Requiem for a Soldier (Requiem #1)

Chapter 12: Aim

April 10

Ryan

Ana frowns when her first shot doesn't hit the intended target, a piece of the crate delivered yesterday propped up against a tree fifty yards away from the ATV. She takes aim and fires again. This time she nicks the corner. Still frowning in concentration, she continues shooting without a word until she needs to reload.

"Any more advice?" she asks as she prepares to fire again.

"Don't pull on the trigger, squeeze it," I say. "If you jerk on the trigger instead of using smooth movements, you'll move the barrel to the right and your shot will go wide."

"Huh," she grunts. Her next shot is slower but closer to the center of the target. She narrows her eyes at it, appraising it. "Hmm," she hums in the back of her throat, sounding thoughtful. She lines up the shot again and continues firing until she needs to reload again.

She's not bad. She's not excellent, but she's not bad. Maybe I'll take her hunting in a few weeks if I think she's up for it. Though that's probably more dependent on her ability to handle being outside than her skill level. 

"When can I start with the Glock?" she asks.

I look at the target, then eye the little shed. I think she's ready to start practicing with the real target, a smaller metal one that emits a resounding clang with every successful hit. 

"Are you good waiting here?" I ask. 

She nods, so I trudge over to the shed to retrieve it. Ana watches as I replace the bullet-riddled wood with the metal target.

"When every shot hits the target and you can break down and build up your Glock in two minutes, I'll think about it."

She rolls her eyes. "You're still on that?"

"If you are going to use a weapon in a high-stress situation, you need to be intimately familiar with it. Reload."

After thirty minutes of shooting with very little conversation or breaks, Ana makes an exasperated sound and turns to me, her expression one of annoyance. "Let's see you hit the target with every shot."

I can feel the grin spreading across my face. Wordlessly, I move to about seventy-five yards from the target. Once I've reached a good spot, I line up the shot and wait for a few moments to determine if I'll need to correct for the wind. Once I'm satisfied that I'll be able to hit the target, I begin firing. When all my bullets are spent, I turn to Ana. She is staring at me open-mouthed.

"How did you do that?" she asks, her tone as incredulous as her expression. "How did you do that with only one eye?"

A grin breaks out on her face as she looks at me in awe. Since the mask covers my mouth, I don't stop myself from smiling back at her.

"Practice," I say. "I've had a lot of time on my hands."

She laughs, all traces of her exasperation gone. "That was awesome."

I pull my expression back into a stern one. "Your turn."

She shakes her head as she turns to walk closer to the target, a smile still on her lips. I fight the smile that tries to return to mine. For some reason, her reverence for my skill gives me a sense of pride I haven't felt in a long time. Throughout the rest of the afternoon, the memory of her awed smile and obvious admiration plays over in my mind.

~~~

After dark, she sits at the kitchen table with her new headphones on. Her list included an iPod with a selection of music preloaded to it. As she taps her foot in time to the melody, she rhythmically disassembles and reassembles the Glock. I'm reading Harry Potter on the couch, at Ana's insistence.

Despite my first impressions of the book, mainly that it seemed geared toward children and not me, Harry Potter is turning out to be a very interesting read. I can't really relate to the main character missing his parents, but I can relate to his dislike for his living family members and his joy at leaving them behind and making new, unexpected friends. Sensing that it must be late, I check the time and see that it's 11:30, much later than Ana is usually out in the living room. I glance over at the table to see her head nodding at the same tempo as the foot-tapping. She is still intent on the Glock. I wonder if she realizes how late it is.

Feeling tired, I stretch out on the couch, lay the book on my chest, and close my eyes. An indeterminate amount of time later, I wake to find Ana standing over me, her headphones around her neck.

"What is it?" I ask, concerned.

"Watch," she says. She sits on the floor and places the gun on the coffee table in front of me. She then proceeds to take the gun apart and put it back together, meeting the time requirement I laid out.

When finished, she looks up at me with a grin on her face.

"Do it in one minute."

Her grin vanishes and her eyes narrow.

"But earlier you said two!"

"Now I'm saying one."

She glares at me and disappears back into the kitchen again, but returns only a few minutes later. She successfully breaks down and rebuilds the gun in fifty-two seconds. This time, she crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow at me.

"Forty-five seconds."

Her expression quickly reverts to a glare.

"I'm going to bed," she says.

"Remember to lock your guns in the cabinet."

"Probably a good idea. I'm considering shooting you," she says dryly.

I smile.

After a few minutes, Ana disappears into the bedroom for the night. I immediately set down the book, pull off the mask, and run my hand over my face and through my hair. That mask is becoming extremely irritating. I don't know how I'm going to go on like this. But I also can't stomach the thought of taking it off in front of Ana. I wonder what Jeremy would think about that. He was always quick to crack a joke about my looks. After all, he was the one who gave me my nickname, Pretty Boy. I think there must have been people who never actually used my real name, calling me Pretty Boy exclusively. Jeremy was especially proud of the fact that his nickname for me had the same initials as my rank and name, Private Burke. 

That's Private First Class Burke, thank you very much, I can almost hear my own voice retort. I rubbed Jeremy's nose in the fact that I'd been promoted before he'd been every chance I got, even though it was only by a few weeks. My mind drifted again to the moments before the explosion, before we realized the deep trouble we were in. Jeremy was teasing someone relentlessly about something. Then Lance said, "Hey, do you hear that?" 

Nothing was ever the same again after that moment.