Chapter Ten
It took me over a year to master Cyrus’s fighting styles since he had such a vast variety of techniques. He was a perfectionist, so every mistake I made I would have to repeat the technique correctly until I got it right. I had to be flawless. He said any mistake could be fatal out in the real world. He was making me the perfect weapon. Unarmed combat took me nine months and had turned my weak physique into a force to be reckoned with. The other three months, unarmed combat turned into something else. I was taught how to use a selection of weapons: daggers, thin swords, throwing knives and cudgels.
I hadn’t been taught how to use a gun. I hadn’t even touched one. Cyrus didn’t want me to rely solely on guns. He proved there were several weapons available to use, weapons that were subtler than guns. Guns were too easy to spot. There would be situations where I wouldn’t be able to bring one, which is why Cyrus was leaving guns until last. Maybe there was another reason. Killing would complete my training. Had he left guns until last because of that? He wasn’t the compassionate type. He was a ruthless jerk. Perhaps he figured it would be better because I couldn’t choke on the last hurdle, not after I had come so far. Cyrus wasn’t just ruthless. He was a cunning bastard.
I hadn’t neither seen nor heard from Damian. The same went for Lorenzo. I wasn’t surprised, really. I didn’t dwell on the matter mainly because it was a distraction I didn’t need. I knew what I was signing up for before I left them behind. Damian said it wouldn’t be forever. I would see them again. I just had to remind myself of that fact whenever I thought about it.
When Cyrus wasn’t personally training me, he’d disappear for a few hours and come back covered in blood splatters. You’d think being the perfectionist he was, he’d be a clean killer, but I think he liked to have fun with his targets before killing them. I shuddered at the thought of what he did to them. I wouldn’t be like him. I would be quick and merciful. I didn’t relish the thought of making people suffer. That wasn’t my style.
I was glad Renée was always there to talk to. If I had been alone with Cyrus and didn’t see anyone else, I might have gone mad. Cyrus was nice to look at but he was an arrogant jerk. I understood he had to be hard on me. He just went overboard at times. I was stronger because of it but that didn’t mean I was happy about the way he treated me. If I complained, he made it worse, so I had learned to suck it up. The sooner I was done with training, the better.
Cyrus could mess with a person’s mind whenever he felt like. It was easier for him when his targets were asleep. I found that out the hard way. Sometimes he would make me fight him in my sleep. My reflexes were slower and sluggish in my dreams. He always took advantage of that. He didn’t have any limits or boundaries. He couldn’t care less. There was nothing I could do or say without repercussions. He could make my nightmares hellish if he felt inclined. I didn’t want to put myself in that position, so I just went with his training method. The guy was nuts but I couldn’t deny that he was amazing at being – well, a successful killer – the kind of person I needed to be in order to accomplish my goal. I needed him if I wanted to bring the agency down. It wasn’t forever. I would leave him behind to maintain my cover when the time came. Until then, I would put up with his crazy behaviour. I had to cope with it. I didn’t have any other options. I couldn’t walk away.
I was in the middle of getting dressed when I heard the doorknob jiggle. I had locked it for privacy. Cyrus had a habit of barging in without knocking first. The amount of times I had to cover up was uncountable, not to mention embarrassing.
“What is it?” I called out irritably, sticking my head through my shirt.
“Today you’ll be handling guns. I suggest you bring your A game,” Cyrus said from the other side. “Grab a bite to eat. I’ll meet you down there.”
I resisted clapping and congratulating him for actually letting me eat something first. I figured that would be a bad move and probably lead to having my gun training postponed until Cyrus decided otherwise. I didn’t want to push my luck.
I unlocked my bedroom door and briskly made my way down the stairs into the kitchen, almost missing a few steps. Renée handed me a bowl of scrambled eggs before I even made it to the cupboards to search for breakfast.
“They’re just plain. I need to go grocery shopping.”
“Thanks, you’re awesome,” I said, making a start on breakfast. “Not to sound rude or anything but neither Cyrus or you work. Where does the money come from for food and stuff?”
“Your inheritance,” she teased, sticking out her tongue. “Cyrus is a bounty hunter. His targets have price tags.”
I unintentionally bit down on my fork; that hurt my teeth. “Ah, of course. My bad.”
“Why do you look so surprised?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes I forget who he is.”
“He wasn’t always this way.... in case you were beginning to think he’s always been an egotistical prat.”
I almost spat my eggs back into my bowl from laughing. Renée had such a way with words.
“What changed him?” I asked once I managed to stop giggling.
Renée sighed and leaned up against the kitchen countertop, sitting down slightly. She rested her hands in her lap and twiddled her thumbs. She craned her head around the corner to make sure Cyrus wasn’t within earshot and looked back at me when the coast was clear.
