Merrick lunged first and Sanaa dodged with incredible speed. My eyes sharpened, and I stood up straighter. So did Shade. We glanced at each other.
“You need all the help you can get, Daraja. Accept it gracefully.” Sanaa danced out of Merrick’s reach with an ease that left him frowning.
I took a step forward, my senses prickling.
Merrick studied his opponent more carefully, looking her over with dark-eyed concentration. After a lull that brought total silence to the hangar, he feinted so quickly I barely saw the movement, and then slid the other way just as fast, trying to catch Sanaa off guard and subdue her without violence. Sanaa avoided him neatly and delivered a spinning kick that knocked Merrick away from her.
My jaw slowly dropped open. Merrick recovered, moved in fast, and got down to business.
He jabbed. She blocked. He punched forward like a boxer and she slid, ducked, and countered like a ninja, finishing with an open-handed smack to the sternum that left Merrick gasping.
“Don’t leave yourself open like that,” Sanaa barked with a scowl, treating Merrick as though he were in training at some Dark Watch boot camp she was running. “Your throat was wide open. The same hit there, and you’d be dead.” She tapped the front of her neck, her eyes flashing.
Merrick drew a tight breath through pinched nostrils. “What batch did they give you? I couldn’t tell until you started moving. An upgrade? Something different?”
It was obvious: Sanaa Mwende was a super soldier. Shade, Jax, Fiona, and I exchanged worried glances.
Merrick charged in a blur, not waiting for her answer. In a blink, Sanaa got behind him. She kicked him in the small of the back, and he stumbled forward. Merrick turned with a growl, his jaw clenching.
She smiled, her ebony skin gleaming under the long tracks of industrial overhead lighting. Strength and vitality infused her. Sanaa had just powered herself up like a weapon and vibrated with enough energy to annihilate things. Her grin widened. “I’ve missed sparring. I don’t get to play with the super soldiers, and everyone else just breaks too easily.”
“We’re not sparring,” Merrick grated.
“Oh yes, we are, darling.” She winked at him and looked Merrick up and down, both appraisal and appreciation in her sparkling-eyed perusal. “You’re fast. You’re big.”
“Don’t forget strong.” He shot out a hand and gripped her forearm. One hard yank sent her airborne and fifteen feet across the hangar.
Sanaa spun in the air and landed in a low crouch, her smile only growing. “You must have Batch 4—the finished product. Trial 3 made people angry. Trial 2 created deformities. Trial 1 simply killed you.”
“Then what are you?” Merrick asked, jerking his chin at her.
“I’m the one and only.” Rising, she swept a hand down her bowstring-tight body. “No great height or bulging muscles, but I’m the weapon of our century.”
“And this is supposed to make us trust you?” Merrick began circling again, closing in slowly. “You’re a spy, the enemy, and a menace.”
“I’m none of those things—unless you try to cage me.” She pounced and Merrick barely got out of the way. She clipped his jaw with her elbow. His teeth clacked together.
They both started to get a look in their eyes that I recognized from situations I’d been lucky to get out of. Blood running high. Adrenaline pumping. It was a recipe for real injury.
“All right, that’s enough,” I said sharply. “We don’t need this. We’ll find another solution.”
Suddenly, arms blurred, bodies spun, grunts came from everywhere, and the thud of hard hits echoed around the concrete and metal hangar. Merrick’s head snapped to the side, blood spraying. It took a second for his eyes to focus, but it was still faster than Sanaa expected. The two of them collided like meteors, and Sanaa went flying. She landed hard on her back and slid across the floor, her hands squeaking on the gray painted surface. She dragged herself to a stop, flat on her back, her head raised. Merrick stalked toward her.
“Had enough?” he asked, looming over her.
She grinned. “Darling, this is just the foreplay.” Rocket fast, she rolled onto her side, kicked him, and popped back up in one smooth motion.
Merrick folded in on the hip she’d just hammered. Sanaa swept his legs out from under him, and he hit the floor with a smack of skin that sounded painful. His arm lashed out, and he somehow dragged her down with him. They grappled. Sanaa came out on top, straddling him. Her powerful legs hugged his torso in a vise grip, and she jammed her forearm under his jaw, forcing his head back. “Just so you know, this is my favorite position.”
Merrick’s eyes blazed, and his lips pulled back in a snarl. He grabbed her hips and heaved her off him, tossing her headfirst over his shoulders. Sanaa tucked and rolled, coming up on her feet again. He leaped up. She spun, ready.
Kicks, blocks, punches, parries. Merrick’s cross whistled through the air next to her head, missing by inches. He let out a grunt of frustration. Gliding back, Sanaa produced a knife, waved it around, and flung it aside. Merrick watched her cheerfully taunt him, his expression stony.
“Oh look! Here’s another.” She threw a second blade aside. Then a third. Then a fourth. Where’s she hiding all those? “You would be dead by now if I wanted to kill you.”
“Why don’t you two just arm-wrestle and be done with it?” Fiona called out.
Jax stifled a laugh. I gave them both the stink eye, but something about watching Merrick and Sanaa go at each other without any real malice was oddly electrifying and almost arousing. I glanced at Shade, wondering if he was feeling the same heightened…something.
He gave me a knowing look. A hot smirk and a half wink that made my belly do a pleasant little flip-flop. Warmth stole over me.
Sanaa strode toward the Endeavor, de facto ending the contest before Merrick lost a tooth, an eye, his pride, or worse. Not a hair of her tight bun was out of place. There wasn’t a scratch on her. And no bruising that I could see, although her dark skin might hide it. “I prefer my meals in the kitchen. Thank you for your hospitality.”
“I prefer my meals without the Dark Watch,” Merrick muttered, glowering at Sanaa as she passed him.
She tossed him a grin over her shoulder. “Darling, I’m many things. The Dark Watch is only one of them.”
She hopped aboard the Endeavor as though she hadn’t just brawled with a super soldier, crouched briefly to scratch the soft fur under Bonk’s chin—and he let her—and then moved deeper into the ship. To poke around, presumably. Good thing I had nothing to hide. She already knew more about me than I did.
“Bring my knives, will you?” Sanaa called from around the corner.