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“Again,” Helena says. Sarah turns her back on Helena, paces back across Alison’s patio, heaves for breath. It’s hot – sweat is streaming down her spine, her muscles ache. She fell onto the concrete a few rounds back and jarred her elbow and mostly she wants to just lie down and sleep.
But Helena said again, so Sarah goes again. Pressure point on the shoulder (Helena had called it a soft place but Sarah doesn’t think that’s the word for it) that she goes for with a knife-hand strike, block, Sarah ducks under the block, bends Helena’s arm back but Helena is moving, Sarah’s arm bending the wrong way and Helena trying to sweep Sarah off her feet – Sarah correcting – too much to control—
She hits the grass. Above her the sky is neon blue, like the dregs of a Slurpee. Helena stands over her and watches, face perfectly blank. She sways on her feet.
“You should have blocked,” she says. “Turn your hips. Bend my fingers.”
“I know,” Sarah says from the grass. She heaves for breath a bit. Her arm aches dully from where Helena had bent it back. “Shite,” she breathes, and closes her eyes. Somewhere in suburbia a lawnmower is going, the sound a low purring hum in the edge of her hearing.
“Can we take a break?” she hears herself say. “We already know how the next hour’s gonna go, yeah? You’re gonna knock me on my arse and I’m gonna stay down.”
“No breaks,” Helena says, fast, and when Sarah opens her eyes her face is a house closed down – drawn blinds, locked doors. “Breaks make you weak.”
“Helena,” Sarah says. She reaches out to nudge Helena’s leg with her hand but Helena stops, crouches, bends Sarah’s fingers—
Stops. The lights turn on. She drops Sarah’s hand. “Oh,” she says, and “oh,” and “oh,” and “sorry.” She scrambles to her feet and stumbles back. Sarah rolls into a sitting position, splays her hands out.
“Break,” she says.
“Broke,” Helena says. “I mean.” She knocks knuckles against her skull. “I. Um. Sorry. Maybe we should – stop. Doing this.”
“Can you help me up?” Sarah says. Helena stands there, radiating anxious anguish. Sarah holds out her hands patiently until Helena steps forward and pulls Sarah to her feet. “There y’go,” Sarah says. She claps Helena on the back, once, stumbles a few steps. “Ow. Shite.”
“Sorry,” Helena says. Sarah pulls open the sliding door and steps into the house. It’s beautifully cool, the air silent and pristine. She makes her way to the fridge to raid it. Helena trails behind her. Sarah pours herself water, pours Helena water, slumps against the fridge and lets herself collapse so she’s sitting down.
“Well,” she says. “Assassin fighting lessons on hold, maybe, yeah?”
Helena sits down on the floor next to her, carefully puts her glass of water on the ground. “I thought,” she says, and stops. Say a whole damn sentence, Sarah thinks; she takes a drink of water instead of saying it, pretends that Helena’s guilt doesn’t make her want to run marathons or actually put those lessons to use.
“I wanted,” Helena says. “I thought I could. Because I am better now. But – but. Your face. And. The fighting. And the sun. I don’t.” When Sarah looks over her sister is smearing her hands all over her face, like she can press her head back into a shape that’s familiar to her. Sarah drains her glass of water and puts it down, carefully puts a hand on Helena’s shoulder.
“It’s alright,” she says. “We’re fine, doesn’t mean you’re not better.”
“I should be good,” Helena says. “At this. I know how to make fights. I want to help. What if you are in a fight, and you can do nothing, and I could have helped, but I—”
Sarah can’t help herself: she snorts. Helena’s panicked monologue sputters out and stops. She blinks at Sarah with a look of wounded confusion.
“You think I’ve never won a fight?” Sarah says. Helena keeps blinking at her, rapidly. Sarah leans against the fridge, stretches her legs out. “Helena,” she says. “I’ve been in fights since I was seven years old on the bloody playground. Just ‘cause I don’t know holds ‘n shit doesn’t mean I can’t fight, yeah? You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Oh,” Helena says.
“You ever been in a bar fight?”
“Yes,” Helena says. “I broke a man’s arm and he was very angry with me.”
Sarah laughs, bangs her head against the fridge, winces. “You serious?” she says.
A smile trickles around the edges of Helena’s mouth. “Yes.”
Wait. “That the one that got you sent to jail?”
The smile twists around itself and goes. “Yes.”
Sarah grabs Helena’s shoulder, shakes her a bit. “You,” she says solemnly, “are a bloody nightmare. We’re going drinking at some point, you got it? I can show you what to do with a glass of bourbon. You can test out some bloody – holds or somethin’. It’ll be good.”
“Will it,” Helena says. “Will it be good.”
“Yeah, meathead,” Sarah says. The words are heavy with some strange weight. “It’ll be good.”
Helena picks up her glass of water and drains it. Then she thunks her head against Alison’s kitchen island. “You were getting better,” she says. “Only you are not so good at making guards, I think.”
“Believe me, I know,” Sarah sighs. “Learned that lesson too many bloody times. You wouldn’t believe some of the black eyes I’ve had.”
“Make your arms…” Helena says, and then trails off. She sighs through her lips, pbbpbt. “I don’t know,” she says. “No more assassin fighting lessons.”
“Thank god,” Sarah says emphatically. “Dunno if I could’ve taken another hour, to be honest.”
“Mm.”
“What the hell are we gonna do ‘til Alison gets back.”
“I have plan,” Helena says. “We take food from fridge, and eat it, and watch movies.”
“That plan require standing up?”
“Yes.”
“Then no.”
Sarah watches as Helena stands up, stretches, rocks on her feet a few times. “Up,” she says.
“No thanks.”
“Up.”
“No,” Sarah says, and closes her eyes. “You broke my bloody fingers, you suffer the bloody consequences.”
“I did not even sprain your fingers,” Helena says. She nudges Sarah in the thigh with her foot. “Stand up, I want to see what is in sestra Alison’s refrigerator.”
Sarah groans and makes her way to her feet. She leans back against the counter. Helena opens the fridge and her eyes immediately fall on the remains of an enormous cake. She looks at the cake. She looks at Sarah.
“Helena,” Sarah says, “if you don’t take the bloody cake I will.”
Helena grins, enormous and sharp. She reaches out and grabs the cake.