Where Loyalties Lie

7

“I think we’ll work on defending a chokehold attack from behind.” I could have picked any number of techniques to work on—ones that would be far less … intimate—but I wanted to see how she responded in an uncomfortable situation. Something about her reaction to me holding her at gunpoint made me want to test her limits. To see if she’d react similarly in other stressful simulations or if the incident had been a fluke. My curiosity had gotten the better of me, which didn’t happen often. I motioned her to the mirrored wall and placed a folded mat next to us. “We’re going to practice what to do when an attacker places you in a rear chokehold. The best way to show you, since I don’t have anyone else here to help me demonstrate, is to reverse our roles.” I positioned myself with my heels against the mat, facing the mirror. “Stand on the mat behind me and bring your arm around my neck.” She bit down on her lip, but it was her only tell at any uncertainty she might have felt. The mat gave her another eight inches of height, which was just enough to line up our shoulders. Her arm snaked across my upper chest, pressing gently against my neck. “Bend your elbow more,” I instructed, using my hands to help position her correctly as I attempted to ignore the press of her breasts against my back. “You want to use the crook of your elbow to pinch at the throat from both sides. Good. Now, the way to get out of this hold is to reach up and back toward the attacker’s face with the hand opposite of where his face is. If his face is over your left shoulder, you reach with your right hand. Scrape down his face to surprise him, then grasp for his thumb. People’s thumbs are rather weak. When you wrench down with the thumb, the wrist will follow and open space between his forearm and your neck. Tuck your chin and twist your head down through that space with all your strength.” I demonstrated the motion, easily pulling free of her grasp. “The second you’re able, swing that outer arm toward his gut in a series of punches, followed by a solid side kick to give you time to run. You see?” She nodded with a growing eagerness, wiping at a bead of sweat that had formed over her brow. Oddly enough, she didn’t use the sweatband on her wrist. It wasn’t the first time I’d noticed the inconsistency. In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her use the red sweatband she always wore to class. Just one of the many idiosyncrasies that could mean absolutely nothing, but still activated my inner alarms, telling me something wasn’t right. I pushed the mat aside and reversed our positions, standing behind her as we both faced the mirror. Time ground to a halt as our eyes met in the reflection. It wasn’t uncommon for female students to look at me with trust and sometimes, desire. Emily’s eyes held quite the opposite—there was caution but also challenge. Did she see through my façade the same way I saw through hers? Surely not, but just the thought had me instantly on edge. My eyes hardened as I wrapped my arm around her throat. “Do you remember what to do?” “I think so.” She swung back with her hand and feigned scraping down my face before attempting to grab my thumb. Her hand lost its grip before she could free herself, and her eyes flew back to mine in the mirror. “Again. You can’t give up trying,” I scolded her more harshly than I should have. “In this hold, you will only have a matter of seconds until loss of oxygen will start to inhibit your brain function. If an attacker grabs you like this, you can’t stop fighting, even for a moment.” She practiced the movement again. This time, I allowed her to grasp my thumb and free herself from my hold. Going through the motions was an important part of understanding the defense before it could be practiced at full speed and force. When I returned to my place behind her, her features were etched with fixed determination. We practiced the technique a couple of dozen times, her confidence growing with each attempt. After we finished, we ran through some standard defensive techniques for frontal assaults, each of which she excelled at performing. I encouraged her to use seventy percent of her strength in each attack. In class, when students were training with each other, it was hard to put force into practicing the movements for fear of hurting someone, but there was no way she would hurt me. It was an ideal opportunity to feel the movements at close to actual speed. To see what it would feel like to truly strike someone. I hoped she would never have the need to experience a real-life application of her training, but something told me she might. If that was the case, I wanted her to be ready. If she were ever to face a man like myself, she’d need all the skills she could get. “That’s enough for today,” I said when it came to my attention we’d worked past our allotted hour. “I hope I haven’t kept you from anything. I didn’t realize how late it was.” “I have no reason to go out in this weather.” I gestured to the door. The edges of the glass window were ringed with a crown of snow. She gave me a sheepish smile before turning to retrieve her coat and bag. “Guess I underestimated how bad it was going to get.” As if pulled by some invisible force, I followed her, ambling slowly so as not to make my compulsion noticeable. “You haven’t been in town long, have you?” “Is it that obvious?” she asked as she put her boots back on. “No, but I’m pretty good at reading people. I’d say you arrived in the past six months.” I hadn’t asked a question, and she didn’t volunteer an answer. Instead, she simply gave me a vague smile and continued with her task. “I take it you’re not a native either?” she asked, changing the focus of our conversation. “No.” “When did you move to the city?” “About ten years ago.” “I’ve tried to figure out where you’re from, but your accent is hard to place.” She peered up at me with her gloves in one hand and her coat folded over her arm. “I’m from Israel, but my father was from Spain, so my looks can be deceiving.” Her head drifted back. “Of course, I should have known. Krav Maga originated in Israel. For some reason, I didn’t put the two together. There’s a rabbi who lives right by me, but he doesn’t sound anything like you.” “He probably speaks Yiddish, not Hebrew. The two are very different.” I took two steps closer, bringing us to within a few feet of one another. “I take it you did some research before you started classes?” Her coffee-colored eyes took on a serious glint that she tried to hide with a smirk. “There was no point wasting my time with crap training—blowing a r**e whistle or some other inane strategy that would fail if I ever actually needed it. This is a big city. It’s best to be prepared.”