She knew exactly what he was doing as he did it. Her movements weren’t as eerily efficient as his, but they were informed. On the occasions where it did look like he’d catch her, she used her power, so he felt it too.

She took an opportunity to cut him, and that was the point he stepped back, panting, bleeding, and drew two more knives.

She still couldn’t see in the one eye, one ear was ringing, the other eye was seeing double, and her back hurt, where he’d somehow hit her and made the organs hurt. Not just one, but multiple ones, the pain radiating through.

He lunged, and she dodged. He swung downward, and she reached up, both of her hands gripping the handle of her one knife, to provide the strength that, combined with the rush of danger, almost let her match the strength of a grown man using one arm. Her knees bent as she tried to keep the knife from coming down, she felt him get ready to stab with the other knife, and let her hand slip.

The hand came away from the handle and found wrist. She dug fingers into the wound, making him drop the knife, then brought her blade away from where it had been holding him at guard, matching his swing with hers. The knife ran along knuckles.

She’d aimed for fingers, hoped to chop them off, but the knife wasn’t an extension of her or her power. Had she used her fingernails, she knew she could have gotten them exactly where she wanted them, respective to her opponent.

This wasn’t the only time her mood had turned this black.

“Nobody’s taking them from me. I have a family, a job, and things I want to do.”

“I’m—”

She bit her tongue. She tasted blood.

“—mrg,” he said. “Stop that.”

She lunged for him, scrambled to get away from one swing, lunged point-first for another. On attack, her power was off. On defense, it was on, ensuring that she knew his every move, she could deflect, absorb, reduce the impact, and when she felt anything, he did too.

She didn’t stop. Her assault was on his legs and his footing. Cutting his thighs. Swiping for his groin.

A glancing blow, a knife sinking into her upper arm. The sympathetic feeling of the pain weakened his grip on the weapon. She twisted back, pulling it out of his reach. When he reached again, she kept twisting. Always keeping that horrible pain away from the fingertips she could feel just as much as she could feel her own.

He took a step back, and she felt the thigh muscle flare with pain and fail to provide the strength in the same moment he did. She closed the distance, driving the knife into his belly.