Kris leads me to the top floor, just below the roof.

"Wait here," he orders. "Tao's coming." And he leaves.

Damn, Tao. That scary-as-hell, almost-never-speaks, breaks-legs-like-they're-toothpicks dude. I'm not usually easily scared by people, but Tao is absolutely intimidating. Ignore the fact that he's smoking hot, he permanently looks like he's gonna kill someone. Those eyes. I've never seen eyes like that, never.

My body suddenly tenses up, and then I sense someone sneaking up behind me. I whip around, expecting to see Tao, but all I can see is a foot flying towards me. Instinctively I duck and reach up to pull that leg down to throw the person off balance. A sword slashes its way towards me and I yelp and duck and roll to the side. The person throws the sword at me and I scramble away, although knowing it will still hit me. But it didn't. I look up and the sword is suspended in mid-air. The air seems harder to breathe. Damn, I must've done it again.

I scramble away to safety and immediately the sword continues to fly through the air and buries itself into the wall behind me. That was close. I clamber up to my feet and lunge for the sword, but my mysterious killer has already beaten me to to it. He pulls it out and returns it back to its sheath at his side.

The person rips off his mask and says, "you didn't do that on purpose, did you?"

"Tao!" I gasp.

"Answer the question." Geez.

"Yeah, I didn't do it on purpose."

"Then how did you stop time?" he presses.

"I don't know. It just... happened."

"I have a theory," he replies. "And you just proved it true."

"What's your theory?"

"That you can only do it when your life is in danger. That is when your subconscious self-defence takes over your mind and stops time so that you can escape safely. That explains how you stopped the car at the beginning."

"But what about yesterday, when Kai attacked me... why didn't I stop time then?" I challenge.

"You did. You kept stopping and unstopping time. It was very annoying to me. The other part of my theory is that when in actual combat, the time control aspect of your mind takes the rhythm of your movements. I noticed just now that with every motion, you stopped time until your next action. It happened too quickly to really make any difference, but it still bought you a few milliseconds more each time. My guess is that that was what you did with Kai too."

"But why did you have to attack me like that? I honestly thought you were gonna kill me!"

"That was the point, Adrienne. To catch you off guard to test my theory." He does have a point.

"Okay, so... is every training session gonna be like that? You sneaking up behind me and trying to kill me?" His eyes narrow ever so slightly.

"That was just to test out my theory. From now on, I will train you to control your power."

"Okayyyyyyyy."

"But first we shall set some rules. Simple ones, that if you follow we will have no problem getting on." I seriously doubt that. "One. You will not be late. Tardiness is unacceptable. No excuses. Two---"

"But what if---"

He silences me wish a glare. "Two. You will not interrupt me while I am speaking.

"Three. You will follow my instructions very closely. You will obey my commands.

"Four. And this is the most important. You will not lie to me." I gulp. Why oh why do I have him instead of someone less demanding. And did I mention terrifying?

"Any questions?"

"No." Thank god I didn't stutter.

"Good. We shall start." He turns and sits down, cross-legged. He raises an eyebrow at me. I stand and look at him stupidly.

"Sit," he commands. I immediately sit and cross my legs like him. Now what, I wonder, but I don't dare say it out loud.

"Close your eyes... and clear your mind. It will help with your concentration later on." I close my eyes and really try to clear my mind, but somehow a thought or a song manages to sneak in and then my mind explodes again. It's never been even remotely empty.

"You are not clearing your mind," Tao accuses me. I keep my eyes closed.

"How do you know?"

"You are frowning." I am? Oh I am. I relax my face.

"Better?"

"You still have not cleared your mind."

"Dude, I can't," I mumble.

"Try." I squeeze my eyes tight. The more I try the more wildly my thoughts whirl around.

"I... can't!"

"You are not trying hard enough, then."

My eyes fly open. "Stuff keeps wandering into my mind! I can't keep them out! It's not like I'm not trying!"

Tao narrows his eyes at me and stands up. I tense, wondering what he's going to do to me.

"Stand up," he instructs me and I do. Crap. What's he gonna do now? He throws a punch at me and I instinctively dodge it.

"There," he says. "Did you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

"The ripple in time."

I look blankly at him.

"Did you not feel that the air felt thicker for a second?"

"So that's what happens!" I exclaim.

Tao eyes me. "Explain."

