19. Addie #2
“Is that an Intervention?!” I asked, completely awed by the rifle’s magnificence when he flicked open the case lid.
I moved before I was even consciously aware of it, my hand hovering over the sleek midnight outline of the gun—the very same model Pearce had mentioned all of one time and I’d latched onto, sliding into hyperfixation, ever since.
I even went so far as to ask the armoury staff to show me what one looks like, since we weren’t allowed access to the internet—and by extension, the outside world—and to ask if they had any on site that I could try out.
They did not.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, beaming.
Smiles came easily to Deklan Pearce, it seemed. He must not be as traumatised as the rest of us.
Or perhaps he was more traumatised than any of us.
“Do you wanna test it out?”
“Do I…” I breathed, checking every inch of his emo-band-lead-singer, tragically handsome face for any hint of deception. When I found none, I allowed myself to linger in the huge chunk of joy he was inviting me into—in the form of cold steel and hot bullets.
“Absolutely! No take backs!” I shouted, all but snatching the weapon from his grip—stopping myself at the last second because this was his baby, and I respected people’s babies.
“Come on,” he said, shoving a full magazine into the pretty, pretty gun, then grabbed my hand again with his free one. “Beck’s room has the best view.”
Shit. Beck.
Not only was I getting the full tour of Instructor Pearce’s bedroom, he was now dragging me headlong into Instructor Beckett’s—arguably the most terrifying of the three.
“Are you sure he won’t be home anytime soon?” I asked, wariness stealing the strength of my voice in an embarrassingly obvious way.
Pearce squeezed my hand as we crossed the kitchen to the door on the far side. “Positive. He’s got a meeting first, then training this afternoon.”
“Who’s he training?”
He smiled at me mischievously—and I was beginning to learn that that was his standard response to most things. “Himself, Miss Sinclair. However did you think zee beast retains zee musculature?”
I knew he meant it as a joke, a way to make me laugh or break the ice—but his words fell flat. He’d only succeeded in reminding me of Fleur, and the fact that I couldn’t immediately go tell her where I’d been and with whom.
Suddenly, the allure of the gun faded, and I was left with an even bigger hole in my chest where my heart used to be.
“Hey,” Pearce said softly, leaning the gun against the wall. “What happened?” He tilted my chin up, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “Where’d you just go?”
With nowhere to escape to, the truth slipped out. The whole, raw truth, exactly as I was feeling it.
“You—the accent. It sounded French.” My face fell, my bottom lip trembling. “It reminded me of Fleur Deveaux—the girl—”
“The girl you were close to, who died in your bed,” he finished gently.
I nodded, not knowing if it made me a coward for being relieved I hadn’t had to say the words. I couldn’t recall if I’d actually uttered them aloud yet—or if I was living in some kind of denial about the whole tragic situation.
“She was my best friend, after promising myself I wouldn’t allow anyone to get close in here.”
His lips curved knowingly. “I have a pair like that myself. Two sons of bitches who wormed their way in despite all the reasons I gave them not to.”
I blinked, taken aback. “Exactly.”
“Come on. I promise this is precisely what you need to feel better.” He scooped up the CheyTac Intervention and nudged Beckett’s door open with his shoulder.
It was exactly as I expected—but also not.
The bed was perfectly made, not a wrinkle in sight—the cover, a beautiful sage green.
A bedside table sat beside it, free of clutter.
All of his cupboards and drawers were neatly closed and he had zero personal items in sight—not even a solitary photograph.
A bookshelf made of solid oak stood in the corner beside the window, with titles arranged by series and no apparent order beyond that.
I crept forward, squinting to read the names on the spines. Upon closer examination, they were the most out-of-place and personal things in the room: Hate by Tate James, Flock by Kate Stewart, The Venom in her Veins by J.E. Caroline, even Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid.
Wide-eyed, I turned to Pearce for verification. “These are all—”
“Romance books of some variety, yes,” he agreed. “But don’t tell a soul you saw them in here or we’ll be flatmates six feet under quicker than you can say cottage.”
My face scrunched. “Cottage?”
He groaned. “Don’t ask.”
I bit my lip, with the sense that I’d missed something. “So. Gun?” I asked, hoping it would be a welcome change in topic. And judging by the pair of dimples appearing in each of his cheeks, that was a solid guess.
