Page 4 of Iron Crown

“No! Good God! No, Picasso.” He sputtered, his head shaking. “You get caught, you do what you need to stay alive. Burn me if you have to.”

“How noble.”

“I am nothing if not completely selfless,” he said with a lighthearted chuckle.

I had grown fond of Blink over the course of my “training”. He was grim, and dour by default, but he had started to become lighter over time. We were damn close to becoming good friends.

The next targets popped up, and any that I shot down were a matter of luck. I was sure of it.

“Pretty sure if I need to shoot a moving target, things have gone very, very sideways.” The target popped up again.

I raised my pistol, fired, and hit the dirt to the right. Then the target disappeared.

“Damnit,” I said under my breath. “Anyway, you said you’d always be around to rescue me if I got burned, right?”

“Hmm,” he confirmed, taking a stance beside me. “But on the off chance I can’t, I want to increase your survivability.”

The target popped up, and while barely looking, Andres shot the target, and it fell down.

“Your eyes and your arms aren’t aligned…” He droned on about the things that still didn’t make sense to me. That shooting something should be as easy as pointing. As instinctive as blah-blah-blah.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Ask away, but I may not answer.” He shot two more, his eyes barely fluttering.

“Why have you never hit on me?”

His eyes turned, though his face stayed forward. He looked at me from the side, a small smirk playing on his lips.

He didn’t bother to answer, and when the silence dragged on too long, I had to fill in the silence with my growing insecurities.

“I’m not being full of myself or anything,” I blurted out. “It’s just that when a guy who is, presumably, straight spends a lot of time with a woman, usually he'll start probing to see if there’s a spark. If it’s worth ‘shooting his shot’ or… whatever.”

He still hadn’t moved, his eyes still on me as another target popped, and he shot it before it had a chance to fully rise.

“Or maybe you think I’m hideous,” I grumbled.

He dropped the magazine, pulled back the slide, and an unfired bullet flew into the air. He caught it with the swipe of his palm.

“Other than the fact you’re quite clearly not interested and I’m not the kind to foist myself on the unwilling, or ambivalent,” he said, one side of his lip still lifted in amusement. “Even if I did think you were Aphrodite reincarnated, you’re not my type.”

“What type is that?” I was more amused than offended.

Though… still alittleoffended.

“Insane, volatile, unreasonable, deceptive, sociopathic…” He let out a dramatic sigh. “Capable of throwing me into an existential crisis with every conversation. My type fill me with overwhelming guilt and self-loathing after sex.”

“Jesus…”

“‘Take out’ can mean take-out food, take out on a date, or to murder. My type of woman will often do all three at once.” I tried not to laugh, but Blink was dead serious. “So, as you see, I’m on a sabbatical from women.”

“Christ, that’s probably for the best. Your ex did a number on you, huh?”

He nodded for me to resume shooting. “She wasn’t even my ex.”

The target lifted, and I fired. The target went down.

“Holy shit,” I said, staring at the downed target in disbelief.

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