12
EMERSYN
As the weeks passed, I could feel myself grow stronger every day as I built up muscle and endurance.
As my workouts progressed and developed intensity, Sacha began to add in the foundations of self-defense.
We would spend hours going over drills, and training my instincts.
Sacha continually told me, you act what you train—which meant in the heat of an altercation, your reactions came down to training.
The better your training, the more instinctual you could be.
But eventually the weather worsened. It became colder and the daylight hours shortened.
The day the first snow fell, it stuck and didn’t stop until several feet of it encased the world in white.
Our time outdoors grew limited to necessity after that.
I was worried it would impact my progress, but one morning after chopping wood, Sacha jerked his head in the direction of the house.
I followed after him as he made his way inside to his bedroom.
He walked in and left the door open. I hesitated at the doorway.
I’d never stepped foot in his space before.
When I peeked in, I could see the room was tidy and sparse.
Everything had a place. There was a radio, which explained how he reached the outside world for supply drops, but what drew my attention was the door he typed a code into.
“Armory,” he stated when he saw my hesitation.
Harsh LED lights lit up the short staircase down to a larger room, and my eyes widened.
All manner of guns and other weaponry hung on pegs backlit by more lighting.
Stacks of ammo were in crates along one wall that went all the way to the ceiling.
It was more than a hunter’s stash—this was something else.
I’d refrained from asking Sacha about his past. Mostly, because I didn’t want him to turn the questions back to me.
But, the amount of firepower here spoke of something deeper than just surviving in the wild.
Sweat immediately broke out across my skin and I clenched my fists at my side, unable to come further into the room. Ever since being shot, guns frightened me. Which really sucked because I’d enjoyed handling them when I was younger.
Sacha’s words broke through my thoughts. He gestured to a door across the room.
“Behind there is a small range. And, that other room is a gym—” He pointed to a door directly to my left. “Modest—but, I expect you to complete your workouts there while the weather is bad.”
Then, Sacha took down a handgun and a shiver ran down my spine.
“We’ll start with a nine-millimeter,” he said.
He slowly dropped the magazine and popped the slide to double check that it was empty.
I recognized the movement—it was what my Dad used to do with his guns.
It was the first thing he’d taught me and Cole.
Growing up with guns in the house, my dad had made sure to teach us how to handle and respect them.
I’d even shot a .22 before, even though my Mom thought we were way too young.
That felt like a lifetime ago—and in a way it was—
“This is called a magazine.” My Dad pulled out a piece of the gun from the bottom. “See, it’s empty?”
Cole and I stood in his study, solemnly subdued with the gravity of what we were being allowed to do. At eight years old, guns had been off limits if even a bit of an unknown up until today.
“Then, you want to pull the slide back,” Dad continued. “Because even if the mag is gone, there could still be a bullet in the chamber and that’s just as dangerous.”
He showed us both the empty chamber.
“Guns are dangerous—” He made sure he met both of our gazes with a very serious look.
“They are not toys, and you never, never point one at someone—even if you’re sure the gun is not loaded.
They are not something you show off to your friends.
And, no matter what—I don’t care if you just saw someone check the gun themselves, you always check it yourself. Am I clear?”
“Yes,” Cole and I chorused together.
“This is a .22.” He handed me the gun to hold first. “It’s a smaller gun, which should be easier for you two to handle right now. I’m going to show you how to take it apart—”
Even at eight, I knew the weight of what I held. It was scary, but exciting at the same time. I passed it carefully to Cole.
“Do we get to go shooting?” Cole asked, barely able to keep a lid on his excitement.
“If you can get this down, yeah, we’ll go after school tomorrow—”
“If you’re not ready—” Sacha’s voice brought me back as he reached to take the gun back.
“No,” I cleared my throat. “No–I can do it.”
I picked up the gun and reacquainted myself with the feel of it. My hands seemed to remember more than my mind did because I dropped the mag and popped the slide like I’d been doing it my whole life. I put the gun down, shocked with myself.
“You’ve handled a gun before,” Sacha stated, surprised.
I nodded. “My dad showed me how to use a .22.”
I could feel his attention while I stared at the gun. I was conflicted about touching firearms again. Partially because of the memories they evoked about my childhood, but mostly because of the trauma of staring down the barrel of one and being shot.
Sacha picked up the gun. “I’m going to start at the beginning. If you want to progress through anything, let me know.”
Sacha proceeded to take the gun apart. He explained each piece before he put it all back together and slid it toward me to do the same.
We spent the next hour getting me reacquainted with a nine-millimeter and a forty-five, doing nothing more complicated than taking them apart and putting them back together.
