The next few days weren’t any better. In fact, they got worse. I couldn’t sleep more than a few hours a night. Ra’om’s images started haunting me during the days, too. I’d find myself staring off, divided between what I was doing and seeing the worst things I could possibly imagine. I imagined them over and over.
I kept us all on a strict training routine, though. Sunup to sundown we worked with the weapons and even drilled with armor, but we made meager progress. Bastian and Jode’s marksmanship with the scales and the bow held at a constant level—the suck level of marksmanship. Every day, I ran them through the basic principles of good shooting. I set up new targets and had them try different firing positions, but nothing helped.
Jode overthought everything. He was too much in his head. I’d tell him to shoot and he’d go into the history of longbowmen. He’d detail the Battle of Agincourt and how his weapon would fit in with our overall strategy. I knew the rambling was his way of stalling. When he did shoot, he was okay. Really, not bad. But he’d take a shot that was off by a few feet and that was unacceptable to him. He’d want to quit. He expected perfection, which I appreciated. But he had no patience for the failures that needed to happen along the way.
Jode kept pressing me to start our training with the horses. Bastian, too. But I kept shutting them down.
I knew we should be training with the horses. We were horsemen. But our weapons were higher priority—so I thought—and my horse? Didn’t want to go there.
Bastian didn’t give up like Jode, but his confidence with the scales was shaky, and the guy didn’t have an aggressive bone in his body.
“I’m just not like you, G,” he told me on the fourth day of missing targets by a mile. “I think you’re barking up the wrong wall.”
“You’ll get it, Bas,” I said. “You only almost decapitated me twice today.”
“Man, I’m so sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s go again.” I gave him the scales and stepped back, feeling hopeful. Ready to duck.
He got them spinning in the air above his head. He looked pretty solid with that part. The problem was the release, which was a lot like hitting a baseball. A series of precise movements that had to flow in just the right order, culminating in a single, perfectly timed instant.
Bas let them fly. They sailed behind us, tearing the hell out of a patch of wildflowers. I wanted to laugh, but I was worried it would break him down.
“I suck at this, Gideon. Besides, I don’t even think this is the right thing. How’s this the right way to do good?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean fighting.”
“You’re asking a soldier this?” I had to believe it played some part in doing good. Otherwise, what was my life? Or my dad’s life? Or Cory’s life? Or anyone who fought for good’s life? “Dude, are you drowning in a sea of gray?”
Bas laughed. He shook his head and looked out over the water. “You said it yourself. You’re a soldier. I’m not. I don’t even know how to fight people. What do I know about fighting demons?”
That question legitimately worried me, too. How long did we have before the Kindred found us? How much more time did we have to prepare? Right then, a year wouldn’t have seemed like enough.
Our best-case scenario relied on Daryn. Our Seeker needed to bring us information, a mission plan, a drop-off point. I’d have killed for a goal. For actual actionable plans, instead of the hide-and-train holding pattern we were in.
The only clear benefit from working with Jode and Bastian during that first week was that I started getting pretty good with the bow and the scales. The bow was my favorite—the arrows appeared to have limitless range and their accuracy was off the charts—but the more I used the scales, the more I took to them. The chains could be used to lasso, the disks were sharper than knives, and, thrown the right way, they came back like a boomerang. The weapon had serious versatility.
My own training with the sword didn’t progress much, though. Marcus and I continued to give each other the good news—beatdowns, in other words. I hated the guy and he hated me. The only upside was that our fast healing was like a reset button. We ended the days with welts, swollen eyes, and split lips, but by morning we were usually fine and ready to wail on each other again.
All told, we spent a week training in which nothing positive was accomplished. I mean that.
Nothing.
I didn’t know how to bring us together as a team. It was a failure on me as a leader. I hated the situation with Daryn. How awkward and forced things had become between us since Italy. And I was out-of-my-head tired from losing sleep and mentally fried, thanks to the Kindred. With all of that piling up, I’d become a walking bomb by the end of that week, so it wasn’t surprising when things with Marcus came to a head the next day.
CHAPTER 48
“Ma’am?”
It’s Beretta.
Beretta is cutting in on me.
A vicious expression passes over Cordero’s face at the interruption. Slowly, she turns to face him. “Yes?”
Yesss. Little demon hiss in there.
“I need to rotate out,” Beretta says.
“Is there a situation I’m not aware of?”