“You ever notice the scar on his right arm, near his wrist?”
I inclined my head in thought, trying to remember, thinking back to our fights. I may have seen a patch from an old burn, but I didn’t really think much of it at the time. I was too busy getting my ass handed to me and fighting back so I could pass his training.
“Yeah, the burn?” I asked.
“Mhmm. He held a knife in an open flame and did that to himself.”
My mouth fell open. “Why?”
“To try and erase a mark that changed his life forever. He was a prisoner in Auschwitz, the most brutal concentration camp recorded in history. He was branded with a code so he removed it.”
Lorenzo already gave me a brief history lesson of what Cyrus had been through before I came here. I think Renée mistook my silence for shock.
“He got caught trying to help unfortunate souls. Nazis were unforgiving. They gave him special treatment when they found out what he was. The lab experiments are something he never speaks about but I know it happened. When the war was won, he did everything in his power to wipe out the Nazis and their descendants. He became their nightmare and he spared no one. When he ran out of Nazis to kill, he was contacted by an organisation who wanted to use his talents for other means, wiping out threats. That gives you a better understanding why he’s so... Cyrus.”
I didn’t know what to say. Words failed me.
“Everyone has their horrible and tragic stories, Joan. You are not the only one in this house who has suffered by the hands of those who seek absolute power. In Cyrus’s eyes, the agency is just another Hitler. That’s why he has tried so hard to bring about change. That’s why he pushes you as hard as he does. He doesn’t want to fail again.”
“That’s so sad,” I murmured quietly; my lips barely moved.
“Yeah. Don’t treat him any differently. He’ll murder us both otherwise.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Continue your sass antics. That will be good enough,” she said, beaming at me. “Go to the man cave before he thinks we’re gossiping. I need to go do groceries. I’ll be back later. Want anything?”
“Cookie dough ice cream.”
“I’ll see what I can do. You’re allowed at least one cheat food. Ice cream is a good choice.”
“I sneak more when nobody is looking,” I admitted, smiling. “What can I say? I love food. Dieting and I don’t mix, ever.”
“Good for you. Your secret is safe with me,” she said, holding out her pinkie. “Pinky promise.”
I put my empty bowl in the sink and wrapped my pinkie around hers to humour her. We sh
ook on our promise.
I left the kitchen and wandered down the hall to the basement staircase. Cyrus had left the door open for me, only slightly ajar. I shut it behind me and locked it. Cyrus didn’t like leaving it unlocked and for good reason. I’m sure half the stuff down here wasn’t legal.
Cyrus was waiting for me inside the glass box. He was leaning up against the gun cupboard with folded arms. His golden hair was tied in its usual braid but was dangling down his back for once, not slanted to the side. He was wearing a white singlet that hugged his body tightly. I could see his muscles underneath the fabric, as well as his abs. Black jeans accompanied his top but I paid no notice to those. I was trying my best not to drool over his abs.
I looked away from him before my cheeks flushed scarlet. I nearly walked into the glass wall and not the door because of how much he was distracting me. I hope he didn’t notice.
“Elegant as always,” he mentioned with a snicker when I entered the shooting range.
“Shut up,” I snapped, wanting to be so much more explicit.
Cyrus gestured to the black bench behind me and returned to his innocent lean on the cupboard, refolding his arms. I glanced over my shoulder to see what he was pointing to and saw a handgun lying in pieces on the bench, like a jigsaw puzzle.
“Put it back together. Then take it apart. Rinse and repeat,” he told me.
“Are you going to show me first?”
“Nope. It’s fairly simple. Oh, before I forget...” his voice trailed off in suspense. He pulled a blindfold out of his jeans and handed it to me. “To make things more interesting.”
“You’re kidding?” I questioned, staring stupidly at the blindfold dangling from his outstretched hand.
“I rarely joke about anything. Take it before I put it on for you.”
I snatched the blindfold out of his hand and swore under my breath. “You’re unbelievable. What is this supposed to prove?”
“To familiarise yourself with what you feel and not what you see. I won’t spin you if that’s any consolation.” His tone was condescending.
I sort of wished we were doing unarmed combat so I could smack him for being a jerk.
“Well, go on. The gun isn’t going to put itself together.”
“If I accidentally shoot you, know it probably wasn’t an accident,” I muttered, slipping the blindfold over my head and tying it at the back.
“The Glock is loaded with blanks.”
“Don’t trust me?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“The feeling is mutual,” I said, feeling around to find the edge of the bench.
What my hands came in contact with didn’t feel like a bench. It was solid and warm, for starters. Benches were usually cold. Fabric brushed by my fingertips. My brain made the slow connection.
