My fist collides with Ricky’s face again. I’m beginning to get frustrated with his lack of progress. He shouldn't be having this much trouble, it's basic pattern recognition. And yet, the same spot, every time, he lets me bait him into standing exactly where I want him and gets a pummeling for it. He should have learned by now, why’s he even have those horns if he can’t use them? Once again he goes flying across the room, first in the air, then sliding along the floor until he hits the wall. I’m definitely getting worse at pulling my punches the longer this goes on, but I don’t really care at this point. Maybe it’ll help him learn.
In the week since our failed raid on the house Victoria and Alice were staying at, he’s had plenty of time to drill this shit into his head and he just hasn’t. I’m starting to think he should look into alternative employment, I don’t think he’s really cut out for this shit. He still has no fucking sense of when to hold back from a fight, just look at what happened last week. Barrelling forward, not even checking his corners, just to get blindsided by a fucking unarmed witch. He had two guns! And those things were not stock. There’s absolutely no reason he shouldn’t have been in complete control of the situation, and yet there he was, unconscious on the ground as if he wasn’t the most heavily armed and theoretically dangerous motherfucker in the room aside from me.
Ugh. I shouldn’t be so hard on him, I fucked myself over just as hard sprinting at her. And I have the experience to know better, that shit was sloppy. I deserved the day I spent in recovery for that one. I’m still not even sure who it was that got me, honestly. One moment I’m sprinting at that witch, the next there’s a searing pain in the small of my back and then I’m getting the tar beaten out of me until I’m out. Victoria’s sickle was gone when I woke up, so I guess she was probably involved. It’s annoying as hell, we basically got nothing done while we were there and now we’re back at square one, no idea where any of them are.
Ricky’s finally managed to pick himself up off the floor and he does not look ecstatic about it. “Sorry, that was probably a bit much. Go take a rest, Ricky, we can spar more later.”
He nods and exits the training room. Once he’s gone, I move from the center of the empty floor I’m standing in to grab my water bottle from its place against one of the nearby walls. After taking a long swig I pour some of it over my head. One reason I can tell I’ve been going too hard on the kid is that I’m actually working up a bit of a sweat. Sparring against someone at Ricky’s level would be cake if I were holding back properly. I really shouldn’t be letting myself get worked up about this, nothing good can come of it. It’s not gonna help me improve his survivability, and it’s definitely not going to help me come back untouched from further missions. It’s because I’ve gotten so frustrated and protective over him that I got my shit rocked last week, and if I don’t get a handle on it that’s just gonna keep happening.
It’d be a lot easier for me to get a handle on my feelings about the situation if he could get a handle on how to fucking carry himself in a fight. I wouldn’t have to be so protective of him, I wouldn’t be bothering myself about trying to help him learn, it’d be smooth sailing. Part of me just wants to leave him to it, let him sink or swim. He’s not actually my responsibility, there’s no reason I should be bothering myself about whether he lives or dies. I’m not his mom, or older sister, I didn’t recruit him, he’s not my direct subordinate and I certainly don’t rely on him for anything. It shouldn’t be any skin off my back if he goes out there and gets his damn fool self killed picking a fight he can’t win.
He’s young though, and still so inexperienced. Much as it shouldn’t be my problem, I wouldn’t feel great about seeing him die out there. The kid’s only 19 for fuck’s sake. He wouldn’t be the first teenager to die in this line of work, and he probably wouldn’t be the last either, I know that, but being aware in the abstract that it’s a thing that happens from time to time and actually seeing it happen to someone I know are two very different things. Besides, I kinda like the kid. He’s an idiot, and absolutely no good at following the advice I give him, but he's pretty fun to have a beer with afterward. He kept me company while I was in recovery a week ago, too, the guy seems to actually care about the rest of us here in a way that most of the grunts just don’t, hell, a way that even I just don’t under most circumstances. I try to keep a bit of a handle on how callous I let this job make me, but at a certain point it’s unavoidable. If your job is beating people over the head with a hammer, people who may or may not actually deserve it, the easiest way to get good enough at that job to hold onto it and get promoted is to just not give a fuck, let it all wash over you like a river of blood, close your eyes and hold your breath til you come out the other side. You don’t get any credit or benefits for giving a shit about people. Not your coworkers, not your subordinates, and definitely not your targets. Maybe that lesson will get beaten into Ricky given enough time, who knows. I’m hoping that if I can train him into something that’s actually dangerous and show him how to keep himself out of trouble, that maybe he won’t have to. Romantic, I know. What can I say, I care when no one else does.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
There’s only so much I can do, though, and for right now “so much” is more or less nothing at all. Ricky and I will get back to it tomorrow, but for the rest of today I actually have some time to kill, and I’d prefer not to spend all of it sleeping. I don’t really know what exactly I want to do with my day, but it’s definitely something out there in the world, so I guess that’s where I’ll start. I make my way out the front door of the safehouse, into the warm air of the city, and start walking.
