A few days earlier.
"Come on, baby! Just a little farther!"
He was heavily wheezing, faltering one dingy gym shoe over the other and periodically swiping wet strands of hair from his brow. He continued his jog up the side of the empty highway road, surrounded by towering evergreen forest on either side and cloaked in the dense fog and nothing but the winding double-yellow line and the headlights behind him as a guide. He would've been able to enjoy the scenery a lot better from Ivy's position, as she followed behind him in the car at about two miles per hour cheering him on. His gray sweatsuit was now a couple shades darker, a mixture of his own sweat and the humidity.
"Ha-ha-howww much farther?" he panted.
"Here's good." To the sound of that, he plummeted straight to the dirt. "Excellent. Perfect position to do push-ups!"
"Ivy," groaned Caleb.
"Uh-uh! No whining! Get off the ground!" she barked. His knobby elbows wobbled as he struggled to pick his torso off the ground and hoist himself in plank position, his red face balled up in a wince the whole way. When he opened his eyes, he found hers, beaming with all her love and encouragement as she flashed him a warm smile.
"Sorry I have to be so hard on you, boo-bear."
"No, it's fine," he muttered. "I have to get stronger. This isn't a video game, after all."
"That's the spirit, darling," she cooed.
"Yeah, so how many?"
"One-fifty."
"'One-fifty!'"
"One-fifty, and then carry me piggyback up the hill where we will grapple until your arms and legs fall off! Now! Get to work, weakling!" She capped it off with a sweet little smirk.
He struggled through all one hundred and fifty. He nearly tumbled more than once as he carried Ivy up the hill as she shouted. Finally, he made it to the top, barely letting her off as he crashed to the dirt.
"Never give up your back, sweetie!" Like a cobra, she coiled around him, sinking her forearm into his windpipe as she seized his head and held it still. With all the strength he had left, Caleb fought her, bucking and thrusting her up and over. But as she rolled, so did he, as she had hooked her legs around his waist and brought him along. Now she was on her back and he was on top of her, with her arms still wrapped around his neck.
"If you don't do something quick, you'll pass out, Caleb," she hissed. Caleb pushed his chin into the crook of her arm as he fidgeted to his side. Finally, he broke her grip and sent her arms flailing, though her legs continued to remain locked around him. His first instinct drove him to rise to his feet.
"Don't try to stand from there!" she warned, reaching down with one arm and taking his ankle. Caleb came crashing right back down, and now had her on top of him, sitting on his stomach. She had the blades of her arms against his neck like a guillotine, one in his throat, the other in the back as she sank down into him with all her force.
"What now?" she growled with a knave smirk.
In one sudden motion, he swam underneath her, between her legs as he bucked her off of him and sent Ivy crashing the other direction. Caleb had finally escaped.
"Not bad," Ivy commended, rising to her feet as well and beginning to slowly approach him. "But you're always on defense. Sometimes you need to strike!"
She took his wrist and used it to swing between his legs, hooking one of his legs with one foot and hoisting him in the air with the other. As he came crashing down beside her, she chopped down on his neck with her leg, holding his arm in place and bending it until he tapped.
"No fair!" he wheezed, once Ivy finally let him go.
"Whaddya mean?"
"I mean I'm never gonna be good enough to do this, Ivy, I'm not a trained killing machine. Where did you learn all of this?"
Ivy sat up. For a moment, she didn't speak. She just looked around, taking in the tranquility, and breathing in the forest air. She loved the smell.
"Spending years in a forest like this," she exhaled. "Days spent out here were often life-and-death affairs; less like training, more like purging. Every day was a rigorous trial, each night was a fight to keep alive in the freezing cold lying on the wood chips sharper than a bed of knives. But I survived it all, there's no reason you can't, too."
She retrieved her backpack and sifted around the main pouch until she came up with a revolver, an old-fashioned six-shooter. "Ever shot one?" she asked, kind of already knowing the answer. "They're a little trickier."
Caleb shook his head.
"Gotta earn your right to move up to a semi-automatic weapon. Or else, how will you learn efficiency?" Ivy touched her shoulder to his, slowly flicking back the hammer. "You might not ever be that great when it comes to up-close encounters, but I remember the first time a gun was ever put in my hand, it felt oddly like the moment I had been waiting for all my life. All those first-person shooters we played together, this was the real thing."
Bang! In one pull she decimated the face of a tree trunk several yards away.
"Whoa," mouthed Caleb. She put the gun in his hand. "It's heavy."
"Heavier than a controller? It's the real thing."
He held the gun out in front of him. Nervously, he squeezed the trigger. He missed everything.
"No no no," she purred, taking the revolver back from him. "The thing about holding a real gun, is that if you're unsure, if you're nervous, you'll never hit what you're supposed to. In our case, when you hold the gun, when you're ready to pull the trigger, you've had it in your mind that you're gonna kill whatever's standing on the other side of that barrel. You pull that trigger like you've never been more certain of anything in your life. And then..."
Bang! Bang! Bang! Three quick shots—three different trees, lined in a row and all with exploded centers.
"One more bullet," she cooed, handing it over again. Once more, Caleb held the gun out in front of him. He aimed, and fired.