“You might want to turn around first,” Cyrus mentioned while I casually touched his abs.
Awkward.
“My bad,” I huffed, spinning around and giving him my back.
That was mortifying. My cheeks were burning.
I pushed back the memory of unintentionally touching Cyrus so I could concentrate. I had never had a romantic thought about him, not once, due to the nature of his personality. I couldn’t deny that he was gorgeous and nice to look at. I found it difficult to have any romantic feelings towards him when I knew how much blood was on his hands. I knew his secrets. He made me uneasy. He was an assassin and murdered people without blinking.
“I’m not setting a time limit. Take as long as you need,” he said, sounding genuine. I couldn’t work out if it was a trap.
I found the edge of the bench and skimmed my hand across the cold surface until I found a gun piece. I tried visualising the gun in my head to work out which piece it was. I held it in my hand to get a good feel. It was like an overweight candy bar, which I eventually worked out to be the magazine. Common sense told me to leave that until last. The base of the gun was the easiest to find due to how bulky it was. The shape was obvious. A long coil flexed between my fingers. Where did the spring fit into it? Did it support the barrel? It definitely didn’t go in the magazine holder.
“This would be much easier if I could see what I was doing.”
“Life isn’t easy, Joan. Suck it up.”
Oh, the things I wanted to say...
The barrel of the gun was a metal cylinder. I felt around the holes on the base of the gun to slide the barrel into place before fitting the spring. I tried the spring two different ways and adjusted it to the correct one, the one that felt right. The base of the gun also had grooves for the top slider, which was a little harder to slip into place without seeing how to angle it properly. It was fidgety, that much I could say. When it clicked into place and slid without any choppy resistance, I jammed the magazine in and put the gun down the table.
“There. Did I do it?”
Cyrus hovered behind me, gently bumping his chest into my back. His honey scent made my head spin. When one of your senses were cut off, others became more heightened. I had to resist taking in a deep breath.
“If you planned to use it as a club, then yes, you did it. Dissemble and try again,” he said.
“It has to be right. It wouldn’t have clicked all together if it wasn’t.”
“Again,” he urged, flicking my ear when I talked back.
“How many times?”
“The same as always. Until you get it right.”
“I did get it right,” I muttered, disassembling the Glock.
The true test would have been to fire the gun, to see if it worked perfectly, or if it jammed, or fell to pieces. Since the magazine was loaded with blanks, that wasn’t going to happen. Would it still make a bang if I pulled the trigger? I was too nervous to find out so just continued pulling the gun apart. I wasn’t ready for that stage yet, especially being blindfolded. Hell no.
“Who’s the professional here?”
“The professional jerk? That would be you,” I said, setting the pieces down on the bench one by one.
“Being a jerk would be giving you a handicap, like cuffing one of your hands. Don’t tempt me.”
“Being blindfolded is already one. I doubt you keep handcuffs.”
“You don’t know what I get up to in my spare time,” he said, voice dark.
“You kill people for a living. I know what you get up to.”
“Sweet and innocent, Joan,” he chided, chuckling. “I suppose you are too young to understand.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh nothing. Put the gun together again.”
“Can I take the blindfold off?”
“No.”
“Are there more guns after this one?” I asked while putting the Glock back together.
“Naturally.”
“How many?”
“As many as I see fit.”
“Am I even going to shoot something today?”
“That depends on how efficient you are.”
“You told me not to rely on guns, so why would you make me dissemble multiple?”
“Because I’m a professional jerk,” he said, bumping up against my back to inspect the completed gun I put down on the bench. “Better. Again.”
When I reached for the gun, I immediately felt the weight difference. It was a lot lighter than the Glock I had been working with. Cyrus had sneakily swapped the guns around.
“You swapped it. Why?” I asked.
“So you are paying attention. Good.”
“Is this loaded with blanks too?”
“Maybe you should pull the trigger and find out.”
“Don’t tempt me,” I mumbled, taking apart the new gun.
While I was dismantling the gun, I was paying attention on how to put it back together so when the time came, I wouldn’t fumble as much.
“Who taught you all of this stuff? How to fight? How to use a gun?” I was curious to know.
“Self-taught. Due to certain circumstances, I didn’t trus
t anyone but myself.”
Being held prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp... I couldn’t even begin to imagine the things he had gone through before being freed. I had read firsthand accounts during my history lessons. I had seen pictures of people so thin that you could see their rib cages. I had seen the bottomless pits where thousands of bodies were burned. It was mind boggling that there had been survivors.
While being lost in thought, I had dismantled the gun and had already absentmindedly put it back together.
Cyrus’s hand fell on mine when I placed the gun down on the table. I nearly jumped with surprise.
“You put that back together without thinking about it, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, sorry. I’ll pay more attention,” I said.
