Page 25 of The Succubi's Choice

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* * *

They next day, after coming home to find Miri in the exact same burrito spot on the couch, Gabe puts down his school bag and purses his lips at her. It’s the sort of disappointed look that’s he’s only gotten better at since he started being a TA. Once he gets his PhD he will only grow in power, becoming truly formidable.

“What,” Miri says defensively, cause the last thing she needs right now is to feel like a wayward school child.

“You can’t go to work, you can’t hunt, but did they specifically—and I mean specifically —tell you that you can’t leave the house?”

She blinks at him. “What...they don’t want me tracked—"

“But did they flat out say you can’t leave?” He shrugs out of his hoodie and grabs his leather jacket instead, his eyes narrowed.

She hasn’t seen her friend like this in a while, and the only time he grabs the leather jacket is when he helps his uncle out at his store. Which, of course, Miri is forbidden from entering and, of course, she’s been several times.

“Isn’t Jacqui on her way?” Miri asks, her heart thudding with nervousness. Or excitement. Tough to tell.

He hesitates, then shrugs. “She can come too? Some bonding time?”

“They really don’t want me leaving,” she blurts out, but stands up anyways, shedding the blanket for the first time that day, the thought of fresh air making her throat tighten. “You’ll get a note, probably strongly worded, if they find out.”

He smiles, and it’s not the grad school smile. It’s the smile from when they used to go wild in undergrad and find places to party for hours, for when they would skirt along the other side of breaking rules and not get caught, for when she would get him blackout drunk and point him to girls.

“Oh, we’ll get in much more trouble than that.”

* * *

His uncle’sshooting range is closed, but Gabriel uses his key to open up the back door for them, and even Jacqueline looks moderately excited.

Once inside, Gabriel takes his time flipping on all the lights, setting out the pistols that he prefers.

Jacqueline gives Miri a curious look as Miri draws in a quick breath of over air-conditioned air, but thankfully she doesn’t say anything.

Gabriel goes and fusses with the employee safe, his movements as familiar and as practiced as him cleaning up around the apartment. Before grad school he helped his uncle out on the closing shift, and this is their deal: so long as he makes a record of how many bullets shot and doesn’t leave a mess, he can use the shop after hours.

He rarely does, of course, preferring to read to burn off stress, but he definitely shot up paper after his last breakup. He’d come home, almost reeking of gunpowder, and would make sure that he didn’t touch anything Miri would touch until he took a shower.

The Organization doesn’t know this, of course. They’d never let Miri live with him if they did. So Miri rarely takes advantage of the rare privilege of another having access to firearms, with the only real time she did was when the demigods were off killing people with no end in sight.

But her pulse quickens as she pulls on the set of cheap latex gloves. They stick to her skin, dragging against the palms of her hands, but in a way that sets a smile to her face.

“Isn’t it better to be able to feel the trigger?” Jacqueline asks, and Miri looks up. She’s obvious studying her, studying her in the way she studies her math theories, cataloging all the small things Miri is doing and filing them in the confusing folder of things she doesn’t understand. “You know, for the pull weight.”

Miri wiggles her gloved fingers at her. “Can’t have gunpowder on the hands for the job.”

It’s not an answer Jacqueline will accept, so she narrows her eyes at Miri, who tries her best to look as innocent as possible.

Which isn’t easy for her, of course.

After a beat, Gabriel comes back with his two favorite pistols, paper targets tucked under his arm, and unlocks the shooting lanes.

The air’s even cooler inside the lanes, as they’re halfway underground, the berm going directly into the small hill behind the shop, and the hair on Miri’s arms rises.

“Oh it’s nice in here,” Jacqueline sighs, scooting up and sitting cross legged on the back reloading area. As if practiced, she claps on her noise cancelling earmuffs and opens up one of her books, getting embroiled in her reading.

Miri wishes she could get that involved in a book that quickly. Instead, while she has little issue with paperwork, books give her headaches, making her wish to be doing anything else.

But then again, she’s not the one halfway through getting her PhD, and she probably never will, so she doesn’t exactly need that skill set. Still, it always seems nice, to get lost in the written word so easily. Like she’d be a hell of a lot less bored if she could read for hours on end.

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