Bleeding Shadows

Chapter 15

Audrey's fist flew towards me at half the speed of sound. Almost too fast for human eyes to follow its graceful arc through the air.

Just as quickly I blocked and countered her, flipping Audrey over onto her back. I swear I heard the concrete under the crash mat crack beneath the force of the flip.

Audrey expelled her breath on impact, then slowly drew in air once she'd settled. The pain from her broken bones mending in under 10 seconds as my healing abilities went to work on her.

"You're getting better with your techniques Vi." Audrey noted as I held out my hand to help her up.

"Thank you." I replied, while relaxing the concentration needed to grant Audrey 50% of my full power temporarily.

To backtrack a bit, almost a month ago we all agreed to move and head to university. Shortly after that, Audrey suggested that we all needed to become familiar with fighting with a vampires strength and speed.

So we found an old pool that hadn't had water in it for a long time and lined it with crash mats. From then on we started training with each participant holding 50% of my full power. It really was different trying to fight at such speeds and strength.

Audrey was training both Leah and myself. I must admit, it was weird granting them both 50% of my power and therefore leaving myself as a normal human for the course of their training. I'd become used to my new body and powers without even realizing it.

However, when Audrey tried to face off with Jamie in the Training Pit, as we called it, she was beaten almost instantly. It was funny to watch considering Audrey couldn't land a strike on Jamie at all.

But the upside of all this training is Audrey and I had managed to get back some respect for each other. Slow progress is still progress. At least we can have a normal conversation that's not forced.

Leah and Audrey also announced that they're dating, which came as no surprise to anyone that had spend any sort of time around them recently.

I also knew that Mia and her boyfriend were having troubles when she decided to come with us to the middle of Melbourne, four hours away. I'm not sure if they're still together and going to try a long distance relationship or if they've broken it off.

All I know for sure is that those two have trouble in paradise and I feel bad for putting Mia in that situation. Even though she had reassured me that no boy was worth her entire future and if her boyfriend couldn't accept that then she wasn't sure that he truly loved her.

"Love is complicated." I thought, shuddering.

I heard murmuring coming from the crowd that had formed along the top of the Training Pit to watch us train at stupidly fast speeds. Speeds that a human would never be able to achieve.

"That's my win so hand the money over." was a phrase that particularly caught my interest.

"Could you excuse me for a second?" I asked Audrey, who was still recovering somewhat from my counter flip.

"Sure." she replied. I casually picked up a rock, took aim and threw it as hard as I could at the cash that was currently changing hands. It disappeared with the rock, well beyond the walls of the compound, and a small boom in the distance announced that they had exceeded the speed of sound.

I addressed the now stunned crowd. "If anyone else want to bet on our practice then this is the time to come forward. But I warn you, next time I might miss and take your bored little head off instead."

The crowd instantly dissipated like smoke and Audrey sat in the middle of the now deserted training area laughing her ass off.

I helped Audrey up from what would most likely be our final training session in the compound in the foreseeable future. We were moving in a couple of days and everyone would be packing after tonight.