He crossed his arms. “Okay. Then give me twenty pushups.”
I glared at him. He was being a dick again. “Chris, this isn’t boot camp. Just tell me what I need to know so that we can go back and help.”
“You need discipline… training,
practice.
”
I lifted my hand, amused, and splashed it back down. “Which I’m gonna get by rolling around in the mud, right? We don’t even have any food and you’re trying to make me build up muscle?” I pointed at the bags. “The guns work just fine.”
“Sure, when they’re loaded.”
I swallowed the small knot in my throat, taken back. He must have known I had messed up back at the station.
“Not to mention...” He stuck a finger to his chin. “I'm pretty sure you were the one that was in charge of food and water.”
I could easily visualize my duffel bag sitting on the floor next to Jeremy's cell. It made my stomach growl just thinking about it. Though my contempt only built as Chris reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a protein bar, slowly peeling back the wrapper and taking a bite in front of me. “I thought we didn’t have any food?”
“
You
don’t have any food.” He stuck a thumb to his chest before taking another bite. “This one's mine.”
That was bullshit. Since I woke up that morning, I’d gotten pissed on, starved, exhausted, and my patience was wearing thin. I stood up, fuming, and grabbed the rifle bag. “Are you gonna teach me how to use these or not?” I waited for Chris to take another bite before he nodded a finger at me, smiling with his mouth still full.
“You’re the youngest in the family, aren’t you?”
I dropped the bag. “What the hell is your problem?”
“My problem is I’m not gonna take a little bitch out on an op and expect everything to go well.” He wrapped the protein bar back up and threw it across the river at me, but I wasn't expecting it.
I fumbled with the tiny scrap and watched it fall into the river before fishing it out and thinking twice as the water dripped off.
“Twenty-five pushups, your highness. Then we’ll get to the good stuff later.”
I gawked at him. There was no way he was actually expecting me to go along.
He took a seat on the ground and rested his back against a tree. “I got all day, your excellence. I have no reservations walking in a straight line away from that hellhole and never turning back.”
I could feel my heart pound in my chest. I wanted to hit him, but the thought of the town made me think about Jeremy. I really didn’t have any other place to go and he had put his life on the line to try and save me. It just didn’t feel right to leave him there, not after what I felt he could go through the night before.
I tossed the wet piece of plastic to the side and grudgingly put my chest to the ground as Chris directed.
“I wanna hear you count it.”
Fuck you.
Fuck you again.
Fuck you harder.
It turned out that twenty-five was a big number.
I almost ran out of curses by the time I hit the magic tally and my arms felt like falling off. After that, we immediately filled up a piece of trash and used it as a makeshift canteen before continuing onward, wherever it was that Chris was taking me. Part of me was starting to hope it was to my death.
I spent the next few hours following him mile after mile as I dragged everything on my back. The continued strain began to develop into a sharp pain near the base of my spine that constantly begged me to give up, but again Chris had other things in mind.
There was never a lull in training. While we walked, he taught me the basics of hand signals and communicating over distance without having to say a single word. He would teach me a new sign and I would have to repeat it back to him until I got it right. We would do that a few words at a time until I knew enough to form a complete thought, which he would sign to me and I would have to say the meaning out loud correctly or the whole process would start over again. It was difficult, especially at first, but the constant repetition and stark determination for perfection began to pay off.
I had barely noticed how quick the time flew by until he motioned for me to stop, the outline of a few small buildings barely visible through the haze of heat in front of us. I passed him the rifle bag like he asked and watched as he pulled out a longer rifle with a scope on top.
He looked down and sighted the buildings.
I unwrapped what was left of the protein bar and was too hungry by that point to even think about where it had been. I bit into it and watched the scope next to me move ever so slightly. I was too curious not to ask. “What is it?”
“Not sure.” He put the gun down. “But it looks deserted. How much time do we have left?”
I turned my back to look at the sun and stuck my hand out so that it rested on the horizon like he had taught me. Each finger it took to reach the sun would be close to twenty minutes until sunset, which meant that we had at least an hour.
Chris stuffed the rifle back into the bag and helped me shoulder it again.
“We should be able to make it. We’ll hold up there.”
We set off again, this time alert so that we wouldn’t be caught off guard. As we got closer, he had me unsling my gun so that I’d have it at the ready and instructed me to stay quiet and keep at least a few meters distance away from him at all times so that we’d make harder targets. I recalled what he had said before and looked to either side and behind us every few steps to make sure no one got the jump on us. I guessed we had about forty minutes of sunlight left by the time we reached the brick wall of the first building.
I let my shoulder hit the warm surface as my legs struggled to support my weight. I was beyond exhausted. I already had been for the better half of the day, but a new sense of urgency at least kept my arms light. I watched as Chris peered across the corner before turning back to signal me with his hands.
All clear.
Follow me.
Stay quiet.
I scrunched my eyes together. I was pretty sure that’s what he meant. He put his hands back down and I gave him a nod. This time I remembered to cycle the bolt on my own gun, the familiar sound of a bullet being loaded past the breach giving me a little comfort. I really did hope it would fire the next time I would need it to. I watched Chris disappear around the corner and I swore under my breath as I struggled to catch up to him. The last thing I needed was to fall behind.
As I took a few steps out into the open, I immediately began to recognize the portable rides and stand up shops and cheesy games. We had found our way into an abandoned amusement park built around a small outlet mall, the evidence of which was strewn around on the ground in front of us. It looked like a small bomb had gone off, but months of wind, rain, and any other natural intervention had done a better job of mixing everything up and setting it lose all around us.
