"I'll be right back," Daniel says. "Just keep shooting." I continue shooting my gun as Daniel walks behind neighboring trainers. I aim my gun and fire with a deafening bang. My bullet puts a hole in the second ring. I'm actually getting good at this.

Daniel grabs the trainer at another station, leaving the girl next to me to shoot by herself.

Once both guys are out-of sight, the dark-haired girl lowers her gun and looks at me as if she's waiting for me to stop. I shoot a bulls-eye one last time and lower my weapon, too.

"Oh, good, you're done," she says. "I'm Vivian."

"Oh, hi, I'm Ashley," I say. "So, how long have--"

She cuts me off. "Listen, we don't have much time, but I'm going to let you in on a secret."

I nod slowly, confused. Vivian turns around to face the building we're stationed near and heads towards it. I follow her, and she pulls two water bottles out from a box against the building.

Handing them to me, she says, "Daniel's going to take you to the maze to shoot. You'll run through it and at the end, he'll taunt you by not giving you water. When he taunts you, shoot these with your gun." She motions at bottles. "They're filled with vinegar and baking soda."

"What?" I say, confused beyond belief. Is this girl insane?

"Did you not-- are you-- arg!" Vivian says, exasperated with my confusion. This confuses me even more. "Vinegar and baking soda react and cause explosions. It's a prank, Ashley, do you know what a prank is?"

"Yes, I know what a prank is!"

"Good," she sasses.

This girl is psycho, but something in her rough sarcasm makes me want to trust her. "How do you know so much about Daniel?" I ask her.

"Because Danny trained me when I first came here. I want payback on him."

"For what?"

"For hitting you. Duh."

"How did you know that he hurt me?"

"Saw the guards carry you in," she states happily.

My dull hatred of Daniel flows back as I remember the pain and fear he put me through. I agree to Vivian's plan. If it works, this ought to be good. Though I wish I had the video camera.

We walk back to our stations and aim our guns at the targets just in time as Daniel and the other trainer come back. Daniel spots the water bottles on the ground, but he only picks them up and locks them onto either side of his belt.

"The boy has fallen for the bait," Vivian mumbles to me. Her smile is wide, but she mask her grin when the trainers reach our sides again.

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After aiming for a good four seconds, I fire my gun, releasing yet another rubber bullet with a loud bang. Bulls-eye.

"Ha," I say, turning to Daniel. "You thought I'd be bad at--" Vivian's gun goes off, its sound making my hearing explode.

"Here," Daniel says. He steps behind me as I turn to glare at him. What the hell is he doing?

"Step back," I command. "You're too close."

Daniel steps closer to me in response. I can feel his breath on the back of my neck. I want to punch him so hard, but I crack my neck and take a deep breath to calm myself down. All it does is make my palms sweat.

I know exactly what he's doing. He's trying to teach me to shoot under pressure. Why he chose this method, I don't know.

I aim my gun, stiffening my arms. Daniel runs his fingers up my waist and back down again. His touch is so distracting I nearly flinch. Nearly.

I bite on my lip, roll my eyes, and try my hardest to shoot a bulls-eye. All I get is a bullet in the third ring.

Daniel leans next to my left ear and taunts, "Am I making you nervous?"

No crap, I think sarcastically. It would feel so good if I could break his nose with my elbow. I imagine the satisfaction of doing so, struggling to block out his heavy presence. But why is his touch so hot and cold and heavy and light all at once?

I re-align my aim. I am so screwed.

"I can feel your heartbeat picking up, darling."

I let out a weird, straggled groan and pull my trigger. Bulls-eye. I sigh in relief, relaxing my posture. Thank goodness.

After gloating for a second about my success, I realize something terribly wrong. I'm leaning against Daniel's chest. And his arms are wrapped around my waist.

Vivian's gunshot echoes over us, and I jump out of his arms. "Geez, Daniel!" I yell instinctively.

Daniel laughs. He raises his gun like nothing just happened. He fires six times. Each hole he makes on the target surrounds my meager bulls-eye perfectly.

"And you were saying?" Daniel taunts me. I stare at him as if he's insane. Wiping my forehead, I pull on the neckline of my light gray shirt. I'm so nervous I could puke.

"You didn't have to show off," I say. "You've been training for years."

Daniel dismisses me. "Let's move to the shooting maze." His declaration makes me glance at Vivian. She winks, and I nod in reply.

I put my gun back in its holster on my hip and make sure my two extra bullet cartridges are secure on my other hip. Instead of going through the training building, we walk behind the other shooters and circle around the building. Separating the sand from the base is a tall cliff-wall that continues all the way down the beach. We climb up the wall and walk on top of it until the wall morphs into the actual cliff high above sea level. Already, I can see the maze due to the lack of vegetation.

Between the humidity and the cloud coverage, I feel sweaty and gross. I try not to let that get in the way of training, though, especially since we're going on a mission in a week. I wouldn't call myself excited, but I'm kind of anxious to help out the Renegades.

Once we are distanced from the base camp, Daniel looks over the edge of the cliff. I do, too, and surprisingly, the water level seems higher and more intimidating here. I've never seen something this beautiful before, and it's exhilarating. Daniel interprets my awe as fear.

"What, are you afraid of heights, Cardry?"

"No," I say coldly.

Daniel laughs at me, making me hate him even more. "What, have you never been up this high before?"

"No," I retort, lacking any better response. Goodness, why does he have to turn everything I say into a joke?