It’s the last day of June, and certainly feels like it. The sun is high in the sky, beaming down a pleasant, even warmth onto my back. Hard to believe it’s already been almost a month since this all started, it feels like barely anything’s happened. Then again, I supposed that’s just because I’ve spent so much of it waiting around for leads, killing time. Just like I’m doing now. I suppose a lot of people would be grateful for all the time off, but it’s making me restless. At least my relatively low position in our organization affords me the privilege of coming and going more or less as I please. From what I understand the more you rise through the ranks the more you’re expected to always be available, if not constantly busy.
I’m also not noteworthy enough for casually strolling down the street to be dangerous the way it would be if I were a few rungs further up the ladder. Anyone who has a reason to come after me at my current standing would have to be motivated by personal grievance, and it’d have to be a pretty fuckin’ big grievance to make them overlook the giant hammer on my back. A hammer that they already know enough to be afraid of, since statistically it’s probably what doled out whatever grievance they want revenge for. If anything I’m in more danger napping on the couch than I am walking down the street. At least if I’m asleep, anyone gunning for me might have an easier time getting the drop. Outside, I’m in my element, more than capable of throwing down at a moment’s notice. Plenty of room for big swings and plenty of visibility to see attacks coming.
I still haven’t decided where I’m going by the time I reach the subway, so I just climb aboard with the intent of getting off at the first station that puts me close to somewhere that sounds good. I don’t even bother listening to the first handful of stops, I’m plenty content to sit on the train and relax for the time being. After a half hour or so, I decide to get off in the middle of the commercial district. Plenty of bars around here, and I can’t really think of anything else to do with my day than just drink it away.
I grab my usual seat by the bar, leaning my hammer up against the counter next to me. Without a word, the bartender deposits a double of whiskey, neat, on the bar in front of me, and leaves the bottle. She’s seen me enough to know how this goes.
“Hey there, Kara. You look like you’re in a sour mood,” a voice calls from behind me. I turn to see a familiar woman, about a foot shorter than me with a blonde pixie cut, clad in an unzipped leather jacket and sporting much less muscle under the hem of her crop top, walking toward my seat. She always insists that she doesn’t come here that often, but somehow she’s always around when I show up.
“Have you ever seen me in a good mood, Jean?” I glower and take a swig of my booze.
“Well, you certainly tend to leave in one,” she giggles, taking the seat next to me and conspicuously brushing her hand across the exposed strip of back between my tank top and shorts. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you like me or something.”
I snort and roll my eyes. “You know damn well how I feel about you.”
“I suppose so! After all, you always seem to find your way to me when you’re having a bad day and need a little something to lift your spirits!” She leans progressively closer as she says this. By the end of the sentence she’s practically whispering in my ear.
“I can’t say I’m really finding my way to you when you’re the one who always seems to show up wherever I happen to be drinking.”
“Oh don’t give me that, you know what you’re doing.”
“Look, I just wanted to grab a drink and kill some time.”
Jean smirks. “Well, you’ve had your drink, why don’t we go kill some time?” She leans in and nibbles lightly at my ear, and I suppress a slight shudder. It has been a long week, and I don’t really have anything else to do…
“Alright, you win.” I flag over the bartender and settle up my tab. Jean giggles in my ear and leans into me, one hand stroking back and forth across my midriff while I pay. We quickly leave for her place, and the rest of the afternoon rushes by in a blur.