replied, “So? I’ll break yours if you keep this up.”

Damon backed away from her, going into the bushes. “You’re psycho.” 

He and his friend hurried out of the clearing. They darted up the path and hurried away as if Zormna would hunt them down and devour them if they stopped.

Zormna lowered her fists as soon as they were out of sight.

She walked back to Jeff and crouched next to him. Shaking her head, she said, “How did he get the jump on you? You’ve been cornered by worse people than that idiot.”

Huffing, she shook her head and unscrewed her water bottle, peering at where his face was already swelling. She pawed his bruises and turned his chin with her thin fingers.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Jeff muttered, groaning while trying to sit up straighter.

Zormna searched around herself for something to use as a rag. Taking the corner of her overlarge cheer tee-shirt, she dumped some of her water on it then started to dab his split lip. “Some protector you turned out to be.”

He looked up with his least bruised eye, chuckling and wincing at the same time. “Yeah, well, I try hard to please.”

Zormna painfully laughed, wiping up his blood. She then tore the edge of her shirt for a rag. She soaked it with the water and treated his wounds.

After some silence, Jeff said, “Thanks…for saying what you said.”

“Saying what?” she muttered, now dabbing his split lip.

“I dunno,” he muttered. “Just that wouldn’t you leave me here to die.”

She stared. “Why would I?”

Chuckling more, he said, “Our history.”

Frowning, she continued to dab his wounds, washing the worst ones off. “The past is the past. And it is past. We’re allies now, right?”

He snorted. “Yeah.”

“So,” she said, helping him sit up. “We help each other.”

Jeff stroked his head. “Thank heaven for that…”

She sat back. “You helped me yesterday.”

“Did I?” He stared back.

Zormna nodded. “Yeah. It was like you took the headache away.”

He stared more.

“So, we’re going to do more than just pretend to become friends,” she said. “Right?”

Jeff blinked at her, still staring, as she honestly amazed him.

“I mean, we’re going to let go of the past now, right?” she said.

Jeff closed his eyes. “Are you begging me to?”

Groaning, Zormna rose to her feet. She offered him a hand to help him rise also. “Well, sometimes you keep glaring at me as if it was my fault everything in your life was so awful.” Her cheeks flushed as if she were ashamed of their past encounters. “But our situation was different back then. I didn’t know who you were—not really.”

“What did you think I was?” Jeff murmured, trying to sit up.

Zormna took out the pill bottle she had gotten the day before and handed it to him. “An enemy.”

Chuckling again, Jeff nodded, taking the pill bottle and prying it open. “Well, at the time we were enemies. You delivered me to prison once to get beaten up.”

“I didn’t know then that—” She cut in, her voice rising.

“That they beat people up in ISIC? That I was someone they wanted information from?” His voice rose also as he lifted the lid. He dumped out two aspirins into his palm. “You saw me on the PM lists. I’m sure you knew what kind of people they were.”

“Look!” She snapped back, rising to her feet. “I’m sorry! Ok? It wasn’t like I had a vendetta against you!”

“Oh yeah? Then why did you keep a look out for me?” he said.

“I wasn’t! You kept stealing ships that belonged to me and in my district, on my watch! What was I supposed to do? I was a soldier! It was my duty!” She clenched her fists.

“Give me a break!” Jeff threw back his head and shook it, rising though he leaned on the tree for balance. “It was my duty. It wasn’t your duty in Sandi’s restaurant to tackle me. I knew you weren’t on duty when you grabbed me on the surface that one time.”

“Of all the…” She rolled her eyes at him. “A Surface Patrol officer’s duty is always to—”

He stuck his tongue out at her. “That’s what I think of your duty. Every day when I look in the mirror, I see what your duty does to people.”

Zormna immediately went silent.

He took a step from the tree, staggered, then leaned on it again, realizing that his balance was out of whack. There was no way he could walk on his own back to camp.

Yet Zormna reached over and wrapped her arm around his waist. She whispered. “I didn’t mean to break your nose back then. How many times do I have to say it was an accident?”

Jeff stared at her for a moment, then huffed. However, he let her help him walk through the bushes, then up the rock.  

Zormna’s voice only rose a little as she added defensively,