Blood Supermoon

24. Shades of Blue

When I call your name, is there no way to keep the love from my voice...?

Josandra stood at the top of the hill with her rifle, aiming it at the bowls and mugs that hung from tree branches across the plain. Instinctively, she shut one eye and started to apply pressure onto the trigger.

"Ah, ah, ah, don't close one eye anymore," Lue said. "You have to trust yourself now."

She placed a pebble up front on the barrel.

"This shouldn't fall off when you shoot. If it does, you're still doubting yourself. Your fingers are shaking and you won't be able to shoot your target with certainty. We don't want that to happen. So take a deep breath through your belly, fire and make sure your hands are rigid so this small pebble won't move," Lue said.

Josandra took a deep breath and fired. The pebble slipped off the barrel, but she was able to hit the mug. She sighed, knowing what Lue was thinking. It's easy to hit inanimate objects despite her fingers shaking, but that won't be the case for a moving target.

"You'll get it with practice," Lue said, squeezing her shoulder.

So Josandra did practice. Day after day, night after night. Sometimes, Lue would join her, other times she was alone. Eventually, it became second nature to keep her eye open and the pebble no longer fell off the barrel. She began sitting in on the boys' training session again. Sometimes, when it was over and everyone left, Lue would make her fight Jackson. At first, she felt comfortable fighting him with her gun, she'd swoop him off of his feet with it or hit him over the head with it, but then that turned into the first thing he took from her so she was forced to use her hands and feet.

She didn't have the stamina that he had and thought she never would so she began to look for shortcuts on how to end the match quickly. Then she realized if he was going to keep taking her rifle away, she'd should use whatever was around her. She began incorporating wooden logs and sticks in the matches, swinging it at him with as much strength as she could muster up. One time, she hit him so hard with a log that his temple was bleeding.

"No fair," he said, wincing on the ground.

"I'm sorry!" Josandra said, kneeling down.

"Don't say sorry," Lue said. "That's exactly the type of energy you need in a fight. I knew you were holding back all this time. So...want to fight me?"

Josandra raised her eyebrows.

They both knew that this wouldn't be a fair match. That Josandra would end up losing, but she knew the purpose was to see how far she could push herself. So one afternoon, when the clearing was vacant, Josandra stood across from Lue with her hands at her sides. She tried to remember how Lue's fight with Zaria went, but she couldn't remember any weaknesses Lue had.

"I'm not going easy on you—" Lue said.

"I know."

"...unless you ask me to?"

"I won't," Josandra frowned.

They began to walk in a circle, patiently waiting for the other to strike, waiting for an opening, but Josandra couldn't see any. She sighed and quickly slipped out her blade, trying to use it as a decoy as she charged at Lue. But Lue saw through it and caught the blade and Josandra's knee that tried to hit her. With strength, she flipped Josandra onto her back and removed the blade from her hands, aiming it at her.

Josandra used her core to kick Lue off of her, but she didn't have time to breathe. Lue came at her with the blade, twirling over and over that Josandra couldn't think of her next move. She was stuck defending herself. When Josandra was backed up into a tree, the blade that Lue was holding got stuck so Josandra ran off and Lue chased after her. She was light on her feet, easily catching up. Josandra was able to punch her in the stomach, but Lue struck her in the shoulder, the ribs, the chest that Josandra fell to the ground, gasping for air. And she could tell that Lue was avoiding her face and wasn't hitting her too hard, but still Josandra couldn't keep up. She was on a totally other level compared to Jackson. Hopelessly, Josandra lay on her back, her arms outstretched as Lue stood over her with her fist closed. She was going to hit her, but at the last moment, she relaxed her fingers. Their fight didn't even last a minute.