Dean is a better friend to Leo than I am, because for all his flaws, at least he’s honest.
“Where are you going?” Leo asks.
“I’ve got a free period next,” I say. “I’m gonna study.”
The perfect excuse for any occasion.
In actuality, I think I’ll wander around for a while feeling like shit.
I leave the castle grounds, intending to go for a walk in the woods. Instead, I’m drawn toward the shooting range by the whoops and howls of students engaged in some apparently highly stimulating task.
Curiosity draws me on until I’m in the middle of the field that abuts the west wall where the targets are set up for long-range shooting.
Careful not to cross the line of fire, I tramp through the dry, golden grass, joining the raucous cluster of Freshmen.
I hadn’t heard any gunfire.
The silence is explained when I see Professor Knox and Nix Moroz facing off with bows instead of rifles.
Both Nix and the professor are firing at the same target set far down the range. The professor goes first, his bald head gleaming in the late-afternoon sunshine. He pulls his string back taut, the thick muscles of his right arm and shoulder straining against his black t-shirt.
He lets the arrow fly. It crosses the seemingly-impossible distance to the target, hitting it near-center.
“What are they doing?” I ask a kid with a thick mop of reddish hair and several Hibernian F.C. patches sewn onto his trousers.
“Trying to shoot through the professor’s wedding ring,” the kid says, in a thick Scottish brogue. “I can’t even see the damn thing from here.”
I squint my eyes, looking for the gleam of a tiny circlet pinned to the middle of the target. I can just make a glint that might only be a trick of the sun.
“How can they even see that?” I say.
“Fuck if I know.” The boy shrugs.
Nix takes her turn after the professor, holding her bow steady in front of her, coolly looking down the shaft of her arrow. Though she’s using the same seventy-pound-draw compound bow as Professor Knox, she’s able to pull the string back without a tremor.
She really is strong.
Confident, too.
I see no nervousness on her face. Just keen focus as she squints her sea-green eyes against the glare of the sun, slowly exhaling as she releases the arrow.
It flies straight and true to the heart of the target.
I don’t see the shaft pierce the ring, but it must, because Nix immediately whoops in triumph, and Professor Knox tosses down his bow, saying, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
The Freshmen were too invested in the competition, and are too elated to see a professor bested, to maintain their grudge against Nix. Whoops and shouts break out all over again. Several students slap her on the back.
Nix grins, her teeth blinding in the sunlight.
She catches me watching her.
Giving a little chuck of her chin, she tosses back the errant strand of kinky red hair that’s fallen over her eye.
“What are you doing here?” she says.
“Just passing by. I heard the shouting.”
“I’m going to get my ring,” Professor Knox grouses. “Don’t any of you fucking shoot me.”
He stomps off down the range, highly incensed at his loss.
“Why are you shooting bows?” I ask Nix.
We usually only practice with handguns, ARs, and sniper rifles.
“I said a bow could be better than a sniper rifle for a stealth job,” Nix says. “The professor said they’re no good over a hundred yards, especially for small targets. So I challenged him.”
“You challenged him?” I say. “In the first month of school?”
“Yeah.” Nix shrugs. “I knew I could hit it.”
“What was the bet?”
“An A in his class,” Nix says.
“What if you missed?”
“An F,” she laughs.
“Why would you make that bet? You’ll get an A anyway if you know how to shoot.”
Nix shrugs. “It’s more fun this way.”
Nix’s joy in her win is irresistible. I find myself smiling back at her without meaning to.
Her hair is flaming corona around her head. She’s wearing the usual gray gym shorts, but her ass and thighs fill out the material in a way that’s not at all typical.
On impulse, I ask her, “You want to come for a walk with me?”
“Might as well,” Nix says. “He can’t fail me for skipping class anymore.”
She leaves the bow with the Scottish kid, and we tramp off across the field before Professor Knox can come back and stop us.
“I’m sweaty as hell,” Nix says.
The tiny curls around her hairline are sticking to her forehead, and her skin looks less bluish, more golden in this light. The sun brings out little glints of gold in her green eyes and in the red of her lashes.
Nix has a complete lack of self-consciousness that I find strangely restful. Since I’m constantly monitoring what I say, what I do, and how I’m coming off to people, it’s refreshing to be with someone who seems utterly themself, for better or for worse.
Proving my point, Nix asks bluntly, “Why’d you come looking for me?”
“I wasn’t,” I say. “I just heard everyone shouting.”
Snatching up a long strand of dry grass, Nix twirls it between her fingers, tilting her head and watching me closely with those narrow eyes that seem more animal than human.
“Sometimes I feel like you’re sitting by me on purpose. Walking with me on purpose,” she says.
I’m transparent as glass. She can see right through me.
My face is getting hot, and I tell myself to pull it the fuck together. I’m a shit spy if I crack under two seconds of interrogation.
“Do you not want me to?” I say, trying to keep my tone casual.
“No.” Nix shrugs, tossing the grass aside. “I like it. God knows, I can use all the friends I can get.”
“Me too,” I say.
Nix laughs. “You don’t like being a third wheel to Leo and Anna?”
Fuck, she really is perceptive.
“How do you already know everything about everybody?” I demand, trying to turn the tables on her.
“Not everything,” Nix sighs. “That thing with Hedeon was a mind-fuck. How could parents act that way toward their kids? Whether they’re blood or not.”
Nix is striding along beside me at a rapid pace, her long legs easily matching mine. Her cheeks flush with outrage. I saw her face when Hedeon was talking — despite only knowing Hedeon a short time, her sympathy overpowers her.
“Was . . . was your father not harsh with you?” I ask her.
I can’t imagine Marko Moroz as supportive and affectionate, even though I know, theoretically, his daughter is the center of his world.
I expect Nix to be offended by this question. She’s been forced to defend her father every day since she came here. I ask anyway because I really want to know.
Nix answers as honestly as ever.
“My father isn’t perfect,” she says. “He has an ego. And a temper. He hates to be challenged. We get in fights—screaming, shouting, throwing things. He demands nothing less than total loyalty, from me and his men.”