Chapter Seven
Raya St Claire

Archie steps into my room the next morning looking like he always did in his lavishing suit and hair that was styled to absolute perfection, leaving no strand to be out of place. “I called the Red Devils.” He says, grinning. “They’re coming on Friday to collect the crates.”

“Wow, they’re eager to get the goods.” I tell him, pulling my hair into a tight ponytail at the back of my head. “They don’t wait at all.”

I was already dressed and ready to go to the yard for some training. I chose a high-waist, straight legged pair of jeans, a light blue rib-knit crop top and a pair of white flat-form lace up sneakers.

“The Red Devils hasn’t gotten a stash in a while so I think they really are eager to get something in again.” Archie says, plopping himself down onto my made bed, but instead of us talking about what we talked about last night after we came home from the job, he changes the subject to the small box of opened LED lights sitting on my desk. “I thought you would’ve hung them by now.”

“I don’t know if I can hang them by myself, to be honest.” I tell him, looking at the strip of LED lights dangling out of the box. I never had the strength to throw them away, but looking at them now, I wanted to throw them away so badly even though I would fish them out again and let them gather dust on my desk. “My dad and I used to hang them, before he…” I swallow hard, “…you know.”

A pained look marred his face, but I could have imagined it because a small smile appeared onto his mouth. “I can help you hang them?” He suggests. “It doesn’t look so complicated. I’m sure I can hang a few strips of the lights.”

“It’s fine, Archie.” I tell him, walking over to the desk and propping the lights back into the little box. “I don’t want to trouble you with something as stupid as hanging LED lights on my walls. We have better things to do and you know it.”

I pick the box of LED lights up and throw it into the little plastic trashcan I had beside the desk. I don’t know why I threw them away; I’m only going to take them out later again when he leaves my room, and I just didn’t want him to see how much of an affect the stupid LED lights had on me after all these years. The lights used to make me sleep like a damn rock when I was younger, but I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in almost eight years now and I doubted that the LED lights would help me now. I was a woman now, not fifteen anymore.

My hands already started to itch to take the box of LED lights out of the trashcan, but I turned around instead and faced Archie.

He had a sad smile on his mouth. “It’s not stupid at all, Ray.” He says, looking at me like a father would; with concern written across his face. “Bear…” He sighs, as if he contemplated telling me what he wanted to tell me. “Bear told me that the nightmares have been getting worse and worse, without the lights.”

The fuck? I told Bear about the lights in confidence, but now he used it against me to tell Archie that I have been sleeping badly without them? I knew I couldn’t trust him with something like that.

“Bear should just mind his own fucking business!” I snap.

“You know we’re just worried about you and Bear meant well when he told me.” Archie says. “I don’t like it when one of my own has been struggling.”

My eyes soften. “I’m sorry.” I apologize. “And yes…I have been struggling without the lights, but if I can go eight years without them, I can go another few years, Archie. I don’t need stupid LED lights to help me sleep better at nights.”

I did need them to sleep better at nights, but I didn’t want to worry Archie more than he already did, and I wasn’t going to let him hang the LED lights for me. He had better things to do with his time than to hang damn LED lights for me.

“It’s okay if you need them, Raya. I’ll put them on for you. Just say the word and I’ll do it for you in a heartbeat.” He suggests again, but I refused, again.

“No, it’s fine.” I shake my head. “I just have to learn how to cope without them. I have for fifteen years, I can do it for longer.” I tell him, looking at the box of LED’s laying in the trashcan, above all my crushed papers and empty soda cans of energy drinks.

“Okay then.” Archie says, getting up from my bed. “But if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.”

“I will.” I smile thankfully at him.

Archie then leaves my room and when the door closed behind him, I eyed the LED lights lying in the trashcan.

I didn’t take them out.

• • •

Insert bolt into crossbow.

Aim the crossbow loaded with bolt.

Pull the trigger.

It was three simple steps, but if you didn’t keep your hands steady, you wouldn’t hit your intended target, and mine was the foam targets in front of me. I wish it could have been the newcomer’s head instead, but I haven’t seen him the entire morning, so the foam targets would just have to do… for now.

