Chapter Twenty-Seven - Lovingly Bruised

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Smirking, I look over at the Amity transfer as she stood in-front of me with the others, it was time for gun training and as I looked at her, I noticed the bruising on her nose. She avoided eye contact again, shuffling back and forth on her feet. I composed myself, clearing my throat before holding up a gun.

"Don't think because you have one of these that you can't get taken down, I could easily be in a fight and get gunned down or attacked from behind with this and all the fighting knowledge I have, you can't be too good at using a gun, even those who claim to master a gun can be taken down." I explain, then moving the gun in hands, taking it apart, showing all the part to the initiates, before showing them how to put it back together again and showing them how put the ammo into the gun, turning the safety off.

I look around the initiates, all their eyes are on me, even the Amity, she blushes a little when my eyes meet hers, I don't look at her for long, I couldn't stand to look at her. I turn towards the target and shoot, the single bullet that left the gun hit the middle of the target, bulls-eye. I turn back to the initiate.

"Grab a gun, learn it inside and out then arm up, safety off and shoot." I command them, turning the safety back on, on the gun in my hand, before standing back and watching them with the guns. I turn my thoughts back to Luna and Eric. Eric had Luna for the day, staying in his office, by Max's, he had babied the room, bringing in toys and a spare baby-chair into his office just to keep her happy and safe in his office.

I have left her there earlier in the morning before waking up the initiates, the good old traditional way. I jump when I hear a gunshot, they've started shooting, meaning they've successfully learned how to put the ammo in correctly, how to turn off the safety and hopefully aim and hit the target, not the wall behind them.

I glanced over at them all, mentally taking note of their progression and how quick they reload and check over their gun before shooting. I walk over to them all, walking up and down between them, looking over their shoulders to see how they would hold the gun and how they positioned themselves before shooting. I stop by the Amity initiate from last night.

"And to think, you hit that perfectly but you couldn't get a guy of your own." I whisper to her, "Wanting to get a higher rank?" I question, then look over at the ranking on the chalk board, "Seems like you need to get up a couple to at least get a good job, at 15, you'd be lucky to get a good schedule on the wall." I deduce, my face clear of emotions. I then shrug at her, watching her look around at the other initiates around us, before glancing over at me.

"Get your nose checked out during break, looks a little nasty, and we're not even on combat yet, get a little sense knocked into you?" I taunted her, before walking away and checking up on another initiate. An hour later, I told them to leave and that we would pick it up the next morning. I cleaned up, putting the guns away under lock and key so nobody would be able to get to them later on.

I all but ran to Eric's office, bypassing my own which I hadn't been in for a while due to looking after Luna, and once I got into Eric's office, I awed at the site, Eric was sat on the floor with Luna, getting her to finger paint, he covered the floor with some plastic sheeting, but she had made some mess, mostly on Eric's bare arms and on anything but the actual paper.

"I thought we were going to train her how to use a gun at this age." I joked, liking the look of Eric the father, it wasn't often I catch Eric doing these little things with Luna, but when I do, it's not something I'd ever forget. He looks up at me and grins sheepishly.

"I want her to have what I never did, a normal childhood, not being pressure to be the smartest." He said, looking down at Luna painting, her hands hitting the paint against the plastic. She had grown a little more, her cheeks almost getting chubbier by the day.

I move into his office, sitting beside them.

"I think my parents knew I was supposed to stay in Erudite, I wasn't interested in facts and figures, the only thing I could connect myself to my family was reading, I loved it. But that was the only thing we had in common, they loved to learn everything, research everything they could possibly think of, I loved to start arguments with people to beat them down with words, I couldn't start fights because I didn't train." I told him, remembering my parents back in Erudite, "I often think, that if I had a sibling, that maybe they could've been the perfect Erudite that my parents could probably connect with them more than me, but they never did have more children after me, I was the only one. I don't think they were interested in having a child, I think they read up information on pregnancies and decided to try it out, to see if anything was different, and I resent them for that, that I was just a subject that they could research on, not a child that they loved."

Eric stayed silent as I talked about my Erudite family, he just looked down at Luna's artwork.

"I was just a invader in their home." Eric said, I looked over at him as he spoke, "I was a invader in my parents home, just living as they worked all day and all night." I smirked a little.

"We're a bunch of misfits with a beautiful little girl." I stated, "Not a test subject."


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