Page 90 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

She had officially become one of the main targets now.

Breathing through the hammer pounding on my head, I traipsed upstairs, wary to not awaken anyone, and cracked open Zion’s bedroom door. Tangled between his sheets, her lips slightly parted, she had given in to the sleep’s allure.

Zion raised his head, blinked at me, and slumped back on the fluffy pillow. “Join us if you want, but close that door,” he groggily murmured, an arm around her waist.

“Did she not say she would knife you if you tried anything?”

“She fought. I won. We agreed she could stab me in the morning.” His murmurs gradually quietened as he joined her in the dream world. More likely the nightmare world. Hers fueled by the well filled to the brim with a secret, his by a blaze scorching his skin that I had lit up underneath him.

I crawled onto the mattress and threw an arm around her, my hand pressed between her back and his warm stomach. I listened to their steady breaths, in and out, in and out, until the band of pain tightening around my head exhausted me enough to drift away.

30

GEDEON

“Like this?” She clicked the safety on a handgun off and back on.

“Exactly.” Ezra wiped his face with a small towel and tossed it on the ragged bench I was sitting on. “Your turn,” he said to Eislyn as she fumbled with her own firearm.

Slumped on the bench in a corner of the booth in the middle of our shooting range, I gulped down the cool water from a steel bottle. Autumn had begun a couple of weeks ago, yet the sun had not released its hold on us, drenching the gravel-filled field in sunshine and everyone training in sweat. The targets and dummies at the end of the range shimmered as the air around them blurred.

The rows of tables used for classes on taking care of weapons, from disassembly to putting them back together, stood abandoned. Besides the four of us, not a single person hung around in the space. Zion was off with Eli, running our established teams through more gruesome and complicated scenarios in the uninhabited or dilapidated buildings on the outskirts of our compound. We had no idea what would await us in the city and had to be prepared for whatever their despicable leaders would think of.

“See, you can do it.” Kali nudged Eislyn’s hip for having figured out how to work the safety.

“I still don’t understand your interest in this.” Her delicate face scrunched up, Eislyn lifted the handgun higher, holding it pinched between two fingers, as if it reeked. “Knives are easier. And more precise.”

“No!” Ezra snatched the weapon from her and checked that the safety was on. “Irresponsibility with firearms will get you killed,” he scolded. “You don’t ever act with them as toys. Especially not when you’re learning.”

“It’s not even loaded.” Kali rolled her eyes at him and demonstrated to Eislyn how to go through the motions more easily. “Do it a couple of times and you’ll get it.”

She was a natural, going through Ezra’s instructed motions effortlessly. No wonder her mind contained so many ideas about death.

So I had figured she might be interested in learning a cleaner way to do it and how to avoid falling into a fit of shock at taking a life. The vibration from the bullet leaving the shaft of a gun and rattling your bones could be calming. And with the storm bubbling up inside her, we had to simmer it down a notch.

Instead, she had found a friend to join her. Now she and Eislyn nagged Ezra, whose patience was obviously wearing thin as he guided them through the essentials of handling a weapon.

I could have done it myself, but I also wanted to give her some space to interact with others. And seeing her team up with Eislyn to exasperate Ezra had become truly enjoyable.

“Hey! Shoot anyone yet?” Jayla dropped her bag on the ground and perched on the bench beside me.

“They won’t let us,” Eislyn complained. Ezra gave her a pointed look, and she swiftly schooled her expression into an innocent one. “What?”

“Are you not supposed to be in training with Ava right now?” I asked Jayla. My palms were damp from the water bottle’s condensation, and I dabbed them over my nape, savoring the chill.

Behind us, in a large field full of withering grass destroyed by many feet, Ava yelled at someone to get in line for breaking loose and leaving their partner’s back exposed. The man was about to experience her tearing him a new one for going rogue. A group of newcomers had fallen under her wing as she was teaching them group formations, a buddy system for having each other’s backs, and strategies for working in unknown environments.

“I am.” Jayla kicked off her sandals, pulled a pair of socks and boots from her leather backpack, and stuffed her feet into both of them. “Got stuck at Vice. A new shipment from a local distillery. They messed up our order.”

“You’re late. Get your ass over herenow,” Ava shouted from the field behind us. It was impossible to slip through her unnoticed.

“Calm down. I’ll be there in a minute,” Jayla yelled back as she tied the laces of her steel-toed boots. Re-securing her high ponytail, she rose to glare at Ava. She took a single step toward us, and Jayla rushed off. “I saidfine! I’m coming for gods’ sake.”

I highly valued the certain aura of authority Ava carried. It was useful in leading the newcomers’ group training, half of them not understanding the basic directions and the others thinking they could do better than her and that they should head Zion’s catch-and-play team, the one with no moral limitations. Or the creative one. Depending on how you looked at it.

Eislyn whispered something to Kali, and they giggled, disregarding Ezra’s attempts to bring them back to the lesson. After a few minutes, he gave up and resorted to lingering on the side and waiting for them to finish their conspiring.

I prowled over to them. “Something funny?”