At the end of the session, I definitely wasn’t ready to shoot one, but I no longer had the visceral fear of holding them that I’d had before coming down to the armory.
For a week we kept up the same routine. Sacha would show me a gun, take it apart, put it back together, and then make me do it until it felt like muscle memory. I took apart everything he had in his armory—handguns and rifles—nothing was left untouched.
However, I didn’t touch ammo until the second week.
Sacha showed me how to load magazines. I did it until my fingers were raw and torn, and only then did he hand me a gadget that made the process a breeze.
I scowled, but knew there was a lesson there so I didn’t protest. I thought it would take me longer to want to shoot one, but on the afternoon of the seventh day, I abruptly set down the mag I’d been loading, thoroughly bored.
“When can I shoot?”
Sacha was perched on a stool, cleaning his hunting rifle. He stopped and looked up with a glimmer of something in his eyes like maybe he’d been waiting for me to ask him that.
“Grab a gun and those mags you just loaded,” he said.
We walked outside to the back meadow. It was an unusually clear, crisp winter day.
The snow crunched under our boots and glittered like thousands of diamonds in the sun.
Sacha pulled an orange cloth from his pocket and attached it to a tree about ten yards away.
He came back and gave me ear plugs and a set of clear glasses for eye protection.
Once I put them on, he nodded toward the tree.
“There’s your target.”
I gripped the gun with palms that were sweating in my gloves. There was no way I’d ever forget the first time I pulled the trigger of a gun, but this felt similar. Back then, my hesitation was because I hadn’t known what to expect. This time, I think I was hesitant to hear the sound.
I opened and closed my fingers and found a grip I liked, then jammed a mag in and raised the gun downrange. The scar on my head tingled. I took a deep breath—
And, another.
I placed my finger on the trigger—then took it off and lowered the gun.
I couldn’t do it. The anticipation of hearing the gunshot made my skin clammy from stress. I turned to Sacha who stood with his arms crossed over his chest. He’d been staring downrange, but his attention slowly drifted to me. I couldn’t read the expression behind his stony frown.
“Problem?” He asked.
I licked my dry lips. I didn’t dare tell him I couldn’t do it.
“It’s kind of far.”
It wasn’t. We both knew it.
It was a testament to how well I’d gotten to know his mannerisms the last few months that I even caught the quick flash of amusement in his eyes before he resumed his usual stoic features.
He shrugged. “Then move closer.”
I turned back toward the target and chewed on my lower lip. I had to do this—if I wanted to one day get revenge on whoever had hurt my family, I needed to be able to handle a gun. The frustration with my own self-inflicted hesitation pushed me back into action.
Quit being a baby.
I raised the gun downrange again and settled my hands around it.
“Don’t just pull the trigger—squeeze it. Feel the weight of it against your finger, but don’t anticipate the kick,” Sacha said quietly.
I adjusted my feet and slowly put my finger back on the trigger. I released the breath I held, and squeezed. The bang was loud and sent chills across my skin, but the relief after the first shot made the next one easier. And the next—until the slide popped as I fired the last bullet.
I dropped the empty mag and slid another one in.
I pressed the lever I knew depressed the slide to chamber one.
This time I tried to aim and Sacha provided a few pointers.
I hit the tree, and everywhere else but the orange fabric.
At the end of the mag, I lowered the gun and glared downrange at the perfectly intact orange cloth blowing gently in the breeze.
I heard the huff of something very close to a chuckle from over my shoulder.
“Align the sights down the barrel and keep your grip steady so when you squeeze the trigger you’re not pulling the gun one way or the other.
You’re also anticipating it a bit toward the end of the rounds, so your aim is high and to the right.
” He tapped my thumb. “Align your thumb down the barrel toward your target.”
We made a few adjustments and I managed to get a closer grouping with the next few rounds. When one of my shots finally hit the orange fabric, I made a small sound of victory and my lips curled into a rare smile.
We practiced until my fingers tingled and my hands were sore, but as we walked back to the house, I felt something expand within me. I had hobbies when I was younger—interests that pulled me back day after day, but this felt deeper, more like a calling.
Because of my trauma, it surprised me, but then again, it shouldn’t have.
Even though my dad had only taken us shooting a few times, I’d eagerly awaited the day I’d be old enough to go on his annual hunting trip.
I’d grown up looking at pictures of him in the military, and had heard some of the tamer stories of his past. Going to the range and hunting would have been something that we bonded over.
The loss of that hurt. There was not a doubt in my mind this would have been something he and I shared. While that drove a knife of grief into my chest, it also made me want to throw my entire being into training. I wanted to make him proud, even if he wasn’t here to see it.