Afterglow (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

I hated that thing, but she loved it and was always hogging it in the gym while she listened to hip-hop.
    “ Use the power of your legs and swing them so you can reach the next handhold,” I urged her.
    “ I’m too little,” she said. “I can’t do it like Ambra. She’s tall.”
    “ What’s the first rule of parkour?”
    “ Know your strengths and your limitations.”
    “ Good. And what’s the second rule?” I asked her.
    “ Push your strengths and limitations.”
    “ Right. Remember, we train to the best of our abilities, as individuals. We aren’t after competing with each other, but seeking our own personal bests.”
    “ Okay,” Nariko said.
    “ Just remember, you can make us all groan in hot yoga.”
    “ True,” she said and giggled. “That’s my kind of exercise.”
    “ Okay. No laughing now because you need your laughing muscles for climbing,” I said. “Visualize the vampires chasing you.”
    “ Ack!” She swung her legs hard to climb higher and accidentally fell. I caught her before she hit the mat. She hardly weighed anything. We rolled together on the big bouncy mat and when we stopped rolling, I let her go.
    “ You all right, Nariko?” I asked her as she stood.
    “ Yeah. I’m just frustrated that I can’t make my hands grip the big pegs.”
    “ Where’s your fingerless climbing gloves that you made?”
    “ Oh, yeah,” she said and took them out of her jacket pocket. “Duh!” She put them on. And then she attacked the pegs on the wall and climbed up them easily, just like a little spider in a black leotard. I cheered her on and when she got to the top and went over, I changed sides and watched her come down the other side of the climbing wall, which was way easier than going up.
    “ Keep running!” I said, when she let herself down on the mat. “Always stay in motion and think about not just one movement ahead, but two movements ahead.”
    She nodded and vaulted over a wide, low padded wall and then did a bounce off the trampoline and a tuck and roll when she landed. She immediately rose to her feet like a gymnast at the Olympics. She was cuter than any vampire hunter had a right to be.
    “I’m doing it!” she said, with a sheen of sweat on her face. “I’m finally doing it!”
    “ Go, Nariko!” I said and clapped once. I think it was the first time she had done such tough obstacles without stopping to consider what her next move would be.
    “ What’s the key?” I asked her.
    “ Always plan two movements ahead.”
    “ You got it, vampire hunter girl.”
    “ I know!” she said, her face beaming. Not bad for a fashion designer and such a tiny gal.
    We high-fived each other.
    At that moment, when everyone had completed the obstacle course and we all flopped to the mats with towels and high-fives, glugging sports drinks and bragging, the big monitor on the wall came on and Gabrielle’s face was on it.
    “ Hi, guys!” she said, her face inside of the Skype window.
    Lucas activated Skype on our side. “How you doing, Gabrielle?”
    “I’m hungry,” she said. “As always.”
    “ Okay,” Daphne said. “We’ll get you some pig’s blood.”
    “ Is Wilbur still okay with this?” Gabrielle asked.
    Daphne replied, “We have him trained now so that when he sees us coming with the needle, he lies down and waits for the treat that he gets at the end. This week, the treats are bags of broken cookies from a factory in Zürich.”
    “Hey, I like broken cookies, too!” I said.
    “ Sorry, they’re for the pig,” Daphne said.
    “ I’ve been known to be a pig,” I said, and everyone laughed. My metabolism was much envied in our group. I ate mass quantities of food, mostly protein, and used it to build muscle, as did Ambra, that skiing, parkouring, vampire-hunting bad-ass ex-stuntwoman who would have probably scared the shit out of me if I didn’t love her so much. And trust her so much.
    “ I have some other news for you,” Gabrielle said, her vampire eyes