I learned to figuratively and literally roll with the punches.
Very little managed to spark anger.
And the idea of anxiety was a foreign thing.
Until Freddie came along.
Until it wasn't, for the first time, just my life who my actions impacted.
Suddenly, all my mind was filled with was these asinine worst-case-scenario fears.
Like what would happen if we were raided and she was in the clubhouse. Guns and illegal money. She could be pulled in and charged. Go to prison again.
I wouldn't be able to fucking live with myself if that happened, if I did to her what her ex had, took more of her life away.
Or what would happen if there was some new, unknown enemy in the shadows, catching me and her walking down the street unaware sometime, popping out of a dark alley with a gun.
What might they do to her to make me pay?
What if this went where I had a sneaking suspicion this was heading - meaning somewhere serious - and we did the house and the ring and the kid thing. And I caught a bullet like my old man did, leaving her on her own with kids to raise?
It was constant.
And, thus far, uncontrollable.
I wanted to think I could be all she'd need. That I could shield her from anything. But that was my ego speaking. The reality was, she did need to be prepared, trained, capable of defending herself.
She was right.
Aside from some of the women who trained her, there was no one more prepared for any situation than Ferryn. Yes, she was still taken, plucked up off the streets like an untold number of women who would never be seen again save for when they were drugged and raped by John after John.
Nothing could stop bad from happening sometimes.
But time spent training for any situation meant you had a chance of surviving it, getting free of it.
Like Ferryn had.
If I was going to pull Freddie into my life, I owed it to her to give her every skill I possibly could.
No matter how much I didn't like the idea of putting my hands on her in a way that would leave marks.
"Okay," I agreed, nodding, watching as her eyes went wide.
"Okay?" she asked, clearly thinking I was going to make her beg.
"Yep. Rule number one..." I started, but then charged at her, grabbing her arm, twisting her around, anchoring an arm around her middle, yanking her up off her feet. "You gotta be prepared for anything," I told her as she kicked her legs straight out. Like most people would do in the same position. "Don't pick up your legs," I told her, dropping her down so her soles touched the ground again. "Use all your momentum to kick off the ground, shoot yourself upward. If you do it soon enough and with enough force, you can break a man's hold. Then it is an elbow to the midsection," I told her, waiting for her to twist to demonstrate. "And, finally, a couple hard-as-fuck closed fists to the cock. Then you haul ass away."
This was stuff the girls would teach her once she was fully adopted in. She'd be dragged up to Hailstorm, be put in every possible situation. Grab from behind. Chokehold. Hair grab. Wrist grab. Rape position.
Then once she managed to break away from whoever was teaching her, someone else would step up. Then another. And another. Until she bested them all. Then and only then was she deemed trained.
And by then, there would likely be another new girl in the club to train.
An hour later, her tee was damp with sweat, her breathing harsh, hard, her eyes frustrated, but determined, as I slammed her back against the floor in the rec room - or whatever the fuck Reign wanted to call the room that was supposed to house all the prospects that we had co-opted to use for this session - trying not to wince at the crack of her body on the hard floor.
My hands circled her wrists, pinned up above her head on the floor, my upper body curved over hers, the only part of us touching being my pelvis crushing hers down.
The move was simple.
She'd done it a dozen times already with varying levels of success.
She needed to pull up her legs, knees to chest, press her feet into my hipbones with force, enough to shoot pain through my system, make me let her wrists go, allow her more range of motion to keep hitting, kicking, get me down so she could get up and run.
Her feet lifted up off the floor.
But paused, lifted up too high, wrapping around my lower back, clamping tight as her hips lifted up, doing a roll, grinding up against me.
Surprised, caught off-guard, my hands loosened.
Just enough for her hands to slide out.
It happened too fast for me even to react.