Fog Read Free Page B

raised in his kitchen and soaked up all his secret recipes.’ She shows me her white teeth. ‘Cooking is second best to flying. Besides, someone has to feed you crazy people.’
    On my first day, I mistook her for kitchen help until she smacked the towel at Ben’s butt and made him do the dishes. Then I thought there was something going on between the two, but soon Ben started flirting with me for some bizarre reason, and Yi-Ting didn’t seem affronted. We are only three women on the island, me, Yi-Ting, and Kat. I’m guessing Ben tried his luck with his apprentice and she told him off. And no one in his right mind is going to mess with Kat. So that leaves only me and the ants and bees.
    The wind is whipping salty air into my face. I can see Runner far ahead. He stands unmoving and watches my progress. Maybe I should be faster? I pump my legs and spend the last bit of energy I didn’t know I had. Puffing and grunting, I run up to him, and drop my ruck next to his rifle.
    ‘No, you’ll be fifty metres to my left. Put your earbud in. Move.’
    ‘See you later,’ Yi-Ting calls and I’m not sure if she means only Runner, or both of us. I pick up my stuff and make my legs run a bit farther. Then I drop my ruck, take the earbud from my pocket, plug it in, and make myself comfortable on the ground.
    ‘We’ll practice synchronised sniping,’ sounds in my left ear.  
    Okay, so we’ll be aiming at the same target, alternating shots, calling out corrections, and acting as each other’s spotter to make sure the target is very very dead.  
    ‘We begin on the far left,’ Runner says. ‘Total of four shots per target. I get the first shot.’
    I gaze through my scope, blink in confusion, and check the set angle. ‘Runner? Did you fiddle with my scope?’
    ‘I might have bumped against it.’
    ‘Asshole,’ I growl.
    ‘It’s your responsibility to never let your rifle out of your sight and to check its functionality before you even think of walking into battle,’ he reminds me.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I mutter.
    ‘Distance and windage?’ he demands.
    I assess the distance to the first target. The grass bends sharply to the right. ‘Eight hundred and fifty metres, stiff west wind. No cross winds.’
    Runner fires and I see a spray coming off the wooden target’s left shoulder. ‘Favour right,’ he tells me and I aim and shoot. Spray flares up at the target’s centre.
    ‘Favour right,’ I say and he fires, hitting the target’s left shoulder.
    ‘Wind is settling. Hold left,’ I hear in my earpiece. I aim and shoot, the bullet hits the left side, a little too low, but if that had been a man, he’d now have both shoulders taken off, a huge hole in his chest and his guts flying every which way.
    We work our way through the other three targets, each one hundred to one hundred and fifty metres farther away than the previous one, pushing my rifle’s range to its limit. I’m good at this, out of breath or rested. But what makes me itch all over is when people are shooting at me when I’m trying to aim. Runner had me crawling across our range every day for a whole week. I had to hit the targets’ centre mass while he fired right over my head. On the first day, half of my bullets didn’t even make it to their targets. Although I knew he wouldn’t shoot me, I was shaking with terror when the bullets zipped past my ears. When we were done a few hours later, it felt as if I’d let Runner down. He tried to hide his disappointment, but it was painted all over his face and posture.
    ‘Grab lunch and meet me for camouflage at thirteen hundred,’ he speaks through my earbud.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Find me here, if you can.’
    Yeah, shit. I’ll most likely be in his crosshairs for half an hour before I even see a trace of him. Humping my pack and my rifle, I make for my tent.

    ———

    I take a large sip of whatever Ben has brewed. It burns nicely down my throat. As I roll my tongue around in my mouth the pearl