Hunter

Throwing Knives

Chapter 8

Tuesday we train in shooting with guns. Ace has a place behind this house filled with weapons. It’s like a mini training facility. He’s got it packed with knifes and guns, archery things and ropes, all perfect for our training. 

The shooting goes fine, we only spend an hour on non-moving targets. We don’t really need much brushing up on that, thank God. The next day we work on combat. That’s a weak point for me. Without weapons, I feel powerless. We all trained with dummies at first, and then Riker tried to size up Piers. I stopped them before I couldn’t anymore. We’ll save that for next week.

After that day, we’re sore, but we keep going. The weight-training is needed if we want to build up muscle. It’s a quiet day; we just keep throwing pound after pound onto our bodies until we can’t lift it anymore.

And then comes Thursday. Today. My favorite day. Knife and sword training. I excel in this, because it’s my favorite weapon to use. Ace should be familiar with this, hence the small scar on his arm. We all pile into the training house, Riker and Lexi looking groggy from sleep and soreness.

Ace is here already, looking like he’s been practicing himself. He’s got three knifes already thrown on the board, off center for all of them. He goes to throw another one, and he misses the center again.

I can’t help it. His errors annoy me. “No. Like this,” I take one of the knifes from the table behind him. He watches me as I pull my arm back, knife between my fingers. I have one foot in front of me, the other behind. I lurch forward fluently, hiking the knife straight forward. The knife flies through the air, hitting the center of the board. “Keep your arm straight, don’t flick…it…”

I trail off when I see everybody staring at me. Even Lexi looks a little impressed. I suddenly feel really self-conscious. “What?” I snap at them all. “Go train!”

Ace stares at me with a smirk, the knowing look on his face showing off. “Thanks.”

“Shut up,” I snap at him. “Do what I told you.”

He sends me another grin, but otherwise listens to what I said. Instead of flicking his arm, he keeps it straight. It gets closer to the middle than any of his other tries. “Thanks, babe.”

“Don’t call me that.” I flip away from him, heading over to Piers to watch him. He seems concentrated. He’s in the same position as I am, and flings it so hard that he grunts out loud. The knife pierces the dart board so hard that it falls off the wall.

I stare at him, and he looks back, without emotion. He stalks over to the board to hang it up again, breaking eye contact. He looked really…tense.

I brush it off, heading over to Lexi. She didn’t listen to me at all when I was showing Ace. Her feet are together and she’s holding the knife incorrectly. When she throws it, it lands on the floor, clattering.

“Lexi, pay attention,” I tell her, grabbing my own knife. “Watch. Learn.” I repeat my actions, showing her each step. She watches me with a dissatisfied look on her face. I throw the knife, and it lands perfectly in the middle. “Got it?”