Absolutely insane.
I look at the compound bow in my hands, then squint at the target Lexie and Kira are taking turns with. There are tons of targets, all with varying degrees of difficulty based on the size of their bull’s-eye ring and their distance from the shooting line, but since I’ve never held a bow in my life and don’t know how to use one, I’m just watching the girls for now.
Standing there in the sunlight, on the most beautiful parcel of land I’ve ever been to, wearing the most expensive clothes I’ve ever owned, and feeling satisfied by a full breakfast, I’m hit by a funny thought. It comes out of nowhere, and I startle Lexie and Kira with an out-of-place laugh. They jump and look at me over their shoulders.
“Tommy?” Kira asks, like she thinks I’m losing my mind. “Everything alright?”
“I just remembered something funny, Kira darling, that’s all,” I soothe her anxiety, and she blushes when I peck her cheek with a kiss. She bites her lip shyly and turns back around to watch Lexie aim. I feel eyes on my back, watching from the porch of the house, and intentionally don’t look. I know who’s there.
Instead, I wander over toward an empty spot, one of the many lines spray-painted on the otherwise flawless, freshly-mowed grass. Most of the ‘young leaders’ at the summit are focused on their own targets, but plenty of them are nursing drinks at the mimosa table and clutching their heads, portraying ‘hungover’ with just their body language. Brian should be one of them, given his performance at breakfast, but he must’ve gotten something to help him out of his slump because he’s pulled himself together.
As I amble, my eyes are drawn to Brian as he struts around with his bow. I remember the violence of last night, the way I held him down, and I recall the funny thought.
I’ve held a lot of things over the years that I’ve used to hurt people. A metal pipe, shoes, glass bottles, a bat, a heavy book, a pen, and my bare hands. But, despite all the blood, I haven’t used a real weapon on someone since the day I killed the third and last man on my hitlist. It’s been ages since I’ve even held something that technically qualified as a weapon–I’ve never even flipped open the switchblade I keep in my boot, it must be rusted shut by now–and I always thought that if I did, I’d be fighting for my life.
But right now, I’ve got a weapon in my hands…and I’m cosplaying Robin Hood with hungover trust fund babies.
That counts as a funny thought, right? It mademelaugh.
I look at the bow, considering it. I didn’t use a bow on the men I’d killed. I’d used knives, mostly. And gasoline. And a match.
When was that, like ten years ago now? No, eleven. God, it’s been that long?
I’d been fifteen when I finally killed the third man on my list. He was the worst one.
Don’t think about him, I command myself, playing around with the bow in my hands. Pulling it up, copying Kira’s posture, drawing back the string and feeling like Legolas or some shit…only to relax, let out my breath, and smile ruefully at the empty target several yards away. I feel silly, like I’m trying out for a movie. I have no clue what I’m doing.
One of the targets further down the rowthunksas it gets impaled near the center, and an obnoxious cheer erupts. I tilt my head and subtly watch as Brian throws his hands up in triumph. Janessa screeches and jumps with joy, clearly back to playing the good girlfriend, and his two lackeys jeer in a less-than-friendly way that they could do better.
Brian looks over toward me and sees me watching. With an angry sneer, he grabs Janessa by the waist and swings her into a swooning kiss that she hesitantly allows. She wraps her arms around his neck and returns the kiss, but I see the way her legs are tensed under her, and how tightly she’s holding on to him in case he drops her.
She doesn’t trust him.
Maybe she’s not a total idiot after all.Then again, she’s still over there fighting for the attention of a boy she doesn’t even trust, a boy who almost assaulted her, when sheshouldbe staying as far away from him as possible…so maybe that makes her even more of an idiot than I originally thought.
Brian lurches back to standing and puts her a little too roughly back on her feet, already staring me down like he’s just won a major victory in our newfound animosity. I turn away from him, but keep him in my peripherals because I don’t trust him, either.
I look at my target and pull back the string, nocking an arrow as best I can. The tips of them are blunt, but they still have a bit of a pointed end in order to pierce the target. I relax the string to more closely inspect the arrow’s tip.
Barring an extremely lucky shot to someone’s eye or throat, it probably wouldn’t kill anyone, but it’d hurt. It would definitely puncture skin and sink into muscle. It’d draw blood, that much is certain.
Don’t do it,I warn myself.Don’t. Do. It.
I hear Brian’s laugh, loud and harsh and braying, and I remember the way he threw Janessa against the table, the way he told her that he was going to get what he wanted out of her whether she wanted to give it up or not.
And I decide that hey, what’s the real harm if I give in to temptation this one time? I wouldn’tkillhim. Right? No big deal, huh? Buuuuut I might be able to make him limp around for the rest of the week, and the thought of that is sweet, like candy on my tongue. I bet it hurts like a bitch to take an arrow to the thigh.
Perhaps an ‘accident’ is in order.
I pull the arrow back, stretch the string…then relax and let it go slack. Then do it again, testing the pull of it, trying to figure out how easy it would be to let it fly at the wrong moment. In my head, I’m already watching him bleed. I wonder if Janessa will secretly enjoy it. I know Lexie will. Kira will probably be distressed by the blood, but if I can play it as an accident, I don’t think I’ll scare her. Just a little accident…
“Your form is abysmal.”
The deep voice at my back doesn’t startle me. I heard him coming. I saw him slip out of the mansion and watch from the porch when we first came outside, and I’d felt his eyes on me. I told myself he was just looking after Kira, but it’s been puttingme on edge. I was hyperaware of him as he left the porch behind and started walking over toward the archery field.
So yeah, I knew he was coming over. So he didn’t scare me, but I am surprised because I figured he would go talk to his niece first.
Although, Kira is busy with Lexi, both of them focused on their friendly archery contest at their own stations. She hasn’t even noticed her uncle is here.
