She looked at him across the fire. You think if you fight again, you will become what you were, a killer, a weapon. I was never a weapon. I was just a soldier. "And now?"
Ethan stared into the flames. Now I'm nothing. You are wrong. Ayla's voice was quiet, but firm. You are a man who chooses to protect when it would be easier to abandon.
That is not nothing. That is everything. Ethan didn't answer. "Teach me," Ayla said. "Teach me to fight."
Teach me to survive. And when they come, we will stand together. Ethan looked at her, this fierce, stubborn woman who had walked into his life like a storm and refused to leave. He thought about Vance, about the past, about the blood he'd tried so hard to wash from his hands. And then he thought about the alternative, running, again.
He was so damn tired of running. "Ninety days," Ethan said finally. Ayla nodded. "Ninety days." And if you can't learn fast enough, we're both dead.
Then I will learn faster. Ethan almost smiled. Almost. "Get some sleep," he said. "We start tomorrow."
The training began at dawn. Ethan led Ayla out into the open ground behind the house, where the earth was hard and flat. He handed her an old Colt revolver, the weight of it heavy in her palm. "You ever fire a gun?" he asked. "Once, a rifle.
I missed." "Good." That means you're honest. Ethan stepped behind her, adjusting her stance. Feet shoulder width apart, knees bent.
You're not a statue, you're a spring. Ayla shifted her weight, her jaw set in concentration. Both hands on the grip, firm, but not strangling it. Breathe, aim, squeeze, don't pull. Squeeze.
She fired. The shot went wide, kicking up dust 10 feet to the left of the target. Again. She fired, missed. Again.
Missed. Again. This time, the bullet clipped the edge of the wooden post Ethan had set up. "Better," Ethan said. "But you're flinching, anticipating the recoil.
Stop thinking, just shoot. They worked for hours. By midday, Ayla's hands were shaking, her arms aching, but she didn't complain, didn't ask to stop. Just kept firing until the cylinder was empty, then reloaded and fired again. When the sun was high and brutal, Ethan finally called a break.
Ayla sat in the shade of the barn, drinking water from a canteen, her face flushed and sweating. "You're a terrible shot," Ethan said. "I know." "But you don't quit. That's worth more than aim."