Amanda woke early, despite having barely slept, and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Opening her door, she exited her room and headed for the gym, determined to get a good day of training in. She had little else to do, except for pretending she was doing something useful.

She started with knives again, but eventually moved on to the guns, remembering what Dylan had told her about using them. Don't hold them too tightly, but keep a firm grip. Stay relaxed and focus on the target. She repeated his instructions to herself, making note of any mistakes she made. Still, she could barely hit the target, much less the center. And this one was just standing still. What would happen when she needed to shoot at something that moved? Could she even pull the trigger? Did she want to?

Hours past and she completely forgot about eating anything for breakfast. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't hit the target where she aimed. She knew why. She wasn't scared of the gun bucking in her grip each time she fired, she was terrified of what would happen if she ever had to use it. Every time she shot, she saw the man she'd woken up on top of, and she knew she couldn't take another life. She'd never harmed someone purposely until the day she'd woken up in the future. Now that she was learning how to do it and expecting to use those skills.

She didn't know if she would be able to kill someone, even if her life did depend on it. A tiny laugh escaped her. She was supposed to be leading a rebellion and the thought of taking someone's life sickened her. How am I supposed to pretend like this? Even if I've killed before, I can't kill now! It's wrong. The realization made her even more grateful that only a handful of people knew she was the leader of the rebellion.

She sighed and reloaded the gun, but Dylan's hand caught hers before she could try again, and she jumped. She hadn't realized he was there.

"You'll just waste bullets, Wren," he commented, extracting the gun from her grip. "You aren't ready."

With a frown, she faced him and crossed her arms. "Of course I'm not ready! That's why I'm here. To learn so I can be ready when the time comes to use these skills."

"That isn't what I meant and you know it. Your shooting is fine. Your aim is fine. Your mind, however, is not," he replied.

"My aim is not fine! I miss constantly."

"On purpose."

"That's ridiculous. I've been here for at least an hour trying to hit the middle of the target. Why would I spend the whole time also purposely missing it?" She demanded, leaning back against the wall.

"I don't know. That's for you to figure out." He set the gun down and met her gaze.

"I don't know either," she protested.

He chuckled. "I would have kept watching you if I didn't think you knew. But you do know. You just don't want to admit it."

Amanda looked down and scratched at her hand, picking at a hangnail. She was silent and Dylan reached out an clasped her hand. "Stop doing that," he said. "Just answer the question. Trust me, it's much faster to admit your problem. If you try to ignore it you'll just continue having issues."

Finally, she looked up again and glanced at the gun. "I don't want to hurt people," she said at last. "Every time I aim at that target, I can see someone there and I don't want to hurt him."

Dylan nodded. "You wouldn't know how to deal with it if you killed someone?"

"Yes."

"So why don't you have that problem with knives?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I just... They're lethal, but they don't seem as dangerous as a gun. I can hit someone in a non-lethal area easily enough and they won't die. It's harder with a gun. If I miss the bullet could shatter against the bone and infect the wound. Who knows what could happen?"

Dylan shook his head. "Wren, you have to think rationally about this. A well-placed knife can do just as much damage as a bullet. Even if you think about the situation with the bullets hitting a bone, if you have good aim then you can easily avoid that."

"So what your saying is, if I have good aim then I can actually avoid killing people?"

He picked up the gun and handed it to her. "Aim at the target," he instructed.

She did so a bit skeptically. "Now," he said, "Without changing position, close your eyes and shoot."

She pulled the trigger and felt the gun buck in her hands. She held firm and opened her eyes to check where the bullet had hit. It had nearly struck the center of the target, much closer to a perfect bulls-eye then she'd ever come so far.

"See that? When you closed your eyes and pulled the trigger, you didn't give yourself the opportunity to imagine the target was a person. You detached yourself from the situation by not letting yourself see and that allowed you to hit closer to your target," Dylan explained.

"So how to I do that with my eyes open?"

"Stop imagining the target is a person or come to terms with the fact that it someday will be a person and if they're shooting back then you'd better hit first and make sure they can't hit you back."

Amanda nodded and set the gun down. "I should take a break for a while," she said. "I need to think."

***

Her break ended up being lunch, since she hadn't eaten all day and knew she'd need the fuel to keep going later. Zephyr set her stuff down and sat next to her. "I didn't see you this morning," she said.

Amanda shrugged. "I wasn't hungry," she deflected, poking at the food on her plate and shoving a bite into her mouth.

Zephyr raised an eyebrow. "You? Not hungry? The only time you aren't hungry if something's wrong. What's going on?"

Amanda set her fork down and met Zephyr's gaze. "Do you blame yourself? For what happened to me?"

Zephyr almost denied it, but she knew Amanda would be able to tell if she was lying. She was silent for a moment, but eventually she nodded. "Yes," she said. "If I hadn't let you go, you would have been here where it was safe and maybe nothing would have gone wrong. Or maybe something would have, but either way, you wouldn't have suffered."

"Maybe not, but it's not your fault I got caught. I... I let it happen."

She could see the statement caught Zephyr off guard. "You... what?"

"There was a little girl, and... I traded my life for hers." She looked down, the moment replaying in her head again. "Anyway," she continued, pulling herself out of her reverie, "the point is, you can't blame yourself. It was my fault, not yours. It's not like you could have stopped me from going in the first place. I was pretty determined. So just... stop blaming yourself, okay?"

Zephyr frowned. "I see what this is," she said. "That's more like the Wren I'm used to."

Amanda smiled back and tossed a pea at her. Zephyr caught it and dropped it onto the table. "Don't," she whispered. "Remember last time you did that? The place was a disaster afterwards."

"So I shouldn't... oh, I don't know... shout: food fight!"

***

The two of them stumbled out of the room laughing well before the disaster was over. Food had gotten everywhere, and although they were technically on rations, no one minded missing out on their meal to have a little bit of fun. Of course, someone would have to clean up later, but they both knew that everyone would be happy to help. After all, if they were going to enjoy it, they couldn't complain about cleaning it up afterwards.

Zephyr wiped something off of her chin and stared at Amanda. "I can't believe you did that!"

"I can't believe the soldiers actually participated," Amanda shot back with a wide grin. "It's hysterical!"

"Either way, we're gonna have to help clean up," Zephyr pointed out.

Amanda glanced back into the mess hall and grimaced. "That's not going to be fun."

"Well just remember when you're working so hard to clean it up later... It was all your fault."