I drove home after saving the two lovers and killing the bastard. Unlocking the door to my house, I entered slowly.

A part of me expected Montse to come greet me in her usual bubbly fashion, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. I'd pissed her off, and she was probably going to give me a hard time until I apologized.

Which was the main problem; I'd never apologized to anyone before after my parents were brutally murdered.

A sweet aroma drew me to the dining area. Montserrat was sitting at the table and just placing a generously-sized chunk of chicken on her plate of stir-fried noodles.

She looked at me briefly before beginning to eat her food. Her face was unreadable. I walked towards the table.

“I'm assuming you prepared enough for the both of us?” I said even though the bowl of noodles in the middle gave me my answer. I pulled the chair opposite hers and sat down.

She didn't even bother to glance at me.

Gritting my teeth, I pulled the extra plate on the table with a chunk of chicken on it and proceeded to serve myself some of the noodles. I would've eaten outside if not that I remembered Montse saying she'd bought enough food commodities to last us a day.

“You must've bought a lot of stuff in the morning when you went out?" I said, cringing at how lame I sounded.

Montse simply made a sound in her throat without bothering to reply.

I chewed the first forkful of noodles and deliberately moaned lowly. “This tastes good."

She continued to eat without looking at me. God, couldn't she see I was making an effort here?

“You're never gonna speak to me again?” I asked, trying to keep the itritation from my voice.

Suddenly, Montse picked a card from the table and held it for me to see. It was like the card used at auctions. Written bodly on it were the words vocal rest.

I looked at Montse's face in disbelief. God, she was so childish. I let out a sigh.

“Look, I was having a bad day, and I took it out on you, okay? I don't want you to rest your vocals ever. Just say something?”

Great. I sounded so desperate now.

“I want you to teach me how to shoot.” Those were the words out of her mouth when she finally spoke.

I merely dropped my fork. “What?”

“I said I want you to...”

“I heard it the first time. Why would you want to learn how to shoot?"

She looked at me in disbelief. “Would you rather you return home and find me dead on the floor?”

“That won't happen.”

“We don't know that. I never thought anyone would attack me in my cabin until yesterday. If I learn how to shoot...”

“You think you can pull a trigger on someone?” I asked incredulously.

“I don't plan on going on a killing spree or anything.” She glared at me. “Mikhail, you have work to do and you won't be able to stay with me twenty-four-seven. What if I'm attacked? I want to learn how to defend myself.”

I stayed silent and studied her closely to ascertain that she was being serious. Nothing on her face told me she was joking.

“I'll think about it." I finally said.

“Ah, why do you even have to think about it. Why can't you just accept to teach me to shoot?”

“Why are you suddenly so eager to learn how to shoot anyways?” I snapped at disbelief at her insistence. “I thought you said no one should put the law into their hands. You think you can be able to handle killing a man?”

It probably looked so easy to her but I knew better. Looking at how innocent she was, killing a man would forever weigh on her conscience even if she did it out of self defence.

“Let's just hope it doesn't come to that.” She said uncertainly. “But is it so bad to want to learn how to defend myself in case I'm attacked?”

I sighed, knowing she wasn't going to give up until I gave in. “Fine.”

“Yes!” She screamed excitedly. “Do you know what I watched on the news today? A certain guy...”

Just like that, she was back to her bubbly self. I rolled my eyes.

Damn, I've been doing that too much since I met her.

****

“Wow, is this place a shooting park or something?” Montse asked immediately we stepped into the underground.

“Something like that." I answered.

This was the place where I was trained to become an assassin. Constantino, the owner and my trainer, left it to me the day he died hoping I would teach other young guys to become like myself.

I had no intention on doing that, but I came here regularly to train.

“Looking at all those weights.” Monste marvelled, looking at the area where the muscle training occurred. It spotted punchbags, dumbells and what have you.

“Why am I even surprised?” She said. “You must train a lot working for a secret agency.”

Every fibre in my body went stiff. Secret Agency?

“Oh my God, me and my big mouth.” She said with widened eyes. “I wasn't supposed to know that, was I? Are you going to kill me?”

All this while I'd been dreading that she was going to start asking questions about why I owned a gun and knew how to shoot, she'd already formed her opinion. This was an opportunity I couldn't let slip.

Looking at her, I raised my brows. “Why would I kill you for that? It's not like we do illegal stuff. We just catch criminals for the police.”

I knew my voice had lost it's usually unbothered timbre, so I looked away before she could question it. “Let's start shall we?”

“It must be so cool and dangerous.” She said from behind me.

“I never knew 'cool' could go hand in hand with 'dangerous." I said wryly. “Let's start now, shall we”

“Bring it on. I'm so excited!”

I knew she was lying. I could sense nervousness and uncertainty behind her veneer of eagerness.

Dropping my backpack from my back, I brought out the the pistols and ear protectors. I decided to bring the guns along because I didn't want Montserrat to see the weapons I had stashed in this basement.

“Here. You're going to be needing it.” I said, handing her one of the ear protectors. She took it and put it on eagerly. “Now just watch me.”

I put on an ear protector just so we were even. There were five figures of people in front of us. Aiming my gun, I pulled the trigger, hitting the one in the middle right in the centre of the head.

My next shot went into where the heart would be located had it been a real human.

“Oh my God. That's amazing!” I heard Montse squeal. “You're so good.”

I handed the gun over to her. “Now your turn.”

“Sure.” She muttered, then swallowed nervously. Indicated for her to pull the the buds a bit off her ear.

“Do you know what it means to recoil?” I asked.

“Yeah, I teach remember?” She rolled her eyes. “It means to fall back or pull back sharply from fear, disgust or shock. Normally...”

“For a gun to recoil.” I corrected calmly before she could go on forever.

“Oh.” She smiled sheepishly. “Enlighten me.”

“When you fire a gun, the force at which the bullet leaves the gun transmits an energy back to you equivalent to the force. You can call it a rebound.”

“Oh, like the Newton's third law of motion!” She squealed. “'Every action has an equal but opposite reaction.’ It means...”

“My point is,” I said firmly, cutting her off. “when firing a pistol, you need to hold on tight. Otherwise, the recoil is going to cause you to miss your attacker. If you miss, he's going to hit.”

“And death you'll kiss. What a beautiful rhyme!”

I rolled my eyes.. “Now aim.”

She brought up the gun and aimed. Well, tried to aim. I had to show her to place her hand beneath the pistol. She pushed on her protectors and pulled the trigger without my say so sending the bullet towards the ceiling. She flinched.

“Fantastic grip you had, huh?” I said sarcastically after she'd taken her protectors off.

“Hey, I did my best." She grimaced.

I spent two hours teaching her how to shoot. Finally, Montse was good if not perfect enough, to hit the places I told her to shoot as close as possible.

“Now I feel so confident. The next time, that bastard tries to attack, I'm going to kick his ass.” Montse said with a badass look.

She did look like a badass holding the gun like that. I looked at the people figures, all of which were now ridden with bullets.

“You're no longer scared?” I asked.

“Why would I be when I have you?” She said, so casually.

My chest constricted. She was trusting me with her life. I didn't know why I had this urge to protect her with mine.

And that's exactly what I was going to do.
______________

Guys I really hope you are enjoying this. Let me read your thoughts. How do you think things are going to go?

LOL
–E!