Daniel looks down at the water and walks away from the edge. I follow him, and it only takes us a minutes to reach the maze. Daniel explains while we walk.

"All you have to do is follow the path and shoot whatever target you see. Remember: before you go around a corner, hold your gun up and check for target. Hit either the head or the chest on a target and move on."

I give him a hard stare and pull out my gun without breaking eye contact. I back over to the entrance of the metal maze, ready to prove to myself (not to him) how good I can be at shooting. I turn to Daniel, but he hasn't followed me to the entrance. I look at his stupid grin with suspicion.

"C'mon, Romeo, what are you waiting for?" I taunt.

Daniel smirks and walks towards what I assume to be the exit of the maze. "Nothing, nothing. I'm coming."

I narrow my eyes. "What?"

He chuckles, but I get no reply. I roll my eyes at him and begin the course. Taking my gun between my hands, I aim at the ground and jog forward a few feet. Before turning right, I back against the wall. Pointing the gun in front of me, I jump out from behind the wall, clear the area, and shoot at the target from about twelve feet away. My first bullet misses, but I close in on the human-shaped target until I hit its chest.

I push myself against the wall before turning the corner, clearing the area, and shooting the head of the target. I lower my gun and jog to the target, pushing my back, once again, against the right-hand wall. When I clear the area this time, however, there are a few targets for me to shoot. I hit them all with five bullets, and I move on from there. After going through another five paths like this one, my success rate improves.

The next corner I round reveals smaller targets strung onto a reel of clothesline. A moving clothesline. I sigh and get to work, using up more bullets than I want to.

Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I round the next corner. I steadily aim at the leftmost target. After a second of aiming, I pull the trigger, hitting right near the middle of the human's chest. Right after my bullet leaves the gun, the bullet cartridge falls out, empty. I use my left hand to pull a new cartridge from my holster, but it gets caught. Simultaneously, the wall starts to move towards me at the speed of a human's jog.

"Oh, no. Crap, crap, crap," I mumble. My hands shake as I rush to shimmy a cartridge from the holster. Once I finally get it, I jam the bullets into the bottom of the gun and shoot at least six bullets without aim, hopefully hitting the other target somewhere.

The wall is within four feet of me before I have the sense to get out of the way. At the last possible moment, I spin to my left. The wall bangs into where I just was, releasing a cloud of dust. Eyes wide and heart beating in my ears, I take a deep, angry breath and watch Daniel step out from behind the wall, smiling.

"Way to almost kill me," I say angrily as I pocket my gun. Daniel grins, giving me a refreshened sense of annoyance.

"Aw, c'mon, babe, I would never hurt you." I laugh loudly at that lie. Daniel never hesitates to hurt me.

Daniel jogs about 20 yards away from me and pulls the water bottles free from his belt. I expect him to toss one to me, but he holds onto both. Vivian's prediction was correct.

"Daniel!" I yell convincingly. "Dude, just toss me one." He shakes his head and taunts me with them. He waves both bottles in the air above his head. Just as Daniel faces his back towards me, I pull out my gun, aim, and shoot one of the plastic bottles.

The bottle explodes, drenching Daniel in vinegar and baking soda. I nearly drop my gun in surprise because I've never hit such a small target like a bottle before, especially when that target is inches away from a living, breathing person. Now that I think about it, maybe hitting the person would have been better.

Daniel turns around in shock as I aim for the other bottle. I actually shoot it, spraying Daniel's face and clothes with the mixture. Yes! Sweet and utterly pointless revenge! I can't help but laugh and point at Daniel's soaked clothing.

"What the heck?" Daniel exclaims. He looks up from his shirt and starts laughing, too. He begins to step towards me, sharp-scented vinegar dripping from his fingertips. I back up a few steps as he shakes his hair. His spray misses me by a few feet, but I still put my hands up in defense.

"Because that was necessary," I call sarcastically to him.

Daniel squeezes the liquids out of the hem of his shirt, revealing his toned stomach. "Vivian's a creative prankster, I'll give her that." A small puddle forms at his feet.

"What? How did you know it was her?" I ask in disbelief. I can never seem to throw him off-guard.

"Vivian's Vivian," Daniel says, leaving it at that. He pulls his shirt off over his head, and I admire the view for the second his shirt is covering his eyes. His blond hair is slightly ruffled and his eyes glow brighter. He balls up his shirt in his hands, and I watch his fingers closely. "The last prank she pulled on me got her moved to a different trainer."

I look up from his hands to his eyes. "Wow." Thirst suddenly overwhelms me. I wish we had actual water instead of the blown-up piece of plastic. I can hardly stand to swallow without noticing my parched mouth. "What's she do? Sass you too much?"

Daniel gives me a sarcastic grin. "Even better. She lit my pants on fire."

"Really?" I say happily, laughing loudly. "I would have paid five million bills to see that."

"Oh, really?" Daniel sasses.

"Yeah, really," I sass back.

He unballs his shirt and throws it over his shoulder, automatically running a hand through his hair. The motion is so attractive that it erases the small jabs Daniel threw at me over the past month. "Then I guess you can hang onto your five million."

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SO MUCH SASSINESS!!!

this was a fun chapter to write :) i hope you guys aren't getting bored because the mission in Fort Collins is going to be epic to read. and i really love this chapter; it was fun to write for you guys :)

The photo attached was taken on September 7th, 2015 when I learned how to ! It was amazing and fun and I was so good at it for a first-timer!