And Gray wasn’t talking. Even her libido was getting bored. Thank God.
“Ready?” His hand brushed her shoulder, his fingers blazing hot against the skin bared by her tank top, and when she turned …
He was holding the blindfold, one eyebrow arched.
Oh, shit.
She swallowed hard. Managed to sound almost casual. “Go for it.”
He stepped behind her, and the fabric slid over her eyes, blotting out everything but the steady sound of his breathing and the prickling feel of him so close to her back, he might as well be touching her all over. Gray smoothed the back of the blindfold into place over her braids, then dropped his hands to her arms. “Steady?”
Depended on his definition of steady. His hands blazed on her arms. Skin on skin. She had fucking tingles. “I think so.”
“Good. When you hear the sound, turn toward it and tell me how far away it is.”
Soft, almost noiseless footsteps whispered across the bare concrete, and the first beep came from off to her left. It seemed like a ridiculous request until her body started to move, and an image formed in her head that matched the sound—Gray, standing on the fifth ring of the circles.
Fifth ring. Evenly spaced. She pointed at where she knew he’d be. “Ten meters.”
“Nice.” He sounded pleased. “Most people can judge immediately if something is maybe one or two meters away, but the longer distances trip them up.”
“I have practiced hearing subtle differences in tone.” She wiggled her fingers at him. “That’s how I opened that vault in Dalton. I only have to hear the keypad sequence once to duplicate it. I got to a hundred and twenty-seven digits once before Dani got tired of quizzing me.”
“Then you’re going to be really damn good at this. Now focus.”
The first few times, it was fun. Her brain had always been quick to pick up on new skills, and she loved the challenge of it. But the more she turned to point to the sounds, the quicker the answers came, until she didn’t need to stop to match a tone to a particular image in her head.
Beep. “Two meters.”
Her brain just knew.
Beep. “Twelve meters.”
And when her brain knew things …
Beep. “Two.” Beep. “Four and a half.” Beep. “Two, again.”
… her brain got so damn bored.
She started to fidget on the stool. She struggled to hide her irritation. Surely they should have progressed to something challenging by now. Unless this was just more bullshit with the supersoldiers underestimating her.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
If she looked like a badass like Nina or a literal femme fatale like Dani, Gray wouldn’t have her sitting here doing baby training exercises.
Beep.
She wanted guns. She wanted lasers.
Beep. Beep.
Hell, if she was going to make irrational choices, she wanted sexy sparring, goddammit.
“Maya.” Gray was so close she started. Not only did his voice tickle over her skin, but she could feel his presence as he leaned over her. “It’s time.”
Oh God, could he read her thoughts? “Time for what?” she choked out.
“For this.” He pressed a pistol into her hand.
Maya sat up straighter, her fingers curling tight. “You’re not going to let me shoot you, right? That would be super awkward to explain to Knox when he gets back.”
Gray laughed. “Don’t worry. It’s simulated fire. Sounds real, but there are no bullets, so you won’t have to explain my untimely demise to the captain.” He pulled her to her feet, and the stool scraped over the floor. “Each of the targets is equipped with one of the devices I was using. When you hear the beep, you’ll have three seconds to tag it with the pistol’s laser sight and fire. It starts off slow, but it gets faster. You ready?”
She had tingles again, but these were different. It always felt like this when she found an engaging challenge, as if the noise inside her head settled for a blissful moment, every neuron poised to fire in glorious harmony.
Maya found her balance as Nina had taught her and lifted the gun. “Bring it on.”
Silence. And then …
Beep.
Behind her. Six o’clock. Fifteen meters.
Maya whirled in the direction of the sound and remembered the shape of the targets. They’d been constructed so that a bull’s-eye would hit a person just under two meters center mass. She knew the way that felt, the angle of her arms, the exact posture required.
The rest was just … math. Math was easy. The TechCorps hadn’t planned to teach her more than the basics, but when they’d denied her access to the higher-level classes, Birgitte had overruled them. She’d made it clear that she wanted Maya to be capable of contextualizing complicated scientific data for her, and a vice president’s requests about the education of their personal data courier were final.
So Maya had filled her head with math until she ran out of classes to take.
It was all still there. She used it to model algorithms and balance the books, to calculate the potential blast radius of explosives, and to pull off pool shots so impossible, Dani had more than once rescued her from impending fistfights over her alleged pool hustling.
Maya was good at math, so she used it to lift her arms in the third second after the beep filled the warehouse and fire on the spot she knew the target would be.
Not thought. Knew.
Gray had been right. This was easy. She’d just needed someone to give her the reference points.
The next beep sounded, and she spun again. Three meters. Much closer. She adjusted the angle of her arms slightly and fired faster this time.
Next time was faster again. Heady exhilaration filled her as her brain sparked, the challenge only increasing as the chimes accelerated. Soon, they were coming one right after the other, almost overlapping. Conscious thought turned into effortless confidence, and she smiled as she squeezed the trigger again and again and again.
This was more like it.
Finally, a burst of three sounds came from her left, so close together that it took her a moment to figure them out. But she took her shots without overthinking them, then poised on her toes, waiting for the next beep. When that didn’t come, she waited for Gray to say something.
He didn’t.
Seconds ticked by in agonizing quiet. Some of her confidence fizzled, and she reached for the blindfold. “What, did I miss them all or something?”
Gray was standing in front of her, four and a half meters away, surrounded by targets. He stared at her, his eyes wide and unblinking. Then he exhaled sharply and shook his head.
When he spoke, his voice was low, as always, but not smooth. In fact, it held just the slightest hint of a tremor. “Twenty-one shots. Twenty-one hits.”
The words sounded good, but his body language screamed tension. Maya turned in a slow circle, checking off the targets one by one. Only a handful were solid bull’s-eyes. Most of her shots had hit in the outer circles, and a few had just barely winged them.
“Well,” she said finally. “I mean, my shooting was a little sloppy. I was kind of extrapolating based on comparable experiences. I could probably do better if I knew what a bull’s-eye felt like at different distances.”
Gray scrubbed both hands over his face, muffling a slightly hysterical laugh.
“What?” she demanded, dragging the blindfold off her head. “Hey, I may not be a supersoldier or whatever, but I think I did pretty fucking good for my first try.”