"When I stopped time for a longer period of time, like when the car was rushing towards me or your sword, the air felt thicker and it was harder to breathe. I thought it was me being breathless."

"It was not. When you stop time, the density of the air increases, thus the thickening of the air. If you know what that feels like, then that is good, because you can focus on that. Next time, try to grasp on the moment you unconsciously stop time and make out any changes in your mind. Understand?"

"Yes." He throws another punch at me, and I dodge again, but this time I am alert, and I detect a slight change in the air for a moment, from the moment his fist almost touches me to the moment I have successfully dodged away. Lasted no more than half a second, and the change is so subtle I can barely feel it, but it's there.

"I felt it!" I exclaim in delight. "Tao, do it again!"

Again, he swings a punch at me at exactly the same spot, and again I dodge. This time I think I can notice a change, a throb above my left eye when I stopped time, and another throb when I unstopped time.

I twitch my left eyebrow to see if I can stop time on purpose, but failing as I can't seem to move it. I've never been able to raise my left eyebrow. It's always been either the right one or both. Seems like I won't be able to control time any time soon unless I find another way.

"Again!" I demand. Tao seems pleased but it's hard to tell. Again, he punches, and again, I dodge narrowly, but apart from that throb I can't pick out anything new.

Tao swings his leg at me, catching me off guard. An idea occurs to me and I force myself to stand there and try to stop time. Needless to say, it's an absolute fail. No throb above my eye this time, and his foot connects with my face with a sickening crunch. I fly sideways at the wall and fall down.

"What are you doing?" Tao almost yells. Almost. Still keeping his cool. He strides over and leans down. "Are you alright?"

I mumble something incoherent.

"Sorry?"

"I think you broke some bones," I manage to say. And I think he made me bite off my tongue too.

Tao blinks at me and gingerly pulls me up, but my legs can't stand and I crumple down again. He mutters something incomprehensible under his breath and says, "wait here, I am going to get Lay." Yeah, like I'll be running anywhere any time soon.

I groan to myself as I lie there waiting. I think one of my ribs is broken too. And my face. Why is Tao so freaking strong. And he speaks so weirdly and formally too, saying 'I am' instead of 'I'm' like a normal person. But then Tao isn't remotely normal, so.

I hear voices floating up the stairs. Oh good, Lay's here. The moment Lay sees me he gasps and rushes over, "what happened to you!"

"Hi, I'm an idiot," I mumble.

Lay lightly runs his hands over my body and reports, "twisted right ankle, sprained left ankle, fractured right knee joint, cracks on hipbone, one slipped disc, one broken rib, cracked right shoulderblade, multiple fractures in right arm, shattered left cheekbone, deep cut on left cheek, and don't even get me started on the bruises. Thank god there's no organ injury." Wow. Talk about a long list of injuries. Tao is incredible.

"Were you trying to kill her?" Lay accuses Tao.

"No, she let me kick her," Tao replies calmly.

"I don't believe you," Lay says a bit angrily, and I'm touched at his concern. He puts his hands on my cheek and I feel that tingly warmth spread out from there. He does the same to every part that's injured, and soon enough my whole body is tingling and good as new. I sit up.

"You okay?" Lay asks worriedly.

"Sure, especially after you healed me!" I beam at him. I owe him so much.

"What really happened, Adrienne?" he asks suspiciously.

I grin sheepishly, rubbing the back of my neck. "Testing out a theory," shooting Tao a glance. His eyes sparkle with amusement even though his face remains expressionless. Well, that's a first.

"You were doing what?"

"See, Tao had this theory that I stop and unstop time unconsciously and real quickly, you know? And it's true. So then I thought, maybe, in the same way, I can force myself to stop time completely and not unstop it like I did before." I look at Tao. "Obviously, it didn't work out as well as I expected."

"That's an understatement," Lay laughs. "Thank god you're okay, I really thought Tao was trying to kill you!"

"Nah, he wouldn't get away that easily," I joke.

"Well, if that's it, we'd better go down, it's almost 1! Lunchtiiiiiiiime~" he sings and practically skips down the stairs.

Tao and I exchange a glance. He goes down and I follow behind.

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Tao is hot when I play this scene in my head. Like, mind-blowingly smoking hot. Like this. 

Okay this teaser inspired this chapter. :3

@CatAttack1020: dawwwww :') <3 you're so sweet :D