Chapter 15: Marinah

"You stayed on the ball when you weren't thinking about your balance. I know how we can make this easier." I follow him and use his shoulder and the wall again. "Tell me about your family," he says as soon as I'm up.

"They're dead," I reply.

"Most humans are. Tell me about them when they were alive."

This is mentally hard on me, but something is working because I'm no longer wobbling. "My mom was amazing. Her name was Dinah. My name rhymes with hers," I add with a quick smile. "I take after her in height if not finesse. She would stand on this ball rock solid."

"Talking helps you with balance."

"She was in the military. It's where she met my dad."

"She was a warrior?"

I take a deep breath. "No, not really. She would have died for her country or for her family, but she had a gentle soul. The military was a way for her to get out of her home environment. She never talked about why."

"Could she fight?"

I shrug and my feet shake a little. I regain my balance before replying. "I never really saw the fighting side of her. She had a mouth, though, and with her size no one challenged her. I had a teacher once who received the cutting edge of her temper. The teacher walked around me on eggshells after their confrontation."

"Go to one foot."

I do it without thinking. No one has asked me about my mom in years. It's an unwritten rule in the department I work for that we rarely mention the dead. There are too many, and we all lost pretty much everyone. It's actually nice to talk about her right now. "She loved books and collected them. She wanted to be a writer some day and I knew she would entertain the world with her stories."

"Switch feet."

"I can't believe I'm doing this."

"You worry about your height too much."

"It's driven me crazy my entire life. I was always tall for my age but the year I turned ten, I grew several inches. My dad took me trick or treating on Halloween and the adults answering the doors told me I was too old to be out with the children. Their sneers alone almost had me running away in tears. I never went trick or treating again. It sounds silly now, but I still believed in Santa back then and with their cruelty they took Halloween away from me at such a young age." I shrug and wobble a little more. "People are mean and if we had Halloween now, I would allow costumed adults to come to my door for candy if they wanted to."

I look down at my feet and everything spins causing me to wobble. Boot's hand steadies me. "You know you're not such a bad guy after all. Putting me in that hot room was not very nice of you, though."

His face reddens and I see the first sign of guilt. "I'm sorry. My wife needed to lay down and I was entertaining Che." He shrugs and his ears turn an even darker shade. "I forgot about you."

I've never been one to hold grudges and I won't start now. "That's okay. I'm forgettable or at least try to be."

His expression changes and curiosity lights his eyes. "Why?"

The million-dollar question. "I'm only alive because of my father. He made sure I had a job that would keep me off the front lines. He knew I wouldn't survive. King's insistence that I train is really stupid."

His mouth twists into the unfriendly expression I'm familiar with. "King knows what he's doing."

It's my turn to grunt. It wasn't half as weighty as King's. Practice will make my grunts perfect or so I tell myself. "It will feel good to prove King wrong."

"King is never wrong," he practically spits.

Now I laugh. "He has you brainwashed. The man is only a man."

Boot cocks a hip and if I were looking, he probably crossed his eyes. "And Beast, never forget Beast. King has control, but when angered, he has no problem losing it."

I find my balance again. "Is 'beast' the politically correct way to talk about your other side?"

He shakes his head slightly. "You mean our monster side?"

"You said it not me." I lift my leg and stand on one foot without being told. This time I don't look down.

"Your government said it."

He isn't wrong. "They did. Some believe it and some, like my father, did not. He respected you."

"Yes, your father was a good human." I see something else in his eyes, though I can't decipher it.

"Did you know him?" I switch legs all on my own and don't even use the wall to do it.

"I met him and shook his hand once. I only knew that he wasn't afraid of us and he didn't resent us. Your father dealt mostly with Greystone."

Greystone and my father were friends. "He spoke highly of Greystone."

"King's a better leader, but never tell him I said that. Greystone had more resentment for humans than King does."

That made no sense. Greystone dealt well with my father and King hates us. "If you say so," I answer doubtfully.

"You ready to move on?" He waves to the floor.

"You mean get off the ball?" I ask hoping I understand correctly.

"You need to build muscle. The ball is the best way to do it."

"Haha, you're too funny." He walks away and picks up two hand weights. They appear to be about five pounds.

"Keep both feet on the ball until you find your balance."

I do as he asks, but I fall when he hands me the first weight. At least he's catching me now. "This won't work," I tell him sincerely.

"Tell me about your father."

We talk for another hour with me pumping weights up and down while balancing. If this even has a chance of working, I'll be the mouthiest warrior anyone has ever heard.