Page 80 of Slay Ride

I roll my eyes. This is a stupid fucking exercise.

I pull back on the trigger, and the bolt shoots forward. Right into a distant tree.

Bennett takes the crossbow, loads it again, and shoves it back into my hands. “Feel it, don’t fight it. When you were confident, you shot straight. Now you’re shaken. You’re trying to stuff down what you’re feeling. Just let it happen.”

With a sigh, I grit my teeth and raise the weapon again. But I can’t do it. I don’t want to go back to twelve-year-old me. I don’t want to remember what it felt like to be laughed at and mocked.

I lower the crossbow. “Bennett, I?—”

“If that doesn’t work, channel something else. Channel some rage. I know it’s in there.”

“Maybe toward you,” I grumble.

“Five women.”

“What?”

“The guy I picked for you. He raped five women.”

Taking a deep breath, I look down the lanes and find the crumpled figure wearing a red jumpsuit.

“He has a type, too,” Bennett continues. “He likes them weak and old. He doesn’t even kill them when he’s done. After breaking their bones and?—”

“I don’t want to know.”

“You need to hear it. Aim the bow at a target.”

A tear slips past my eyelids as I raise the bow and take aim at a hay bale.

“His first victim was eighty years old at the time of the assault. Her name is Rhonda, and she’ll never walk again.”

I fire the bolt, and it strikes the bale this time.

Bennett grabs the crossbow, loads it again, then moves us to the next hay bale in line. “Your next shot is for Greta. A breast cancer survivor. After enduring so much, he put her through a hell no woman deserves.”

The bolt flies, and this time, it’s a perfect shot. Dead center.

As he loads another bolt and takes us one step closer to the lane with the Cattle, I realize what he’s doing. He’s leading me down the line, hoping I’ll take the shot when we reach the end.

“I can’t do this.”

“Yes you can.” He shoves the crossbow into my hands and leaves no room for argument. “Stop thinking in terms of can and can’t and start thinking like us.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” I say. “I’m fascinated by what you do, but I’m an outsider looking in. I’m not truly one of you, and I think it’s time I accept I never will be.”

“Bullshit. You’re just afraid of your potential.”

“What potential? My potential to fail? Because that seems to be all I can manage lately.”

“Because you haven’t tried yet.”

I push the bow back into his hands. “Because this isn’t something I can’t take back. It’s a life, Bennett.”

He pushes the bow into me. “Do you think he cared? Did he care about lives? Now do it. Shoot him.”

“No.”

“Shoot him, Cat.”

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