“Field-strip this.”
Her eyes flick to mine, then down to the weapon. Her throat bobs once.
“I don’t usually run maintenance,” she says.
“You do now.”
I hand it to her.
She takes it like it might burn. Her grip’s wrong—thumb too high, wrist too relaxed. Not dangerous, just unfamiliar.
She kneels by the console bench and sets the gun down like she’s prepping for surgery. I crouch beside her, saying nothing.
She starts with the slide—wrong. Fumbles with the release lever. I watch her jaw tighten as she forces it, the mechanism grinding just enough to make my skin itch.
She manages to get the casing open, barely, and starts pulling parts free like she’s trying to remember what order they came in from a dream.
Spring clatters to the floor.
She flinches.
I pick it up, hand it back without a word.
She mutters something under her breath that sounds like “stupid piece of shit,” but her voice cracks on the last word.
The magazine goes in backwards.
The barrel she seats upside-down.
By the end, it looks less like a weapon and more like a failed art project.
I hold out my hand.
She hesitates.
Then surrenders it.
I take the gun apart in three movements, clean and quiet, then reassemble it in two more. My hands remember things I don’t need to think about.
When I look up, she’s watching me with something like fury in her face—but not at me.
At herself.
I set the weapon down.
“You ever fired one of these?”
She doesn’t answer.
I let the silence ride the edge of tension for a few beats. Then, quietly:
“Tell me what you’re good at.”
She lifts her chin. “Surviving.”
That lands. Not because it’s dramatic. Because it’s true.
I nod once. “Fair.”
