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“And that’s why you don’t get a gun”

I double over, bending at my knees. The humour has worn off, he could be funny all day, but I’m all joked out now, and I think my shifting tone and stance tells him enough.

“Nik, enough, seriously. Give me something. I need to know what’s happening, for my sanity. Please”

He drops the act, straight away. Running his hand flat palmed, blade first down his face and accepting it.

“Alright, alright. I don’t like it, but fine. But no good briefing can happen without tea and biscuits. I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.”

So we sit on the sofa, interlocked eating chocolate biscuits. And he explains the whole thing. Craig will bring the gun back, and some other bits he needs. He’s got a couple of plans, because he reckons no amount of planning stops a plan going to shit. When I challenged that he seems less than confident he corrects me in a kind of reassuring way. He says over-confidence leads to complacency, and that leads to all the big bads, so we don’t do that. I tell him I don’t know if I can kill someone. He reassures me that nobody does, until they do it. But he says there’s a reason you can’t go civilian to special forces, and there’s a reason they don’t give you a gun and send you off to war without a very specific training regime. Which I suppose all makes sense.

What he says he can do though, after checking I can move alright on my knee, is give me just a bit of practice about how to hide and stay safe. Which sounded boring as shit, until he gets the gun he took from Craig - with no magazine - that’s the bit that goes into the handle that has the bullets, or rounds, apparently, in - and he shows me that there isn’t one in the chamber either - that’s the bit that hold the bullet round before it’s fired.

He teaches me, being a little handsy Mr Trainer, a bit about how to handle a firearm. We only point it at things we’re happy to shoot. And it’s always dangerous. Which apparently includes a gun that Nik literally just handed me, telling me it was safe! Before scolding me for not treating it like it was live. Make that one make sense! He shows me how to move holding a gun. He reckons I’ll never need to, but the least useful thing I could do if things went bad would be badly handle a gun and shoot myself in the foot which would be apparently a terrible way to end up dying.

“Do they not make lighter ones?” I say as my wrist starts aching holding this thing. His decidedly unimpressed eyebrow tells me that this is one of those suck it up, soldier topics. I guess not many soldiers complain about their “side arms” weights?

“Babe, I’m going to be honest. I’m not going to throw you an AK-47 one handed through the air in the middle of a gunfight for you to dive across open ground pew-pewing and magically landing every round in every target whilst also avoiding every round that’s coming your way. You know that’s wild, right?”

Fine, kill my dreams. Whatever.

“So, boring topic one - firearms safety… reluctant pass. The more useful thing for you though…”

Oh go on, this could get juicy.

“Cover and concealment”

Sounds sexy, I’m intrigued!

“That means what shit you can hide behind, and what shit will actually stop bullets”

Hiding? You’re teaching me… hiding? Then we spend ten minutes of me yawning and sipping my tea while he goes on about hard cover, and engine blocks, and don’t hide behind car doors, and plasterboard walls don’t do anything but load bearing walls, concrete, bricks, sandbags - all good shit.

Then he says it’s time to practice. Practice what, exactly, Nik? Cower and concealer? Boring! Actually though it does get quite fun running round the house, scooting from concealed to in cover, he teaches me to point with my whole hand and a couple of hand signals, and the importance of knowing if a gun is short or long barrel so I can tell him. We practice other stuff, like how to tell him where someone is like “10 o’clock high” means basically up and to the left. I don’t know why we can’t just say that, but he says we can’t.

Then he rearranges the furniture, puts the gun in one hand and drags me round the house by my collar changing between hand signals and words like “down” and “move” whilst he aims at pretend enemies. It gets quite immersive, actually. Diving onto my front, being pulled back to my knees to crawl. Pausing, running to the right bit of next cover while he “covers” me which I think means shoots at the bad guys so they shoot at him not me while I get gone.

It gets kinda sexy.

It gets ridiculous when he explains the next bit. Don’t try to fight when you’re caught. That’s how you die. Don’t die - comply. Don’t die - comply.

“Ready to test your skills…?” he asks, turning out the lights, his torch in his left hand aiming the same way as his gun, balancing on his torch hand… the house in pitch black.

“You’ve got ten seconds to run… when I catch you…” he instructs with the utmost seriousness

“This isn’t one of my books” with a deliberate feigned indignant tone, raising an eyebrow that he can’t see through the darkness

“Eight…”

I run like fuck.

Twenty Seven

Sawyer

Vaulting over the sofa and tripping, because obviously I trip. I scurry up the stairs, trying to balance speed and quiet. Where can I hide, my mind races as my heart threatens to choke me it’s so far up my throat. The thrill rushes from my stomach to my cheeks. The dressing room. Time’s up.

I see his steady torchlight take aim at the wall at the top of the stairs. Shit. He’s coming. Ahh! The sound of coat-hangers knocking one another threatens to give me up as I force myself into the wardrobe.