Page 29 of Bleeding Outside the Lines

“Where did you learn to do that?”

She shrugs her shoulders. “You learn to do a lot of things when you’re bored. No TV to watch, no video games to play. And you don’t go to school ‘cause the teachers ask too many questions.”

I hand her another training knife. “This time hit the target over there.”

She takes the knife from my hand, brings it back and sends it hilt over blade into the target. The hilt hits the bullseye, and the knife tumbles to the floor.

I take one of the throwing knives off the hook on the wall. She takes it eagerly and weighs it in her hand. She brings the knife back, throws it, and the blade sinks into the bullseye.

“Again,” I say, handing her another one.

She does it again.

I hand her another, but this time I instruct her to throw it at the dummy and to hit him in center chest.

She does as she is told. Remarkable is an understatement.

“Pick up that sparring blade.” She picks it up. Touches the blade across her fingers. She’s not scared of it. She’s intrigued, curious even.

“Slice his throat.”

She moves silently, like she must have in the meeting, like I witnessed the night I saved her. Soft on her feet, sure of her steps, she reaches the dummy, but fumbles with the knife. The tip hits the dummy in the shoulder and bounces off, sending Alice sprawling.

I offer her my hand, but she shakes me off.

“Tell me,” I say, “How did you do it? Those girls have been trying for weeks.”

“It was so easy when you were all looking at the screen. I just had to wait until nobody was looking. Besides, the other girls, they’re too loud, and they don’t know how to wait. They just move quickly to try and get things over with. Sometimes you need to move slowly to not be seen.”

So much wisdom in such a little girl. Maybe she should be teaching stealth. She attempts to slice the dummy’s throat again, only this time she moves with the practice blade in her hand, its hilt shoved down the sleeve of her shirt.

Be one with the blade. She repeats this method over and over again, flawlessly.

She could have been a dancer. A real dancer. She could have curtsied on stage and had flowers thrown at her feet.

Instead, she dances with death.

twenty-one

“Do you have aplan?” Garrett helps himself to a glass of bourbon and sits across from me. He swirls the amber liquid in the glass, sniffing it as it spins.

“Dude, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Huh?”

“We grew up on six-dollar vodka. Don’t sit there and pretend to know what you’re doing with that.” I throw a coaster at him.

He clutches his chest. “Says the guy who just threw a fucking coaster at me.”

“And a plan? Other than killing the person who hired her? No.”

“Do you really think it was him?”

“Do we know anyone else stupid enough to pull this shit?”

Garrett shakes his head. Because we don’t. Nobody else would. I don’t have enemies. And while my life hasn’t been perfect, I’ve protected those who needed it. Garrett included. And I’ve killed anyone who has been even a miniscule threat.Except for the loose thread I should have dealt with months ago. But I didn’t want the heat, so I backed off. Not anymore.

Garrett picks up his knight and moves it to F3.

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