Fairytales and Nightmares

I thought of my odd predicament as I walked to the Lake, the nickname I gave to the secret place I showed Nate yesterday. On the few recons I have done in the past, I have never once gotten this close to a human. Nor have I ever been so stupid as to blow my identity because of one. Somehow though, that idiot of a boy annoyed me so much that my natural personality popped up. And now, here I am, making myself vulnerable in front of someone who could be a vamp spy.

No matter how I tried to deny it, something was strange about Nate that I just can’t put a finger on. It wasn’t that feeling I get around vampires or demons. It was more of an instinctive magnet personality he had, that pull that makes you want to know him more. And that tiny, tiny twinge that makes me want to turn on my heels and run.

No doubt Nate’s going to be the death of me.

“Hey, kitten. Aren’t you a bit late?”

I blinked and stared at Nate smiling, though a bit mockingly, from a rock on top of the waterfall.

“How did you get here so fast? I planned on giving you an hour to find this place.”

“Oh, so that’s why you’re late,” Nate replied, smoothly jumping off the rock to land in front of me. “Well, let’s see how good you are.”

Nate handed me a silver handgun and pointed to a bright red leaf so far off into the forest I could barely see it.

“Hit that.”

I levelled the handgun and after a few seconds of attempting to aim, I pulled the trigger. The bullet hit a little over a meter over. I sighed disappointedly. Of all the weapons I have ever encountered, bullet ones are my worst. Lack of experience and no necessity for it, as bullets can kill neither vamp nor demon, have made it my most disliked and worst choice of killing method.

Nate paused before chuckling softly. I turned to glare at him, automatically assuming he was laughing at my horrible aim. Instead, he said, “Better than the average person. Thought you would be a natural.”

“But I’m still bad.”

“You still have room to learn. Aim can be improved, and speed. We’ll work on aim first.”

Nate moved behind me, taking my shooting arm and placing his other hand on my shoulder.

“Relax,” he whispered, pushing down on my tense shoulders. His proximity only made me tense further. I hated skin-to-skin contact and the fact that it’s Nate just makes it twice as worse.

Nate laughed, his warm breath tickling my throat. “I’m not going to try anything, don’t worry.”

“No way in hell I’ll trust you with your kind of reputation,” I murmured.

“Don’t flatter yourself. I can do better than you.”

I spun around and fired. The bullet whizzed right past his ear, hitting the trunk of a tree and sending wood splinters flying. Nate didn’t react at all. Instead, he arched a brow and said calmly, “Your speed is improving. Now let’s work on your horrendous aim.”