I aim the crossbow at the foam target, inhaling deeply and holding my breath. I focus my aim onto the bull’s eye of the target and only pulled the trigger when I was confident that I would hit the intended target.

I exhale my breath when the crossbow bolt hit the bull’s eye.

“Bingo.” I smirk.

The smirk on my mouth was still there when I made my way to the targets to grab the bolts from the target.

The trees covered most of our front and back yard so no one could see what happened inside of the yard, and it gave the mansion a little privacy; we were hidden in the grove of trees, away from neighbours and young children. We didn’t need any nosy neighbours knocking on our door, asking why the hell there was a girl training in the backyard with a damn crossbow, so the trees helped a great deal to keep the peering eyes out. I think the foam targets were enough to keep people out, but people were still curious… they always were.

When I looked up at the sky, the sun has disappeared behind a thick, darkened cloud; it was heavy with rain and it was bound to come down any time now.

I was happy to see that the sky was getting covered with clouds. I loved it when it rained; just the feeling of having the rain droplets falling onto your skin and the sound it made when it pitter-pattered against the roof while you were asleep.

Rain, to me, was soothing and relaxing.

I found peace in the rain. The earthy smell when it rained for the first time after a long time was relaxing, and it was one of the best things in the entire world. I’d even dance in the rain, as cliché as it sounded.

That’s how much I actually adored the rain.

I look down at the target again to pull out the last crossbow bolt lodged inside the foam, and once I collected everything I needed to collect to train again, I walked back to the line I drew in the ground and stood behind it.

That’s when the first of the raindrops started to fall.

When I lifted the crossbow into the air, I felt the raindrops falling onto my skin, fast and heavily, and by the time I shot my last bolt into the target’s foam, I was soaked to a point where my tank top was plastered against my skin. The tank top was see-through; I could see the outline of my black lace bra underneath it.

My sneakers were covered in dirt and rain water, but that didn’t stop me to walk toward the target to collect the bolts once more. When I walked back to stand behind the line I drew in the ground again, I see the newcomer walking down the terrace steps and right into the rain like he didn’t care that it was pouring.

I didn’t miss the grin he had on his mouth. “Is there anything you can’t do around here?” He asks, stopping a few feet in front of me, like he was afraid that I might use the crossbow bolt on him. it wouldn’t surprise me that he was keeping his distance since the punching bag incident—the skin under his eyes were still blue and his nose looked positioned at an awkward angle; I couldn’t really tell if the punching bag caused that damage on his nose, or if he has broken his nose a lot in the past. “First you roundhouse kick a punching back like it weighs nothing at all, and then you manage to wooden carry a crate heavier than Bear all by yourself, and now you never miss the bull’s eye, once.”

I fold my arms across my chest with the crossbow right underneath my one arm and I frown at him, wondering what he was getting at with the information he just provided me with. If you want to join the NC, those things were requirements. You needed to be able to do things that were considered difficult, and Archie didn’t care if you were a girl, he trained me like one of the boys.

The newcomer’s eyes drift down to my chest where my lace bra was visible through my thin and wet crop top, but it drifts back up in a matter of seconds.

I fight a smirk. “Where exactly are you going with this, newbie?” I ask, ignoring the fact that he just checked me out without even batting an eyelash. He didn’t even seem ashamed that I caught him looking.

He runs a hand through his soaking wet hair. “I’m just impressed, that’s all.”

“Is that so?”

“You never fail to impress me, princess.”

“Can you do better?” I ask him, unfolding my arms to give him the crossbow.

He didn’t take it, he shook his head instead. “I don’t use crossbows. I use guns.” He says, taking out the gun he had propped in the waistband of his pants and aimed it at the foam target, at my crossbow bolts already lodged into the foam.

He shuts one eye and uses the other to focus on the target and pulls the trigger.

At some point I didn’t even look at the target anymore, I focused on the newcomer and how the water droplets slid down his sharp jawline and sculpted cheeks, but when he looked at me with a smirk clearly proud of himself for hitting the targets, I quickly focus my gaze on the target.

There was a bullet hole right where the bull’s eye was supposed to be—the bull’s eye was completely gone; there was a gap in the target where the bullet pierced the foam. “Well, well, newcomer,” I clap my hands together. “You have great aim indeed.”

