Fight Night--Honor Three Excerpt

I've been reading through the Honor series when insomnia hits me, and I've been doing revisions on Honor Three... and I thought I'd share one of my favorite scenes. Unlike most portions of the Honor books, this bit is from the perspective of Callie who just discovered that she's become a vampire. (The vampires in the Honor series are like guardians of humans.) Honor isn't quite a vampire... she's a Shadow Hunter. Anyway, Callie freaks out when she discovers she really has changed into a vampire, so the Master gets Honor there to help her "cope."

I was pretty sure if I sat huddled in the corner of the shower stall that eventually I’d have to wake up. He’d tried to come in to talk to me a few times. It seemed to work to just cover my ears and scrunch my eyes closed.

This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening.

I felt someone else come sit in front of me. Whoever it was… I was pretty sure they’d go away if I didn’t ever talk to them.

That’s when I got flicked in the forehead.

That was just mean.

I could ignore it.

I got flicked again.

“Honor, I don’t really think....,” I heard Cole say just before a door slammed.

“Hey! Princess!” she shouted just as she flicked me again.

I jumped out of my ball and attacked her. I don’t know where the rage came from. I mean, her flicking my head was pretty annoying, but this sort of outdid that. I threw her into shower door, and it shattered.

She got up stiffly and said, “Wow! I never would have guessed you had that in you.”

“HONOR?” Reeve shouted.

“I’m fine! Just tripped,” she said and then slammed me against the shower wall. I felt it crack from the force. “Callie just tripped too.”

“Look! I was ready to be dead! I was planning on being dead today!” I shouted at her. All of the frustration I’d kept bottled up inside me for so many years exploded out of me. I never confronted any of it. I just kept pushing it deeper. “Do you know what it’s like to know you won’t see your twenty-fifth birthday?” I said, pushing up off the wall.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m four years old! I woke up in a field NAKED four years ago where I grew out of the ground. I’ve been chased by every version of hell on the market since then. Every morning I was a little surprised to be alive. Most Shadow Hunters probably don’t even make it to their fourth birthday.”

“My heart stopped beating today, and I’m still here! I don’t even know if I have a heart anymore! I feel like a freak!”

“YEAH? Let me go cry a little in your corner!” she shouted back.

It happened so fast it was nearly reflex. I kicked her in the stomach. She slammed against the wall near the door. Honor shook her head, dove, and grabbed my leg out from under me. I hit the ground with a crack.

Oh… it was on.

She stood over me with her hands on her hips.

“Now! You’re going to need to buck up, Buttercup, because you have everything I’ve ever wanted and seeing you cry about it just really, really, really chaps my hide.”

I swept her leg out from under her. “You listen to me, Rambo! My mother is dead. My father ran out on us when I was a kid. I was finally doing well. I was about to finish my Doctorate in Medieval Studies. Then, I went in for some routine testing….”

“Buh blah blah blah…. What on earth were you going to do with a freaking doctorate in something that happened eight hundred years ago?” she said, using her hands to make ‘yakkity yak’ signs.

I dove at her, and we rolled across the floor a few times.

There was more pounding on the door.

“GO AWAY!” we both shouted at once.

She ended up on top, and she hit my head into the floor. “Do you know what happened to me? I was kidnapped….” Bang! My head hit the floor. “He was planning on killing me!” Bang! “He promised to rip me to shreds with his teeth and drink a toast to me with my blood!” Bang! “You’re whining about not finishing a thesis? You spoiled….”

I kicked her off me, and she slammed back inside the shower and hit the wall where I had a little bit ago.

I got to my feet and said offhand, “You’re still alive! So, clearly, you didn’t get toasted or have your entrails kicked about!”

She dropped into a crouch with snarl. “I spent the night in a freaking beaver lodge. I’ve never stayed more than four months in a place anywhere other than L.A. where Shifts ate my roommate because she borrowed my coat. So, once again… Sell your sob story to someone who has had a family… or a life… or a home!”

“This was your life, though! I stopped to help a guy who looked like a horror flick, and he kissed me and now I’m this freak who eats wolves.” I picked up a bar of soap and threw it at her. She caught it easily.

Honor looked at the soap and looked at me with a clear expression of “Are you kidding me? We’re throwing soap?”

I shrugged. Sometimes you worked with what was available.

She tossed the soap up in the air once and shouted, “So! Have you taken a look at the other freaks who eat wolves? Wolf does a body good, chick!” She beamed me in the head with the soap. Wow. She had good aim. “I was about to make it to step 3 with one of them, and I got called back here to deal with your little mental breakdown!” Honor yanked the towel bar on the shower stall door free and hit it against her hand. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get a little privacy around here?” She slammed the towel bar against the wall. “Did you hear that, all of you out there? Of course you did! You always do! Because there is no freaking privacy! I live in a FISHBOWL surrounded by vampires!”

I grabbed the towel rod off the wall. I wasn’t sure how well I could use a towel rod as a staff, but I was just about to find out.

Suddenly, a scent assailed my senses, and my eyes watered from the strength. It wasn’t bad, but it smelled a little like cooking with honey.

“What’s that smell?” I asked. “It smells sweet, rusty, and hot.”

“Probably my back,” she said blandly, tossing the towel bar into the corner. “I cut it pretty bad when you slammed me through the shower door. I think your guy just had to call in reinforcements to restrain Reeve so he didn’t come see why I’m bleeding all over.”

All the fight went out of me in a whoosh. For some reason, it had never occurred to me that she might be hurt.

“My guy?” I asked, dropping the towel rod and getting the towel from it wet.

“Yeah. The Master is completely sweet on you. It’s gooey and disgusting.” She turned, pulling her off her shirt.

“HOLY COW! Why didn’t you tell me you were so hurt?” I asked. There were deep gouges all over her back.

“Are you kidding? That was a lot of fun! I feel a lot better. It was hilarious when the soap nearly knocked you off your feet.” She laughed loudly and actually snorted.

I giggled. “That was really hilarious. When you grabbed my leg that first time, it was awesome.” I blotted the blood on her back. “I’m sorry those monster things killed your room mate.”

“Pamela. Her name was Pamela. You remind me of her. She was a girly girl too. I think you’re more ambitious and intelligent, but she never slammed me through a shower door.”

“Maybe given time,” I suggested and then I realized I was crying.

She turned and started crying too. “I’m sorry that your life changed so much. I was shocked by all this, and I already had been seeing Shifts for years.”

I rubbed at my tears. “The guy that was going to drink your blood? Is he dead? We could go kill him together.”

She sniffed and said, “Really? I’ve never had anyone say that to me before….”

I sniffed and nodded. “That was really wrong.”

She shook her head and said, “It totally was. He is gone, though. I had the earth eat him. It was cool. I can teach you how to aim better,” she said, looking down at the soap.

“Really?” I looked down at the soap. “I've never thrown soap before. It was slippery.”