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Theo ignores me. “You aren’t only trying to cause surface damage. You are driving your body weight through whatever it is you’re hitting.” He demonstrates the proper stance, which June quickly adapts to—when she’s not fucking around, she is a quick learner. Or a quick mimic, anyway. So long as she manages to make it work for us, either is fine.

“Good, now plant your weight on your back foot,” he instructs, and she follows suit. “When you take a swing, you pivot on your hip. All of your power goes with you—you’re using momentum. It’s really just physics,” he concludes with a shrug.

“I suck at physics,” she points out with a nervous catch in her throat. “So maybe that’s not the most helpful way to describe it.”

“It’s simple.” Again, he looks to me in a clear plea for assistance, which I pointedly ignore.

Still, she seems to get the basic mechanics down easily enough, eventually getting to the point where she can throw what look like forceful punches against Theo’s chest.

Only one problem.

“You have to keep your eyes open,” he reminds her for the fifth time, his voice dripping with frustration. “You can’t close your eyes and scrunch your face up like you’re doing now.”

“I’m trying!”

“Well, I hate to tell you, but there are no participation trophies here. With your eyes closed, how are you supposed to see what you’re hitting? Now, do it again,” he snaps, taking a few backward steps while she huffs and puffs in frustration.

“I’m trying.” She repeats, planting her hands on her hips. “You can’t turn somebody who spends their life behind a keyboard into, like, a ninja assassin in one morning.”

She said it better than I ever could. I suppose that’s why she’s the writer.

“Trying isn’t enough! Dammit.” Scrubbing a hand through his hair, Theo lets out a pained groan. “I don’t know how else to explain it to you. This is everything. We are literally talking about your entire life hanging in the balance, June. Yours and Adrian’s.”

He doesn’t look my way, instead staring at her with an intensity that makes me glad I’m not the one he’s staring at. She shrinks slightly under the weight of it, but commendably keeps her chin held high.

“You have to give this everything you have. Nothing less than that will do.”

She cringes away from him as he takes one slow, measured step toward her, then another. Something cold and hard takes hold of him, molding his features into a mask close to hatred. Suddenly he’s the ruthless hit man he used to be, staring down his latest target, sizing her up, intimidating her without raising his voice above a low murmur. “Do you remember how it felt? Being abducted? My brother told me all about it,” he explains when her eyes pop open wide. “You were helpless, weren’t you? Probably scared shitless, I would bet.”

Her head bobs in mute agreement.

“What would you have done if you could have? How would you have fought back? Show me now.” He taps a fist against his chest. “Go on. This is your chance. Show me what you would’ve done to that asshole who abducted you. Show me how you would make him pay for it. Because, June,” he adds, flat and stark, “it’s going to happen again. Now, show me. Focus. See him in your mind’s eye. Imagine him grabbing you, dragging you away.”

She is too. I sense it. Her jaw goes tight, teeth bared, her chest rising and falling, faster, faster.

“Do it!” he barks.

She does it.

Her fist cocks back, fire in her eyes, and with a roar, she pops her hip, sending all her momentum into a punch that lands not on my brother’s chest, but straight against his nose.

“Fuck!” Theo puts a hand to his nose, checking it like he’s looking for blood. “Damn, girl.” He actually sounds proud.

I know the feeling, because I can’t help but admire her even as she howls, hopping around like she did before. Only this time, she’s not shadowboxing. She’s shaking her fist out, wincing and groaning.

“That hurts!” She shakes it out, giving Theo a filthy look as she does. “You didn’t say it would hurt! Nobody ever talks about how much it hurts to hit somebody! Jesus Christ, is my hand broken? How am I supposed to write with a broken hand?”

“You’ll be fine.” After checking his nose one more time, he shakes his head. “And think of it this way. If you don’t learn how to defend yourself, it will be much harder to write, since you’ll be dead.”

“You fucking serious?” I give him a dirty look, which he ignores. “Way to be encouraging.”

June heaves a sigh of relief when Theo calls an end to this part of the training. “Thank God. I thought we would be at that forever.”

“We’re not finished, you realize.” Obviously, that’s exactly what she thought it meant, since her shoulders drop. “That was only the first part of our training. Now, have you ever fired a gun?”

I have to stifle a snicker when I remember the way she stared at the gun I handed her. It might as well have been a ticking bomb or a venomous snake. Without a word, I follow them to the makeshift firing range he set up with a canvas target pinned to bales of hay.

Her eyes bulge when she takes in the array of firearms he set out. “I’m supposed to use one of these?” she whispers.