I tried to lift the gun but Cyrus was still pinning my hand.
“No need. That was quite a surprise.”
“So... I passed?” I asked, voice hesitant.
“With flying colours.” For once, he actually sounded impressed.
Cyrus’s hand fell from mine and he untied the blindfold, taking it away before the fabric had the chance to slip down my face.
I squinted until my eyes adjusted to the sudden change. It was a strange sensation being able to see again. It was a little overwhelming at first. That didn’t last too long, thankfully.
“You’ll need these,” Cyrus said, handing me black earmuffs. “Since our hearing is very sensitive. When you’re out in the field you won’t have this luxury and sometimes it can be disorientating. We aren’t up to that stage yet, so for now I’ll save you the trouble.”
“That’s the first time you’ve actually done something nice for me.”
“Don’t make me take these back,” he threatened, shaking the earmuffs.
“What? I’m not allowed to appreciate your kind gesture?” I questioned, snatching the earmuffs off him before he decided to take them away. “You don’t have to be an arrogant jerk all the time. It’s actually quite refreshing.”
Cyrus held up the Glock I was working with earlier and swapped out the blank magazine for a proper one.
“Pay attention. Glock’s don’t have the standard external on-off safety mechanism so it will always fire if the trigger is pulled intentionally. I prefer using Glock’s for that very reason. They’re quick to use without worrying about external safety features.”
“Since I’m learning, wouldn’t it be better to have an external lock just in case I shoot myself in the foot?”
“Do you plan on intentionally pulling the trigger and shooting your foot?”
“No.”
“Then use the Glock,” he said with an eye roll, setting the gun down on the bench. “Earmuffs, aim, shoot. Nervous learners have a habit of holding their breath when they shoot. Exhale when you pull the trigger.”
Cyrus used a remote to adjust the mechanical pulley, moving the target into the centre of the shooting range. It was a fresh one with no bullet holes.
“Knock yourself out, kid.”
“I’m not a kid,” I snapped, grabbing the gun off the bench.
“You’re shorter and younger than me. I don’t see the difference.”
“I have a loaded gun in my hand. It’s probably not the best idea to bait me.”
“I’ll be able to disarm you before you have the chance to pull the trigger. Don’t make idle threats. Threats are made to be followed through.”
“A threat is a statement of an intention to harm. Threats aren’t made to be followed through. They’re just a warning.”
“Just shoot the damn gun, Joan.”
I smiled to hold back my laugh. I held the gun in one hand so I could put the earmuffs on. Sound became a hum. All I could hear was the hush of a distant ocean rolling and lapping the shore. The gun was a perfect fit for my hand.
I was close to shooting with just one hand, until Cyrus overlapped my left with my right for a steadier aim and less recoil. I guess I had forgotten about that since I was so eager just to shoot something. I had been waiting so long for this moment. It was finally here.
I pulled the trigger and released with each fire. The jerk of the gun was surprising, but since I was holding it with both hands, there was hardly any recoil. Just feeling the power of such a compact weapon was truly something extraordinary.
There were four neat bullet holes on my target. Two were around the chest area, one below the neck, and the other through the stomach.
I placed the gun down on the bench, along with my earmuffs. My hands were shaking a little bit and my heart was pounding. Adrenaline was making me go crazy.
“How’d I do?” I asked breathlessly, glancing back at Cyrus.
“You didn’t miss. If your targets were humans, they’d be dead. You’re dealing with immortals. A headshot and a bullet to the heart are your only two killing points, which you missed on a stationary target. Try again.”
Cyrus hit the remote to replace the target with a new one.
“Look where you’re shooting. Aim properly. Make a visual in your mind of where you want your bullets to strike and don’t close your eyes when the gun goes off. You need to stay focused at all times. Head and heart. Missing those vital spots out in the field will get you killed.”
“Yes sir, Captain Obvious, sir,” I said, giving him a salute.
“You’ll be thanking me later when you’re not lying on the floor bleeding out because you failed to kill your target. Judging by the surprised look on your face, you didn’t know we could bleed out. Bullets embedded in our bones need to be dug out immediately or else the wound stays open. We can’t regenerate blood fast enough if there are multiple wounds. Lack of blood flow to the brain kills us too. Maybe you should study up on our healing capabilities before cracking jokes.”
I calmly placed the gun on the bench without making eye contact with Cyrus. An emotional meltdown was just around the corner after hearing those frightful facts. I did the only thing I knew I could do, which was walk out of that glass prison before I lost my cool. I needed some time alone.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Cyrus called out.
“Away from you,” I yelled back, running up the stairs.
If I wasn’t careful I could die, and that scared the hell out of me.
Everlasting Flame Page 10
