Just like this.
Being out here. With her. Free.
“Breathe in,” I whisper. “Hold it.”
She does.
My finger slips over hers.
“Now—squeeze. Don’t yank.”
We pull the trigger together. The sound rips through the trees like a crack of thunder, echoing out into the morning fog. The recoil makes her jump slightly, but I’m behind her, steadying her spine, keeping her upright.
The bullet sinks into the bark, a little high, a little left. Not the center, but not a miss either.
She turns her head slightly, eyes flicking up to meet mine. There’s a question behind them. And something else.
“That was you,” she says.
“No,” I reply, low. “That was you. You just needed a hand.”
She looks at me for a long moment, as if searching for something beneath my skin.
She won’t find what used to be there.
I am not the man I was before her anymore, although I could become him again when they touch what’s mine now.
The man who held her captive in this house is dead. But the bones are still mine. The memory. The instinct.
And now I look at her, steady, strong, sharpened into something new, and I wonder if this is what survival looks like. Not a return. Not a redemption.
A rebirth.
She is the strongest person I know.
She raises the gun again, this time without my hand on hers. Her stance isn’t perfect. Her form still needs work. But she holds it like it belongs to her now.
I watch her shoulders square, her eyes narrow, her breath steady.
Then she fires.
And hits closer to the center this time.
A quiet smile ghosts across her mouth.
“You learning fast,” I say.
“You’re a decent teacher.”
There’s something in the way she says it. Like she knows it wasn’t always teaching between us. Sometimes it was testing. Pushing. Breaking.
But not anymore.
Now we build.
I step back, just slightly, giving her space. The air bites at my skin through the fabric, but I don’t care. I like the cold. It makes me feel real. Alive.
And in this clearing, with her hands steady on the trigger, I feel something else too.
