Chapter 4: The Green-Eyed Monster
The sharp, percussive crack of rifle fire echoed off the reinforced concrete walls of the range. Each shot was a punctuation mark in the tense silence Ghost had carried with him since Camilla had left his room. He stood in the observation booth, his own weapon cold and unused in his hands, his gaze fixed through the soundproof glass.
Down on the line, König was a mountain of nervous energy, his large frame looking awkwardly contorted as he tried to steady his aim. The paper target fifty meters away was riddled with shots, but they sprayed wildly outside the central rings.
Then Camilla was there. She moved like smoke between the shooters, a dark silhouette against the bright lane lights. She stopped behind König, her head tilting as she observed his shaking form.
“Your foundation is unstable,” her voice came through the intercom, clear and clinical. “You are fighting your own body.”
Before König could respond, her hands were on him. One pressed flat against the center of his back, the other on his shoulder. Ghost’s knuckles went white on his rifle stock. He could almost feel the ghost of that same touch on his own skin, cold and knowing.
“Still,” she commanded, her voice low. “The weapon is an extension of your spine. Not your enemy.”
König stiffened, then slowly, visibly forced his muscles to relax. He fired again. A single, clean hole appeared just outside the bullseye.
“See?” Camilla said, and Ghost saw the flash of her fangs in a brief, approving smile. “Efficiency.”
König stammered something, a jumble of gratitude and embarrassment that made his ears turn red. The sound was a dull buzz in Ghost’s ears. He watched Camilla lean in, her lips close to König’s ear, whispering words that were meant for him alone. The Austrian’s entire neck flushed a deep, blotchy crimson.
A low, involuntary growl rumbled in Ghost’s throat. The plastic stock of his rifle creaked in protest.
He was moving before he’d made a conscious decision, the door to the booth swinging shut behind him with a solid thud. The acrid smell of cordite filled his lungs as he strode down the line. The other operatives felt his approach, a shift in the air pressure that made them subtly still.
He didn’t look at Camilla. He stopped directly behind König.
“Recruit.” The word was a shard of ice.
König flinched, nearly dropping his weapon. “Sir!”
“You’re done here.” Ghost’s voice was flat, leaving no room for argument. “Soap needs a hand with the gear in the armory. Now.”
“Ja, sir. Immediately.” König practically fled, not daring to look at Camilla as he shuffled away, his bulk seeming to shrink under Ghost’s gaze.
The lane was quiet now, just the two of them and the lingering ghost of gunpowder. The target at the end of the lane, König’s failed attempts, hung like a accusation.
Camilla turned to him, her expression one of pure, uncomprehending curiosity. “He was improving. Why did you send him away?”
Ghost ignored her, stepping up to the firing line. He ejected the magazine from his rifle, checked it, and slammed it back home with a sharp crack. He brought the weapon to his shoulder, his movements economical and precise. The stock felt like a part of him. He exhaled, a slow, controlled breath, and squeezed the trigger.
Crack.
The shot tore through the center of König’s target, dead center in the bullseye.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
He emptied the magazine, each round punching through the same, single hole, obliterating the previous failures.
The silence after the final shot was deafening. Heat bled from the barrel of his gun.
“That was an unnecessary display,” Camilla observed, her head tilted. “The paper target was already neutralized.”
He finally looked at her. The lights overhead caught the silver in her eyes, the pale column of her throat. He could see the faint, almost-healed mark his teeth had left just above her collar. A possessive heat flared in his gut.
“It’s about control,” he said, his voice rough. “Something you seem to be forgetting.”
Her brows drew together slightly. “My control is perfect.”
“Is it?” He took a step closer, crowding her space, forcing her to look up at him. The air between them crackled. “Flirting with recruits in the middle of a training exercise doesn’t scream control, Camilla. It screams distraction. It’s a liability.”
“Flirting?” The word was foreign on her tongue. She genuinely seemed to be parsing its meaning. “I was correcting his form. He was inefficient. I made him better. He was… grateful.” She said the last word as if it explained everything.