I tried to stay focused on where to look as I almost tripped over a stuffed unicorn. I had to stop myself from reaching down to grab it for Sarah before I reminded myself how stupid that would have been. I kicked it aside and kept following Chris further into the mess until we reached another building, this one taller than the rest.
He motioned for me to meet him just outside the doorway. “Stay as close to me as you can. When we reach each room, I’ll clear it right to left, you check front to left. Got it?”
I nodded and he took an extra second to look at my face.
“You’re doing great. Don’t let up.” He turned back and I started to feel paranoid.
I wished he hadn’t said that.
We stepped inside the mini-mall and cleared one room at a time. It was a painstaking process, but great practice. At the end we would know that nobody else was there, where everything was, and how to decide the best way to get out if we needed to make a quick exit. I also started to pick up on the smaller habits that Chris had, like taking the longer route through the side stairwell instead of walking up the dead escalators in the middle of the building. We would have been completely exposed if something had happened and we tried to take the quickest way. I never would have thought like that before.
“Clear.”
I followed suit as Chris slung his rifle back over his shoulder on the top floor.
“You think it was worth it?”
I dropped all our bags, almost breathless, but beyond excited that he had decided to visit. “I saw food.” I almost laughed when we both smiled at each other. I made huge plans to pig out. Whatever else he had in store would have to wait. Fortunately, he went along with that and decided it would be okay to split up as long as I promised to keep my gun with me. I quickly scavenged the place and looked for anything I could find that might be useful before coming back up to the top as soon as night came rolling in.
I sat down with my back against the wall on a mattress that I had liberated from a display. I figured there was no sense in letting anything go to waste, which was exactly why I opened up a tin can with my new pocket knife and indulged in the smell. I let myself enjoy the moment, then crammed a spoonful of chocolate pudding into my mouth and closed my eyes. I’m sure I made some kind of sound after that, but I didn’t care. It felt too damn good not to. I already reached the bottom when Chris came back.
“I got a present for you.” He dropped a pair of hiking boots in front of me. “I think they’re your size. If not, there should be more. Apparently nobody wanted to raid the woman’s section.”
I probably should have thanked him, but I still had another can of vanilla pudding to go through. I thought better of it at the last minute and offered him some. “We’re not leaving tomorrow, are we?” I really didn’t like the idea of carrying everything again. I was starting to develop cuts around my neck where the straps had been digging into my shoulders, but I didn’t want to complain. If I had learned anything that day, it was that complaining didn't help.
He shrugged. “It’s not exactly subtle, but at least it's defendable. Not to mention we have a three-sixty degree view and high ground, plus multiple points of egress. We should be fine for at least a night or two.”
That made me feel a little better. I decided to slip off what was left of my shoes and try on my new boots, careful not to pull out any of the laces. Chris sat back and watched me. From the moonlight through the window and the clear sky, I could tell something was on his mind. He eventually let it loose.
“You never told me about your family.”
I immediately slowed down and pressed my fingers against the hard leather. It was a hard thing for me to talk about. I didn’t know what to say to him. I began to rearrange the laces after I dared meet his eyes for a split second. “I know.”
“How come?”
I tried to focus on my feet. I was pretending putting on a pair of shoes was way more complicated than it ever should have been, but he made it that way. He shouldn’t have asked. I had to change the subject. I didn't know how long he had been in the military or what his job had been. I'd never asked him anything that was personal. Maybe I was afraid that if I did, he'd expect me to take my turn. I shrugged. “You’re not really an open book, either.”
“I guess you’re right.”
I played with my pocket knife for a few minutes and almost sliced my finger open before deciding to hide it in my right boot. I was sure it would come in handy. It also gave me the idea to stuff my improvised lock pick set in the left one before I finally looked back over at Chris. “When do you think we’ll start heading back? To Arrino, I mean.”
He mulled it over in his head for a moment and I wondered what the actual requirements were. Did he have a mental checklist or was he just making it up as we went along? He put an empty can down and crossed his arms. “Have you ever killed anyone?”
The question surprised me, but I already knew the answer. Camp Maxwell was eventful for a multitude of reasons. “What’s it matter?”
He didn't answer, but he didn't have to. We both knew it mattered. If I were to hesitate to pull the trigger when it mattered most, it could end up costing both of us our lives.
“I killed…” I stopped myself short, the words hanging heavy in the air. It didn’t feel good to admit it out loud. I thought it might, but I was completely wrong. “I shot someone.” I checked to gauge his reaction to that, but he didn’t show anything. “I just…” I tried to shake the thoughts away. “I don’t understand why you have to teach me all this other stuff for something that’s only gonna take a few hours.”
“Because you’re a survivor, not a soldier.”
I opened my mouth and he cut me off.
“Trust me, there’s a difference.”
I didn’t get what he meant by that, but I figured it would be better not to argue. The only reason we weren't further away from town was because I still wanted to go back.
“Look, if we’re gonna be doing this, then it’s gonna be for the right reasons.” He brought his knees up and rested his hands on them, getting my full attention. “When do we kill someone?”
Seriously?
I thought about it for a few seconds. It seemed simple enough. “When they hurt you.”
“So we kill the guy that makes us feel bad about our weight? We shoot the guy that hits us? That’s escalation at its best, throwing a tantrum at its worst.”