How to Save the World by Lexie Dunne Read Free Book Online Page B

Angélica, who’d been weirdly silent. She gave me a shrug.
    â€œSure, I guess,” I said. I kicked off my shoes and hauled myself over the ropes in one easy motion. I’d sparred with Jessie before, the second time she’d dropped by to scope out the Power House. The first time Jessie had dropped by, it had been a shock. After all, Angélica’s gym was small-­time, and Jessie was the Raptor, one of the scariest ­people I knew. I still had no idea what her powers were. At least sparring with her would give me another chance to figure it out.
    Angélica surprised me by jumping up on the edge of the ring and grabbing my hoodie, tugging me back to the ropes. “Remember, it’s just sparring. Pull your punches.”
    â€œYes, Mr. Miyagi.”
    She cuffed the back of my head and called me a rude word in Portuguese, but she smiled.
    Jessie climbed through the ropes on the other side, movements a little slow. When she didn’t wrap up her hands, I sighed and began to unwrap my own. I preferred gloves on, but Jessie called the shots.
    With anybody else, I might have made a crack about the loser buying the beer. I wasn’t nearly that comfortable with the Raptor.
    â€œSo what are you avoiding, Ms. Godwin?” Jessie asked.
    â€œYou really can just call me Gail, you know. I don’t mind.”
    Jessie only gave me a small ghost of a smile.
    â€œI’m avoiding being having to repeatedly jump off a roof for three hours with nothing to show for it but a lot of bruises,” I said, watching her stretch. “It seems the powers I absorb I can only use subconsciously. And maybe that’s for the best, really.”
    â€œA warrior never turns down an opportunity to better herself.”
    â€œI’m an assistant editor,” I said. That had been my official job title before my inadvertent hiatus while I’d been in prison, anyway. We hadn’t really negotiated the new details.
    â€œEven so.” Jessie folded one hand over the other, clasped in front of her, and bowed shortly at the waist.
    I returned the bow, and had to duck very quickly as she attacked almost immediately. I heard the whistle of air over my head as her fist missed me, and then I was too busy dodging and blocking to do much but focus on fighting off the next blow. As ever, she fought in vicious spurts. She laid into me with a flurry of kicks and hits that I blocked (for the most part), then swung out when I tried to jab back at her. In a flash, she yanked the hood of my sweatshirt over my eyes.
    â€œDammit!”
    Her foot snapped into my solar plexus, forcing me back onto the ropes. I didn’t bother to shove the hood off my face; my hearing picked her up perfectly as she followed that up with a haymaker. I closed my eyes and sidestepped. I heard her jump back as I tried a roundhouse kick. She landed oddly heavily for a woman who was one of the best martial artists in the world.
    When I tried to yank the hood off, it didn’t budge.
    â€œWhat did you do to me?” I asked.
    â€œEvening the odds. No rules in the ring, remember?”
    â€œStacking the odds, you mean.” I grumbled a few obscenities. It wasn’t the first time I’d had to fight blind. Hell. The last person to make me do that—­Jessie’s mother, Rita Detmer—­hadn’t nearly been this nice about it. I didn’t bother trying to fix the hood anymore. It seemed wiser to focus on listening to her.
    For a minute or two, I even held my own. But a crackle of static caught me off guard, something slammed into my midsection and zapped hard, and she had me in a headlock.
    â€œUgh,” I said, reaching out blindly to tap out.
    When she released whatever sticking formula she’d used to glue my hood over my face and I could see again, I looked up into her grinning face. “Are you ever going to fight fair?”
    â€œIf it gets my ass kicked, no. Are you ever going to stop whining