“So is the wind coming from a good direction?” she’d asked.
Aidan had nodded. “From behind, so we won’t be shooting into cross drafts.”
Del had snickered. Her hand had swooped down and plucked the arrow from Lucy’s grasp. She’d turned it over in her hand, hefting the weight.
“You aim, you point, you fire,” she’d said, sitting down between them. There was no room, but she had squeezed in, anyway. She’d flashed Lucy a triumphant look and Lucy had moved over to the right. She wasn’t in competition for Aidan. She didn’t exactly know how she felt about him. Del had made it pretty obvious what her feelings were, and since then, Lucy had been almost hyperaware of the girl.
Lucy couldn’t help noticing that Del’s body was right up against Aidan’s now. Del’s thigh pressed along the length of his leg, her tanned arm inches from his own. She had a purple bruise along one cheekbone and stripes of raw flesh where the Sweepers had fastened her wrists with plastic cuffs, but she was otherwise unhurt. Lucy wondered how she’d gotten away from the Sweepers when no one else ever had. She opened her mouth to ask the question, but stopped when Del leaned forward to whisper something in Aidan’s ear. The tip of her ponytail swept across his face and he reached out and moved it away, his fingers tangled in the shiny black locks. Del laughed, casting a glance over her shoulder at Lucy. Lucy looked in the other direction.
She went over the instructions for shooting an arrow in her head, trying to remember everything Aidan had told and shown her. Months of training were squeezed into a few short hours in between the other work that needed to be done. At first she hadn’t been able to hit anything. Just holding the string back without letting her hands shake was harder than it looked. And her fingers always seemed to be in the way when she released, sending her arrow into a wobbly, crooked trajectory that, nine times out of ten, landed it in a bush or the dirt. She’d also had to pretend she felt nothing when Aidan guided her arm or stood behind her with his hands on her fingers and his chest leaning into her back, while Del watched his every move with a glacial stare on her face. Lucy had bitten the inside of her cheek so hard that it bled, but she’d finally made a shot. At least, her arrow had struck the tree the target hung on and had quivered there for a few seconds before falling to the ground with a plop.
“Great!” Aidan had said. “How did it feel?”
“Good.” She’d lowered her eyes. Not as good as having his arms around her shoulders, but she thought her fingers were getting used to the cramping grip on the arrow and the pressure of the bowstring and the quick, fluid motion she needed to master to send the arrow off on a straight path.
Now she raised herself on her elbows, positioned an arrow against the bow, and tracked across the glade from left to right, ignoring the soreness in her muscles. Her fingers sweated in the stiff leather glove she had to wear to keep the thin nylon cord from flaying her skin. She had her jacket on to protect the inside of her arm, and the leather was uncomfortably hot in the sun. But at least it wasn’t raining. What did they used to call it before the climate went all haywire? An Indian summer. They were getting an odd respite from the usual constant heavy storms of the Long Wet. Unfortunately, it seemed as if every flying insect in the world had decided to take advantage of the weather, and they were mating up a storm. Midges, blackflies, and mosquitoes hovered in black clouds. Lucy’s legs were clad in cutoff jean shorts, and she’d already counted fifteen bites in rings around her ankles. She squirmed, trying to rub the itches against the stubbly grass, and Del kicked her, then pointed.
Something moved on the sunny slope just beyond the shadows thrown by the spindly trees. It was buff-colored and small. Its pointed head came up and Lucy saw the long ears lying flat against its body. Del looked hard at Lucy with her blazing blue eyes, made sure that she had seen the rabbit, too, and then mimed the action of loosing an arrow. She touched her index finger to a spot just below her shoulder blade to remind Lucy where to aim. The arrow would travel directly to the heart. Death would be quick.
Suddenly, Lucy’s fingers felt thick and inflexible. The arrow shaft was slippery and weighted wrong, and she couldn’t focus her vision. She pulled the bowstring back. The rabbit’s head came up again. It stopped in the middle of chewing a mouthful of grass. Wisps hung from its mouth like a straggly green beard. Lucy felt the scrape of the plastic fletching against her cheek. Her fingers were numb and sweat dribbled into her eyes. She couldn’t let go.
Del exhaled, raised her own bow, took aim, and shot. The arrow thrummed, flying straight and true, and hit the rabbit with a force that spun the animal into the air. She was up on her feet and racing toward it before Lucy had lowered her bow. She stared at the ground. She’d caught rabbits, squirrels, and woodchucks before, but in snares. Traps tripped while she wasn’t there. This was different, and it was nothing like aiming at a piece of wood.
Aidan touched her arm. “Hey, I puked the first time,” he said in a low voice. “Del’s always been better at killing things than I am.”
Lucy felt her mouth twist. “It just wasn’t the same.”
“I know. You can try to imagine that it’s a tin can or whatever, but it never works. All I can say is try to do it fast and try to do it right.”
Del stalked back to them. The bunny swung from her gloved hand. Lucy looked away from the limp head, the eyes like foggy blackberries. A small red hole bloomed on its back. Del wiped her arrow against a patch of grass and stowed it with the rest in the quiver she wore slung from her shoulders. She hunched down next to Aidan. She danced her fingers up and down his arm.
“If we’re lucky,” she said, “the other rabbits won’t be alerted and we can get a few more. They come out in force just before sunset.”
Lucy squinted up at the sky. The sun was behind them now. She rolled over to look at the clouds drifting.
Sure enough, as the sun lowered in the sky, more and more rabbits poked out their quivering noses. They nibbled grass and chased one another, innocent and carefree, reminding Lucy of the camp kids playing kick-the-can.
They’re food, she told herself, but it was no good.
She heard the soft whicker as Del notched an arrow.
Lucy watched as Del shot four rabbits in quick succession before finally missing one. Instantly the animal darted to the top of a hillock and drummed the ground with its back foot. The other rabbits vanished into their holes. There was a curious light in the girl’s eyes. It wasn’t pleasure, but a glint of something. Like she was paying the rabbits back for an insult. Lucy was happy that she had finally missed.
“I’ll get them,” she said, clambering to her feet. She was stiff. The rabbits were hard to find in the long grass. Their soft, brown bodies splayed in awkward positions. They were smaller than she expected. Lucy picked them up, holding them by their velvet ears, feeling the uncomfortable heavy, boneless quality about them. They were still warm, and they flopped like stuffed toys. One remained lost in the undergrowth despite careful searching.
When she walked back to the others with the dead animals, Del exploded. “I shot four. Where’s the other one? Do you think it’s easy?”
“Obviously not, seeing as how I couldn’t do it,” Lucy said. Her cheeks burned, but she met Del’s eyes. What was with this girl? “I looked for the fourth one. I couldn’t find it.”