Chapter 8
EIGHT
Wren
Kade is already on the porch when I push through the cabin door, coffee in one hand, phone pressed to his ear. The call ends before I reach him. He doesn't offer a greeting.
"Frost ran the apartment operative through his network.
" He takes my mug from my hand, sets it on the railing, and turns to face me.
"The name that came back is Ivan Kova. Former FSB—Russian Federal Security Service.
Black Helix contracts him when a job requires a specific kind of resolution.
No official body count because there are no official bodies.
People don't die when Kova's involved. They disappear.
" A pause, deliberate. "He's been off-grid for forty-eight hours before your apartment was hit.
That tells us the first operative was the test. Kova is the answer. "
The pine-filtered morning light does nothing to soften the information. The name sits on me like a stone.
"What does that mean for us?"
"It means we have a day, maybe two, before someone with serious training and no interest in making it look accidental finds this location." He picks my coffee back up and hands it to me. "Drink. You need the caffeine. We start in ten."
The table in front of me looks like war.
Kade has laid an armament of weapons out with the precision of a surgeon preparing for an operation.
The black matte metal of a Glock 19. The heavy, battered wood and steel of a Mossberg shotgun.
Boxes of ammunition stacked in neat pyramids.
A bottle of gun oil, sharp and chemical, cutting through the scent of pine.
He's different now—the lover from the boulder entirely absent. In his place is the operator. Boots laced, jeans tucked, t-shirt tight across his chest. His expression is locked down, eyes scanning the tree line before they land on me.
"Yesterday was about survival—”
“And sex. Lots of sex.”
“Lot’s of great sex.” He crosses his arms. The muscles in his forearms shift, corded and tense. "Today is not about sex, but making sure that if Ivan Kova comes through those trees, you're not a target. You're a threat."
"I've never fired a gun. The only weapon I've ever wielded is a keyboard."
"Then today, you learn a new interface." He gestures toward the table. "Finish your coffee. We're burning daylight."
Thirty minutes later, we're standing in a small clearing fifty yards from the cabin. Kade has set up targets—old coffee cans, a few paper plates nailed to trees, a heavy log propped against a stump for the shotgun.
He picks up the handgun first. In his hands, it looks like an extension of his body. He checks the chamber, drops the magazine, reseats it, racks the slide—one fluid motion that speaks of thousands of hours of repetition.
"Glock 19." Instructor voice. Flat, stripped of anything personal. "Standard issue for half the police forces in the world. Reliable. Simple. No external safety lever to fumble with when your fine motor skills go to shit."
He hands it to me.
Heavier than I expected. Cold. Dense, like a condensed brick of violence sitting in my palm.
"Grip is everything." He moves behind me. The heat of his body radiates against my back, but he doesn't touch me. Not yet. "High on the tang. Web of your hand jammed right up under the slide. Wrap your fingers. Now support hand—fill the gap on the grip. Thumbs forward."
My hands feel clumsy. Too small for the weapon.
"No." He steps in, his chest brushing my shoulder blades. Hands cover mine, rough and calloused. He physically molds my grip, forcing my fingers into position. "Squeeze. Harder. You're shaking hands with death. It's not a business partner. Lock it in."
His voice is right at my ear—intimate and terrifyingly clinical at once.
"Stance. Feet shoulder-width. Knees bent. Aggressive. Lean into it."
I adjust my feet.
"More." He taps my right leg with his boot. "Lean forward. If you stand straight, the recoil will knock you back. You control the weapon. It doesn't control you."
I lean in, ridiculous as a child playing soldier.
"Align the sights." He steps back. "Front sight in the notch. Focus on the front sight. The target should be blurry. The gun should be clear."
Down the barrel: the metal notch, the tin can on a stump twenty feet away.
"Finger on the trigger. Smooth press. Don't anticipate the bang. Let it surprise you."
I take a breath. Hold it. Squeeze.
CRACK.
The sound is a physical slap even with the foam plugs. The gun jumps, recoil traveling up my arms to my shoulders.
Dirt sprays five feet to the left of the stump.
"You flinched." Instant, clinical. "Pushed the muzzle down because you knew the kick was coming."
"It's loud." I lower the gun. Heart hammering.
"It's a gun. It's supposed to be loud. Again."
I raise it. Align. Squeeze.
CRACK.
Dirt kicks up to the right.
"Again."
CRACK.
High.
"Again."
CRACK.
"Again."
An hour later, arms trembling, palms slick, the smell of burnt powder hanging in the still air—I haven't hit the can once.
"Stop."
I lower the gun. Frustration burns behind my eyes. "I can't do this. I'm a coder. I build interfaces. I don't destroy things."
"You think this is about destruction?" He steps in front of me, invading my space. Storm-gray eyes, furious. "This isn't about breaking things. It's about keeping you from being broken."
"I'm trying."
"Try harder." He points to the tree line.
"Ivan Kova isn't a tin can. He's a predator.
He's going to come out of those woods with a suppressed pistol and a knife, and he isn't going to care that you're a coder.
He isn't going to care that you're brilliant or funny or that you make a cute noise when you sleep.
He is going to put two rounds in your chest and one in your head, and he won't even blink. "
The image hits like a physical blow. Not abstract. Not hypothetical. A specific man with a specific kill method is already moving toward this mountain.
