Malo - Page 44

“I think I’m done for the day,” I pant, as I grab the towel Harley brought down with us to clean myself up. “I’m exhausted.”

“Hey, you did pretty damn well,” Harley tells me, and she sounds seriously proud. I grin at her.

“You sound surprised,” I shoot back.

“It usually takes people a while to get that comfortable,” she explains. “You should be pleased with yourself, seriously.”

“Yeah,” Sin echoes, as he leans in the doorway. He’s been watching us for the last half-hour or so, and, when I turn to him, I find that he looks distinctly less impressed than Harley does.

“What’s up?” I ask, panting. I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job, but the look on his face right now seems to indicate something different.

“You know how to handle weapons?” he asks me.

I shake my head. “Uh, what kind?” I admit. All of this is exposing just how little I know about the real world. I’ve been so wrapped up in my studies, I haven’t had time to practice my shooting in a long time.

“Guns,” he replies. “Ever shot before?”

My face lights up. “Yeah, I used to shoot all the time with my dad,” I reply, my head filling with the memories of the two of us spending a weekend hiking out to the middle of nowhere so he could teach me how to shoot. He’d learned it from his father, when they’d had to hunt to supplement their food intake from their farm, and he insisted on passing down the skill to me.

“I’ve got good aim,” I boast, and he tips his head to the side.

“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” he remarks, jerking his head toward the door. “We’ve got a shooting range out back. You want to come show us?”

“Sure thing,” I reply, feeling a little cocky as the adrenaline from my training session with Harley courses through my system. It might have been a while since I had shot a gun, but I was pretty sure I could still handle myself as well as I used to.

He leads me out to the shooting range, where a handful of other Kings and their associates have come out to shoot. I grab one of the guns, and I am about to line it up and take a shot at the target when Sin steps in to stop me.

“You should probably wear these,” he tells me, handing me a pair of ear protectors. I roll my eyes at him, but slip them on. My dad never used them, and always talked like they were nothing more than a formality. I don’t want to argue, though. I know Sin is just making sure everyone is taken care of.

I glance around, trying to see if Malo is around to see me. I kind of want him to watch, given that it’s something I know I have some skills at. I spotted him out of the corner of my eye earlier, when I was sparring with Harley, but he’d run off as soon as I had spoken to him, like he had better things to be doing than hanging around and watching me.

I don’t know exactly where things stand between the two of us, and I wish to hell I did. I felt like we were getting somewhere the other day, when we talked a little about my family, and he apologized for taking off the way he did in Mexico. But I’m not sure what’s going on inside that head of his, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t getting to me. I know whatever is happening with us is the least of my worries right now, what, with the war that’s looming on the horizon, and my father’s life hanging in the balance, but I can’t just turn my feelings off like that. It’s not that simple.

I squeeze one eye shut, and remember what my father told me: finger on the trigger, breathe in, and then squeeze down on it slowly as you breathe out. I aim for the center of the paper target that’s fluttering slightly in the breeze, the ear protectors closing off all other noises around me, allowing me to stay completely focused.

The shot leaves the barrel, and hits just to the right of the middle of the target. I pull down the ear protectors, shooting a proud look over at Sin. “See?”

“Not bad,” he replies. “See if you can get the center this time.”

“Hey, I would have this time,” I protest. “It was just moving a little?—”

“Excuses,” he shoots back, raising his eyebrows and offering me a small smile. “Come on, try again. I’m not letting you walk out of here until you’ve hit the center of the target.”

I slip on the ear protectors, and line up the shot again. I can do this, I know I can. My mind flashes back to the days I spent out with my father in the fields, the tin cans glinting in the sun. Lined up and waiting for me to take the shot. I slow my breathing slightly, but I can feel Sin’s eyes on me, probably checking to see if I’m focused on my task.

I fire the shot, and this time, it goes straight through the center of the target. I let out a breath of triumph, and this time, when I turn to Sin, he shakes his head.

“All right, you’ve got some skills,” he replies. “But can you do it again, that’s the real question.”

“Are you going to keep coming up with new challenges for me?” I ask him, laughing. “Because you know I can handle them.”

“Go on then,” he replies. A few other people have started to gather around, watching as I steady my stance and line up another shot. Well, if they want to see someone who knows what they’re doing, I’m more than willing to oblige.

I fire off another round into the target, this time in a neat line straight through the middle of the center. Behind me, when I pull off my ear protectors, I can’t help but smile when I hear an impressed round of applause at my newly-discovered skills.

I look around again, trying to figure out where Malo is. I thought we’d made up? I’m not sure why he’s keeping his distance like this, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bug me. I don’t want him to stay away from me. I don’t want us to let what happened before get in the way of whatever’s going on between us. I know it might not be easy for him to believe that I really don’t hold it against him, the way he left like that when we were back in Mexico, but I get it, I do.

I finish up, and hand the gun back to Sin, who grins at me, shaking his head.