“Well, too bad,” said Wolfe. “You aren’t ever going to use them. Not in this class, anyway. Oh, they’ve got their uses, believe me. Saved my ass more than once when I was out bow-hunting in Alaska a few years ago. But if you pay attention to what I’m going to tell you, you won’t ever need to pick those up, seeing as we don’t have a rabid moose problem here in Palm Springs.”

The new mom raised her hand. “You used nunchucks on a moose?”

Wolfe got a haunted look in his eyes. “I used all sorts of things on that bastard. But that’s neither here nor now. Because here’s the thing. With a little common sense, you won’t need weapons. Or fists. You.”

To my shock, Wolfe pointed at me and fixed me with a steely, one-eyed stare.

“What did I tell you to do when you arrived?”

I gulped. “Give you cash, sir.”

“And after that?”

“You told us to come wait out here.”

He nodded in satisfaction, so apparently my answering of the obvious had gone well. “We’re two miles from any other houses and about a mile from the highway. You don’t know me, and let’s face it, this place looks like something from a serial killer film.” Out of the corner of my eye, Adrian flashed me a triumphant look. “I sent you out into a remote building with hardly any windows. You went inside. Did you look around as you were walking over here? Did you scan the surroundings in here before coming all the way inside? Did you check the exits?”

“I—”

“No, of course you didn’t,” he interrupted. “No one ever does. And that is the first rule of self-defense. Don’t assume anything. You don’t have to live your life in fear, but know what’s around you. Be smart. Don’t go blindly into dark alleys or parking lots.”

And like that, I was hooked.

Wolfe was astonishingly well prepared. He had lots of stories and examples of attacks, ones that kept reminding me: humans are some of the most vicious creatures out there, not vampires. He showed us pictures and diagrams of various unsafe places, pointing out vulnerabilities and providing pretty practical advice that should’ve been obvious to most people—but wasn’t. The more he spoke, the more foolish I felt about what had happened with Sonya. If those guys had wanted to attack Sonya badly enough, they would’ve found a way somehow. But there were a million things I could have done to be more cautious and possibly avoid the confrontation that went down that night. That idea turned out to be a huge part of Wolfe’s philosophy: avoidance of danger in the first place.

Even when he finally moved on to discuss some very basic moves, his emphasis was on using them to get away—not to stick around and beat your attacker into the ground. He let us practice some of these moves in the last half hour of the class, having us pair up to work with classmates and a dummy since we didn’t really want to hurt each other.