War Dog

Chapter 60

The next several days were spent in the gym with Ghost. True to his word, we spent the time working on strengthening the muscles surrounding hips and shoulders. Unfortunately the weakness was not something that could be fixed in a couple of days, and I'd have to spend weeks, or more likely, months working on my strengthening exercises. For now though, this would help, and kept me busy while Ghost did his own lifting regime. If we weren't in the gym or attending meetings with Alejandro or Rudy in regards to a figure called El Sin Nombre, we were in the shooting range. 

Ghost was uneasy knowing that El Sin Nombre, or as he knew her, Valeria, was free to roam the streets of Mexico. Apparently she had been apprehended after the last incident the 141 and Los Vaqueros had in Las Almas, however she had skipped jail time purely based on the fact she had deep pockets and many connections.

"Wolf, why do you act like you've never held a gun before? I know for a fact as a human you were a decent shot."

"You try have claws for hands and then tell me."

"Wolf, don't give me that, I saw other hybrids shoot while I was on the facility. Hell, the Captains told me even your brother shoots on occasion."

"Yeah, look at their hands next time you see them in action," I grumble. "I'm a wolf Hybrid. Not a dog hybrid. Have you seen the difference in sizes of wolf versus dog?" 

"Your hands are not larger than theirs. You have tiny hands in comparison." He pulls up my hands against his, and the size difference between our two hands is startling, but I pull of my glove.

"No Ghost, look." I measure out the distances between the knuckle bones. "My hands are physically smaller, yes, but in comparison to your hands," I remove his glove and point out the length differences between knuckles, and even the other hybrids who are mixed with dog breeds, my knuckle spacing is off due to wolves being a bigger species. Makes holding guns awkward."

"Is this why you just never bothered even practicing with the guns in the first place?"

"Yeah. I'm sure if I put the time and effort into re-learning how to hold and shoot them I'll be fine, I just didn't have the patience to have to relearn."

"What's the biggest issue with your hands?"

"Getting the joints to work properly sliding into the trigger guard. It always takes too long to adjust and readjust when I get it wrong. I just need practice. A lot of practice. It just needs to become muscle memory that my fingers are different now. It took me ages to relearn how to write, and my handwriting is still awful."

"So just finger positioning? Anything else you're struggling with?"

"I won't know until I sort the hand issues out. I could have issues with my stance in general, my legs and arms are all different too."

"Right, how about we start of with a sniper rifle?"

"I've not used a sniper rifle before."

"I am aware, but I want to see you shoot before we come up with a plan. A sniper allows us to take out almost all the issues with your body while giving me the chance to see how good a shot you are. We'll head out to the sniper range, gives us more distance to work with." He picked out two rifles from the armoury that Alejandro had kindly given us access too while Ghost was training me up in the guns. He also grabbed two bipods and made his way outside, taking me across to a part of the base I hadn't had a chance to explore yet. 

He ran through the sniper set up, showing me how the bipod stood up and could be adjusted as well as how the sniper rifle could be attached to the bipod. Once  the gun was set up, Ghost had me run through the set up and pack up several times not letting me move on until he was satisfied I had the basics down pat. Once I was set up again, he set up the other gun next to mine and lay down into position, showing me how a sniper should lay to decrease visibility. I followed suit, copying Ghost as closely as possible.