Pearce crossed to the double-hung window, threw it up as high as it would go, and propped the rifle’s bipod stands on the sill. He rested the butt of the gun in the pocket of his right shoulder, fiddled with some of the mechanisms on top, then grinned up at me.
Outside Beck’s window, Black Mountain was the central view. He had the unique ability to sit here and witness a person’s entire trek up to Widow’s Drop, not to mention prime viewing of the field below, where we were routinely subjected to laps and suicide runs.
Sadistic prick probably sat here contemplating all the ways to make us suffer in the name of furthering our athletic abilities.
“Pick a mark,” Pearce said, nodding at the mountain.
I took a few steps closer to stand behind him, scouring everything he could see, trying to find something I would be hard-pressed to hit.
“That tree—about a kilometre up the mountain. Right beside the track, with the hollow in the middle.”
“The one with the empty bird’s nest in the bough?”
I squinted, wondering how he’d made that out. “I think so?” It just looked like a patch of dead bark to me.
Pearce chuckled. “Check the scope, Adelaide.”
Oh.
I leaned over his right shoulder, careful not to bump him or knock the gun from his grip. Peering through the green-tinted lens, I was indeed able to make out the minuscule twigs shaped into an empty bowl—eggs long since hatched or fallen.
“Yes. That one.”
“Easy,” he murmured, turning his head slightly as I stepped back.
Our eyes locked for immeasurable seconds, excitement passing between us like a conduit.
Pearce grinned, wide and unencumbered, glanced through the scope, then squeezed the trigger.
Just once.
Once was all he needed.
I stared, slack-jawed and open-mouthed, as the nest tumbled to the ground—dislodged by the force of the bullet tearing through the branch it had rested upon.
“Holy fuck,” I whispered.
Who knew guns could be so sexy?
Oh, right. I did. And judging by the solitary dimple appearing in his right cheek—his jaw cocked to the side—Deklan Pearce knew it, too.
“C’mere,” he murmured, expression unchanging, but his eyes… oh, how they burned.
They consumed me. They scorched me from the inside out—at least that’s what I told myself was the reason for the sudden heat in my cheeks and the throbbing… elsewhere.
My exhale stuttered out as I took a perilous step forward. Just one.
I wasn’t crossing the bounds of propriety—not yet. But I was close. And I knew that if I allowed myself to acknowledge the weight of his stare—the almost palpable caress of those hazel eyes—then I would also let Deklan Pearce do unspeakable things to me if he so much as asked.
Heart racing as if I’d just run a mile, I squatted next to my weapons instructor, shifting to accept the solid reassurance of the sniper rifle he placed in the hollow of my own shoulder joint.
He didn’t move far, though.
Pearce stayed right behind me, a hair’s breadth from my back. He watched intently as I worked out what all the mechanisms were and how to use them; studied me as I peered through the scope and tested out its range.
“Mark?” I asked, voice breathy and wavering.
He made a sound halfway between a whispered grunt and a moan, and my underwear took the full force of his wordless assault.
Fuck.
He shifted closer, pressing in lightly against my back.
I had no idea how much time passed—the seconds were dragging but my heart was pounding, making it impossible to tell which was closer to the truth—until, eventually, he said, “The same tree.”
I almost balked. That tree was further than anything I’d ever aimed at and successfully hit during training—further than anything we had been allowed to test our limits against.
But I swallowed my fear, choked down the panic-induced nausea swelling in my gut, and instigated a round of box breathing to steady myself.
I was a certified badass. I was that bitch. And I was going to prove to my weapons instructor—to myself—that I was absolutely the best choice for Eagle.
The only choice for Eagle.
Lining up the tree within the scope and angling the rifle for the expected gravitational pull on the bullet, I squeezed the trigger gently.
Jesus fucking Christ, this gun is butter-smooth, was my first thought after firing.
Damn it all to hell, was the second, when I missed the marked tree completely, hitting one a few metres in front and to the left.
Pearce let out a quiet whistle through his teeth. His breath brushed against my throat, cool and sweet, like that strawberry gum I’d tried once as a withering teen. Before I’d learned to steal.
It was the only thing I’d been able to afford in that dimly lit convenience store, and had only served to make me hungrier.
Smelling the same scent now on Pearce’s breath only served to stir up the same feelings of starvation and inadequacy—especially coupled with the fact that I’d missed my mark in front of him.