Come Out Swinging (Reach for the Moon Book 2) by Sam Hall (sight word readers TXT) 📕

spring off again. Faster and faster I went, my breath coming in harder, sweat starting to trickle down the side of my face, my focus narrowing down to just this, just the machinery of my body working until I heard it. My hand slapped down on the stop button, my feet going to treadmill guards as I turned around to see my cousin standing there.

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I tried to stay quiet.”

“Hey, are you OK?”

“Can’t sleep. Slept most of the car ride but… You…you’re fast and strong now.”

I smiled through my pants, unable to stop the flush of pride. Shifters were naturally strong, but I’d been able to refine and augment it.

“Did you want to have a go?” I asked, stepping off the machine. “It’s pretty simple. You start slow, just walking at first.”

“Yeah?” she said. “I…”

I knew what she was about to do, as I saw it all the time. People tried to talk themselves out of trying new things, fearing the risk, and it was my job to encourage them to try.

“Look, just come and stand on one, see how that feels. It’ll be weird at first. Wolves, we’re used to running on dirt, but it’s not a bad substitute. No cars, no stupid dudes catcalling like they do when you run in the city.” Her eyes flicked between me and the machine, and then she took the first step. “Awesome! Now grab the handlebars. There are controls there, but we probably won’t worry about them yet. I run without holding on, but it’s not a bad idea to do that first up. The balance, the pull of the belt, it’s all a bit different to what you’re used to, so they give you a bit of security. All right, I’ll just set it at a slow walking pace—”

“Are you sure?”

That hurt, to see the reticence on Bridget’s face. Old Bridge would have jumped on, turned it up to eleven, and then laughed like a drain when she face-planted. Then she would’ve gotten straight back on again. I grabbed a magnetic kill switch. It was a small magnet that was attached to a clip, and if you pulled it away from the machine, it stopped dead. I explained this to her and checked to see if she was OK, then started the treadmill.

“Oh!” she said, her hands clamping down on the arms as the belt began to move, but she went with it, finding her balance quickly.

I saw it when her stride got more confident and sure, when the natural rhythms of her body and the machine synced. She smiled as her pace began to pick up, so I showed her how to increase the speed of the machine, both on the main display and on the arms. She tentatively ramped it up, walking a little faster, then upped the speed once, twice, three times until she was starting to jog. I nodded and then got back on my own treadmill. I felt a weird sense of camaraderie settle over us as we ran, each at our own pace, but for the moment, we were just here, present.

“Jesus…” Bridge hissed when we were both finished. I tossed her a towel from the pile, and we wiped the sweat away. “I thought I was a pretty good runner!”

“If you shifted, you could probably outpace me, but you have to strengthen this body as well if you’re serious about self-defence.”

She stilled, her smile fading, but she nodded. “I’m serious. I’m not copping a beatdown like that ever again. Mum always used to whinge about how your dad trained you to use guns and stuff, but now I see it. He was preparing you for this.” Her eyes were hazy for a second. “He knew, didn’t he?”

“Probably.”

“That Mum put the hit on him?”

I swallowed, tossing the towel into the dirty clothes basket.

“Probably.”

“Fuck…”

“Yeah, fuck,” I replied, but I squared my shoulders. “I hate that. I hate that he was sitting at his desk in the alpha estate, knowing the knives were coming for him. I hate that he didn’t think he could call me, but…” I shook my head. “But they are the sins of our parents, not us. I couldn’t move forward if I got caught up in them and neither should you. Cue eighties training montage, Bridge, because we are gonna get strong, get tough, get working and fighting together, and then I’m going back to Lupindorf and cleaning house.”

Her nod was a sharp abrupt thing, so I didn’t expect her to sweep in and hug me. My arms went around her though, holding her close.

“This eighties montage, will there be plenty of gratuitously hot dudes working out in the background because…?”

There was.

The next morning, after the usually austere breakfast of protein shakes and fruit—“We’ve been eating shit for weeks, Paige,” Zack had growled—I took my cousin downstairs as the guys loped off to Maccas to get their usual fare of grease and carbs. When I unlocked the doors bright and early, I was gratified to see a lot of our clients were back.

“Hey, beautiful girl,” one of the guys said as he walked in the door. “Zack told us about your dad. Condolences.”

The response was fairly basic, but there was an awkward sincerity there. Guys that came to the gym, they were mostly nice dudes, but expressing finer feelings? The others said much the same as they filed in.

“Who’s your offsider?” Gavin, a big burly kangaroo shifter asked as I steered Bridget towards the counter. I was going to train her in how to man it while I worked with my mates. His smile was broad, cheeky, but it faltered when she looked up. I saw it, the flare of something hot in those pale blue eyes, standing out starkly against the ruddy brown of his skin. They catalogued every bruise like it was somehow an affront to him personally.

But that wasn’t the way Bridget saw it. I saw the fragile confidence she’d found this morning falter, saw