“He was blushing,” Ghost snarled, leaning in so his masked mouth was near her ear, mimicking her earlier act. “What did you whisper to him?”
She didn’t back away. She met his glare, her gaze unsettlingly direct. “I told him his blood smelled of adrenaline and sugar. That it was… interesting.” A faint, mischievous smile touched her lips. “Was that incorrect? I was attempting a compliment, based on my observations of human interaction.”
Ghost stared at her. The sheer, utter innocence of the violation was breathtaking. She had no idea. No concept of the boundaries she’d vaporized. The jealousy that had been a burning coal in his chest now felt foolish and exposed.
He let out a sharp, frustrated breath, the sound muffled by his mask. “You can’t say things like that to people.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not done.” He was grasping now, falling back on the weak, frustrating rules he was supposed to be teaching her.
“You say things to me,” she countered softly, her eyes dropping to his mouth. “In the dark. Against the wall. Are those rules different?”
The memory of his own words—You want me to fuck you like this?—hung in the air between them. He had no defense. He was a hypocrite and she, with her preternatural perception, saw right through him.
He reached out, his gloved hand closing around her upper arm. The grip was firm, but not painful. A claim. A warning.
“The rules for you and me are a mess,” he said, his voice low and raw. “But out here, you follow my lead. No more… interesting comments. No more touching. Understood?”
She looked at his hand on her arm, then back up at him. There was no fear in her eyes, only that deep, unblinking analysis.
“Understood, Simon,” she said, her voice a whisper. “The walls are for everyone else.”
She pulled her arm from his grip with effortless strength and turned, walking away down the long, echoing hall, leaving him alone with the smell of gunpowder and the crumbling architecture of his own rules.
The heavy reinforced door sighed shut behind her, muting the relentless gunfire. Camilla stood frozen for a moment in the corridor’s sterile light, the ghost of Simon’s grip still cold on her arm. His words—The rules for you and me are a mess—echoed in the silent spaces he had carved inside her.
She didn’t understand the tightness in her chest. It was a hollow, aching pressure that had nothing to do with hunger.
A shuffling sound came from her left. König was still there, looking like a misplaced piece of machinery, his large hands fumbling with a gear bag he was supposedly taking to the armory. He’d clearly been waiting. “The Lieutenant, he… he is very… intense, ja?” he managed, his voice a low rumble.
Camilla just stared at the floor, at the scuff marks on the polished concrete.
“It is… it is not so bad,” König tried again, stepping closer. His words tumbled out in a nervous rush. “Sometimes, the… the walls people build… they are not for keeping you out. They are for… for keeping themselves in? I think? That is maybe… no, that is stupid.”
He trailed off, his face flushing a deep, mortified red beneath his mask.
A sound bubbled up in Camilla’s throat, startling her. It was a laugh, light and airy, and it seemed to dissolve the strange pressure in her chest. She looked up at the flustered giant. “Thank you, König.”
He looked stunned, then immensely relieved. “You are welcome. I… I just thought you looked… not happy.”
Her smile was faint but genuine. “I was not. But I am now.” She found the human’s social clumsiness oddly refreshing after Simon’s layered, punishing complexities.
Emboldened, König shifted his weight. “If… if it helps,” he stammered, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “My blood. It is strong. If you ever have need, I would… I would give it. No questions.”
The offer hung in the air between them, simple and stark. It was a gift of life, given with an awkward, profound kindness. It was nothing like the violent, intimate transaction she shared with Simon. This was just… giving.
Camilla looked at him, truly seeing him for the first time—the nervous energy, the earnest eyes, the sheer, uncalculated decency. “That is a very great gift,” she said softly, her voice laced with a reverence he couldn’t possibly understand. “I will remember it.”
She turned and continued down the hall, her step lighter. The echo of König’s offer warmed a cold place inside her, a stark contrast to the searing brand of Ghost’s possession. It was a choice he had just handed her, a simple, clean path she had never considered before.