Page 3 of Lone Wolf

“Enough.” Lyssa’s voice cuts in sharply “That’s enough for now, everyone. Hit the showers and then go get something to eat.”

I watch Sunny’s black-and-blonde-and-pink dyed hair moving with the crowd as people flock to her. Sheep who like to get complimented, because she’s always so full of compliments. Girl needs to learn that the world isn’t so full of light as she thinks it is. She moves differently than the rest—lighter, almost dancing through the crowd, touching shoulders, laughing at comments I can’t hear. The others absorb her into their midst while maintaining their distance from me.

For a split second, she glances back at me, and I turn away quickly. That’s when I notice Lyssa is still looking at me, and I don’t like the look on her face—speculative—so I head after the group to get lunch.

Unfortunately for me, my mother is helping out in the dining room this afternoon, overseeing the food and making sure nothing needs refilling. She smiles brightly when she sees me, and I give her the slightest of up-nods. I know what’s coming and I wish she’d give it a rest. Maybe I can avoid it if I fill up my tray fast enough and find a seat.

I slop any old thing on there and head for a table at the back. It’s where I usually sit. Only two other people are ever there: Elijah, a stocky guy with a killer fade and a decent right hook from what I’ve seen in training, and Zach, thin and blond and almost as quiet as I am half the time. He’s fast, though. Fast and sneaky when we train, and pretty enough to be a decent honeypot. He’salso good with tech. If he plays his cards right, he could be a very useful Syndicate member.

None of us ever talk to each other, rarely even look at each other, but there’s a sense of cautious acknowledgment. But today as I sit, my attention is drawn back despite myself to Sunny—but then, she’s always the center of attention. Right now, Sunny is throwing an arm around Enzo and playfully stealing a fry from his plate. She’s like a flame that others can’t help but gather around, seeking warmth.

The dining hall feels divided into two temperature zones—the cold, shadowed corner where I sit, and the rest of the room where Sunny’s warmth and light seems to radiate. She’s wearing a bright yellow top today that somehow makes her look even more luminous, a stark contrast to my black attire. She’s always loud, always laughing, always desperate for people to like her. I bet that’s why she only ever flatters them. I’ve never heard her say a mean word about anyone, but I know she mustthinkthem.

Because I know what people are really like under the masks they wear.

I catch Elijah smiling a little as he watches the other table, and I have the sudden urge to tell him to go fucking sit with them, if he likes them so much. Instead, I get up from the table, meal only half eaten, and dump the remains in the trash before shoving my tray home in the receptacle we’re supposed to leave them in. I glance back once, just out of habit—never leave your back exposed—and to my chagrin I meet Sunny’s eyes. She actually has the audacity to smile at me. Not her usual megawatt grin, but something smaller, more genuine.

I look away at once, annoyed at myself. I just want to go back to the gym now, but I can’t even do that; my mother puts herself bodily in my way before I can leave the dining room.

“Sarah,” she says warmly. “Do you have a minute?”

“I—”

“Please.” She’s too firm and too pleasant, taking my arm before I can back away and leading me back into the foyer of the mansion and into a side room. This isherroom in the big house: a sitting room with a cozy fireplace and big, over-stuffed armchairs that envelop you like a hug. Exactly what Idon’twant from her. The warmth of the room is stifling after the cooler air of the dining hall and I feel instantly claustrophobic.

I shake off her hand as soon as we get in there. “What do you want?” I ask. “I need to get to the gym.”

“You just ate,” she points out. “You need to digest first. And can’t a mother have a moment with her daughter?”

I bite back my response to that, simply folding my arms.

She sighs as though I’m the one being difficult. “I wanted to talk to you about moving into the cottage.”

We’ve talked about this already. A million times. “I’m a recruit. Recruits stay in the dorms.”

“But you’re different,” she says softly.

“Yeah,” I snap. “I’mbetter. But I still need to prove myself. Going to stay with my mommy isn’t going to prove anything except that I’msoft.”

Her eyes grow shiny, and I hate that she always uses tears to try to manipulate me. Doesn’t she know how useless tears are? “ButSarah, you don’t have to bealoneall the time. You have a place with me whenever you want it.”

“Ihavea room,” I snap, backing toward the door, away from the suffocating coziness.

“That’s not the same thing as having a home. The other recruits…theydosee Elysium as a home. But you?—”

“Are we done here?”

She gives a helpless little shrug, and I wrench the door open and stalk off.

I don’t head to the gym. I head to the shooting range instead, where I have to sign in like some dumbfuck who never shot a gun in her life before. But at least it lets me blow off steam.

Lets me forget.

The range is in the basement, a cavernous space with concrete walls and specialized ventilation that still can’t quite eliminate the acrid scent of gunfire. The fluorescent lights are bright overhead, unforgiving, exactly what I need right now. I focus on the gun. The weight of it. The recoil, the sound of bullets hitting home in perfect shots, each and every time. No room for anything but the gun and the target.

I stand perfectly still while paper targets dance at the end of their wires. One by one, the outlines of human figures accumulate perfect holes where their hearts and heads would be. I hit again and again with mechanical precision. There’s a satisfaction in it—the clean simplicity of a bullet’s path, the absence of complication. The gun doesn’t care about therapy sessions or mother-daughter relationships or enigmatic smilesfrom rainbow-haired women who don’t know when to back the fuck off.

I shoot for two hours straight, until my hands and arms are aching and I think I might have a blister starting. But the anger and the emotional bullshit that my mother riled up in me, they’re gone.

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