He smiles proudly at himself, but then frowns. “Why does it feel like there’s a ‘but’ in that?”

“But can you do the same with a knife, newcomer?” I ask, jerking my chin toward an untouched target. “On the target beside the one you just manhandled?”

He raises his eyebrow at me. “I just told you that I specialise in guns.”

“Oh, I know what you said.” I tell him, already handing him a pocket knife I had in my pocket. “But what happens if you don’t have a gun on you? You need to know how to use a knife just as efficiently or you can kiss your ass goodbye.”

“You got a fair point there.” He admits, hiding the gun behind his back again.

“So, are you going to try with a knife?”

He reaches his hand out towards me and takes my knife from my extended hand. He examines the blade resting in the palm of his hand. It was a small knife, but when close in range, you can do some real damage to the person on the receiving end. “Nice.” He whispers before he positioned himself.

He lifts his hand to throw the knife but I stop him before he got very far.

His aiming would be off with the way he was standing. He looked uncomfortable, not something you should feel when throwing a knife.

“You have to feel relaxed.” I tell him. “You also have to relax your wrist and stand up straighter. And then,” I start, nudging his right foot forward with mine, and his left foot slightly behind his right one, “stand like this.” I tell him after I showed him how to stand. “You’re stance is shit.”

He inhales deeply when I stepped back.

He grips the knife in his hand, lifts his hand and then throws the knife toward the target, but it bounces off the foam and straight into the mud pool in front of the target. “Well,” he looks at me, not even disappointed that he missed the target, “I guess I can use the excuse that I was a little… well, distracted…” He says, looking at me after he watched the knife bounce from the foam.

“Distraction can get you killed, newcomer.” I tell him.

He swipes a hand across his face. “The only thing getting killed right now, princess, is my ability to focus on anything else but you.”

I think I just stood there, looking at the newcomer without saying anything. Hell, I couldn’t even open my mouth to say something. He rendered me speechless. I didn’t expect him to say something like that.

I cleared my throat and swallowed hard. “Focus, newcomer. This is serious.”

“I was being serious.” He says. “I can’t focus right now when you’re this soaking wet. I can see everything underneath that tank top of yours, and when you showed me how to stand correctly, well, you don’t need to know the rest.”

“Seduction can get you killed too.” I state, walking over to the target and picking up the knife he used before propping it into my pocket. I walk back toward him. “Your enemy might be a woman and she’d seduce you until the right moment strikes to plunge a blade, or bullet, right through your chest.”

The newcomer didn’t reply; he just looked at me as he licked his lower lip, and when he reached his hand out towards me, I thought he was going to pull me into a kiss, but he slid his thumb across my cheek instead and I felt my breath getting lodged inside of my throat when he touched me.

Goose bumps erupt all over my skin when his thumb makes contact with my cheek, but luckily the rain was still pouring heavily onto us and he wouldn’t be able to notice that his touch had this effect on my body. I mentally cursed myself for showing him that he had an undeniable effect on my body because, let’s face it, I was going to get all hot and bothered because he was touching me.

I stood before him; my mouth was slightly parted, and for a minute, our eyes locked.

I didn’t see the guy who killed a man with a nail gun. I didn’t see a hit man standing before me. I just saw a man that looked like he carried the world’s problems on his shoulders. I saw a man who tried to their hide pain like I did. His eyes held nothing inside them, but then again I didn’t know him well enough to know for sure what he was thinking or how he felt.

For all I knew, he secretly wanted to kill me or he secretly wanted to kiss me, I wouldn’t really know, but when he looked so intensely at me, it felt like he could see my pain and my past, too… It was like he could see through the strong façade I was holding up, too.

And when that second was over… so was the moment.

I clear my throat, stepping away from him while I still held his gaze. “I don’t like being touched.”

“You just had an eyelash on your cheek.” He says, smirking at me like he knew his touch had an effect on my body. “A thank you would be appreciated, princess.”

“I don’t do ‘thank you’s’… but you impressed me when you shot the bull’s eye away with a single shot, so thank you. I’m also going to let this one touch slide today, but if you ever touch me again, I will slice your finger off with the same knife I’m training you with. Got it, newcomer?”

The smirk never disappears from his face. “Got it, princess.”