“Yes.”
“You must miss them.”
“I do, but I’m happy here. Even though we have to fight, and some of the work is hard.”
“Six sisters,” Sasha repeated. “And you’ve never done laundry before.”
“Today I’m doing laundry.”
“So you had staff?”
Obviously puzzled, Annika straightened, mimed holding a tall stick. “Staff?”
“Not that kind. People. People who do things like laundry and cooking and cleaning.”
“Oh. We’re staff now.”
Annika bent back to her weeding, avoiding Sasha’s eye.
“You’ve never really said where you live.”
Annika weeded another moment, then stopped, turned to face Sasha again. “Will you be my friend?”
“I am your friend.”
“Will you be my friend and not ask what I can’t tell you? I can promise, I have nothing bad. It’s . . .”
“Like an oath.”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
Annika reached out to take Sasha into a hug. “Thank you. You taught me laundry.” She eased back, smiling. “I’ll teach you how to . . .” Bending over, she lifted her legs into a ridiculously fluid handstand.
“I think that’s going to take a lot longer than teaching you how to do laundry.”
“I’ll teach you.” Annika dropped down again. “And we’ll find the stars. When we do, and they’re where they belong, I can tell you everything.”
“All right. And whatever it is, we’re still going to be friends.”
After gardening and laundry, after supplies were put away and they ate the gyros Riley brought back from the village, Sasha had her first lesson in gun safety.
A very patient Sawyer spent considerable time with her and Annika—the only ones who’d never fired a gun—showing them how to load, unload, reload, how to sight, how to use the safety, how to take it off.
As instructed, Annika slapped the magazine into one of Sawyer’s 9 mms.
“I don’t like it. It feels cold and mean.”
“You don’t have to like it. You have to respect it. A lot of GSWs are accidents, from carelessness. Gunshot wounds,” he explained. “People who don’t learn how to properly handle a gun, who don’t properly secure it when not in use. Some insist guns don’t kill. People do. But guns do kill, and knowing that, respecting that, is really important.”
“Did this gun kill someone?”
“No. But I know it can. I know I can. If there’s no choice.”
He looked down to where the others had set up a temporary target range, with paper targets over a thick sheet of wood.
“Time to try them out. Safeties on.”