"I'm trying to save your life." Kade's voice drops, rough with something that hasn't been there all morning. "But I can't be everywhere. If I go down—if Kova gets past me—you are your last line of defense. You have to be able to end it."
He takes the gun from my hand, racks the slide to clear the chamber, and hands it back.
"Look at me."
I look up at him.
"You have steel in you." Quiet now. "I saw it at the bar. I saw it in the alley. I saw it when you got on the back of my bike. Stop being afraid of the tool and use the steel."
He steps back. "Again."
I close my eyes for a second. Not to calm down. To picture the intruder in my hallway—the dead eyes, the zip ties, the absolute certainty in his movements that I was already gone.
I open my eyes. High tang. Thumbs forward. Lean in.
Not the can. The front sight.
I embrace the violence of it.
Squeeze.
CRACK.
The tin can jumps, spinning off the stump with a metallic ping.
"There."
Adrenaline floods my system—something that feels dangerously like power. "I hit it. I actually hit it."
"Do it again."
I bring the gun up.
CRACK.
The can dances across the grass.
CRACK.
A grin breaks across my face. "I got it."
He doesn't smile back. A single nod, gaze intense. "Good. Now reload. You're empty."
By the time the sun is high overhead, my hands are stained with carbon and oil. My shoulders ache. But I can put a magazine into the center mass of a paper plate at fifteen yards without flinching.
"Enough with the pistol." Kade wipes sweat from his forehead. He walks to the table and picks up the shotgun.
It looks massive. Archaic.
"Mossberg 500. This isn't a precision instrument. This is a room broom. At close range, you don't need to be perfect. You just need to be pointed in the right direction."
He hands it to me. Heavy, the wood stock smooth and worn.
"This kicks. Hard. If you don't pull it tight into your shoulder pocket, it will bruise you. If you lean back, it will knock you on your ass."
"Can't wait."
"Stance is even more important here. Lean forward. Cheek weld on the stock. You and the gun are one solid piece of geometry."
He moves behind me again, his hands adjusting my stance. His palm presses flat against my lower back, pushing me forward. "More."
He moves my left hand further out on the pump. "Rack it like you hate it. Violence of action. Baby the slide and it jams. Slam it back, slam it forward."
He steps back. "The log. Twenty yards."
I shoulder the weapon. A cannon. I find the bead sight, lean into the aggressive stance, and pull the trigger.
BOOM.
The world shakes. The stock slams into my shoulder like a hammer strike. I stumble back a step, gasping, barrel pointing at the sky.
"You leaned back." Dry.
"Jesus." I rub my shoulder. "That's not a weapon, that's punishment."
"It stops fights. One round of buckshot is equivalent to getting hit with nine nine-millimeter bullets simultaneously. It ends things. Again. Pull it tighter."
I grit my teeth. I pull the stock so hard into my shoulder it hurts before I fire. I lean forward until I think I'll tip over.
"Rack it."
CLACK-CLACK. Distinctive. Terrifying.
BOOM.
My feet stay under me. The log disintegrates—bark and wood chips exploding into the air.
The power of it is intoxicating. Terrifying, but intoxicating.
"Again. Cycle the action."
CLACK-CLACK. BOOM.
CLACK-CLACK. BOOM.
We spend the next hour turning logs into mulch. My shoulder throbs, a deep ache already promising purple by tomorrow. My ears ring despite the plugs.
But the noise doesn't scare me anymore. Neither does the kick.
"Last one."
I fire the final shell. The recoil is familiar now—a brutal shove I know how to absorb.
"Clear it."
I rack the slide. Empty.
"Safety on."
I slide the safety tang back.
"Weapon down."
I lower the shotgun to the table. Arms like jelly. Sweating, covered in dust and gun oil, more exhausted than I've been in years.
Kade walks over. He doesn't look at the targets. He looks at me. His fingers brush the hair back from my forehead—the first gentle thing he's done since we stepped into the clearing.
"You okay?"
"I think my shoulder is going to fall off."
"Let me see."
He pulls the collar of my t-shirt aside. I hiss as the air hits the skin.
"Already bruising." His thumb traces the skin just above the angry red mark. "I pushed you too hard."
"No." I lean into his touch. "You didn't. I needed to know."
"Know what?"
"That I could do it." I meet those intense gray eyes. "That I'm not just a liability you have to drag up a mountain."
Kade's expression fractures. He steps closer, wrapping his arms around me—careful of the bruise—and pulls me against his chest. Gunpowder and sweat and cedar.
"You were never a liability." Into my hair. "You're the reason I'm fighting."
He holds me there for a long moment, the violence of the afternoon fading into the quiet of the forest.
"Come on." He kisses my temple. "Let's get inside. Ice pack, then I'm making you dinner."
"Real dinner?"
"Canned chili and crackers."
A tired, genuine laugh. "My favorite."
As we walk back to the cabin, I glance over my shoulder at the clearing. The tin cans are riddled with holes. The log is shattered. Bark dust still hanging in the still air.
I touch the bruise on my shoulder. A dull throb pulsing with my heartbeat. A good hurt. Proof.
I'm not just a coder anymore. I'm a survivor.
And if Ivan Kova comes, I'm going to be ready.