Deception Read Online Free PDF Page B

ground in front of the remains of the gate. I’d taken an extra moment to double-check that the explosives we’d removed from the compound and laced along the gate as a defensive measure were still in place, but I hadn’t lingered. With Drake in charge of the camp, and an entire crew of men working in the tunnel, I figured I’d take down my first rabbit, and then we’d have plenty of afternoon to spare for . . . other things.
    Five misses later, I’d adjusted my description from “nice” to “somewhat unpleasant.”
    Eleven misses after that, I’d decided the best word to sum up the experience was “humiliating.”
    “Turn your left shoulder toward the target,” Rachel whispers.
    “I did.”
    “Not enough.” She nudges me to make her point. The rabbit in my sights freezes. “Now,” she breathes against my ear. “Shoot now.”
    My fingers curve around the wire, and I quickly run through the steps in my head. One vane turned away from the bow. Body perpendicular to the target. Feet shoulder width apart. Relaxed tension—whatever that means—in my stance.
    “Logan, now .”
    The rabbit will run when I shoot. The faint noise of the arrow launching from the bow will send it scrambling for safety. Which way will it go? I’ll need to compensate. Aim slightly to the left, to the spot where it first nosed its way out of the undergrowth? Or to the right in case it sprints forward?
    Probably to the left. He’ll try to return to what he knows is safe.
    The rabbit jerks its head up, ears swiveling. I try to find the anchor point along my cheekbone in time to shoot with any sort of accuracy. I release the wire, and the arrow wobbles slightly as it sails toward its target.
    The rabbit dodges safely to the left.
    That’s what I get for ignoring logic.
    I hook the bow over my shoulder and move forward to collect my arrow. Sunlight filters in through the oak branches above me and hangs in the air like golden mist before disintegrating into the deep shadows that stretch across the forest floor.
    “I should’ve torqued my shot to the left,” I say as I bend to dig the arrow out of a bush where it has gallantly speared a handful of thick green leaves. “I knew it was going to run.”
    “Well, of course it ran. You gave it a good ten minutes’ notice that you were going to shoot it.” Rachel steps to my side as I brush the last of the leaves off of the arrow’s chiseled copper tip.
    I stare her down. “I was double-checking the steps you gave me.”
    “You’d already done the steps.” She crosses her arms and taps her fingers against her elbow. “You were wasting time.”
    I speak with as much dignity as a man who’s missed seventeen shots in a row can possibly speak. “I was making calculations.”
    “You were doubting yourself.” Her eyes meet mine. “Hunting with a bow and arrow isn’t science, Logan. It’s poetry. Let me show you.”
    “It’s a specific algorithm of speed, mass, and velocity.” There’s nothing poetic about that, unless you appreciate the beauty of a well-defined mathematical equation. Which I do, but that isn’t the point. The point is that hunting with a bow and arrow isn’t some romanticized communion with one’s inner poetic instincts. It’s cold, hard science, and there’s absolutely no reason why I should continually fail at it when I understand science better than I understand anything else.
    Maybe even better than I understand Rachel.
    She leads me to the edge of a little clearing, the towering oaks of the Wasteland circling us like silent sentries. Twigs crunch softly beneath our boots. A handful of sparrows scold us vigorously as we stop beneath their tree.
    I’m still arguing my point.
    “You calculate the angle between yourself and your target, factor in wind speed and direction, account for the prey’s instinctual flight, and—”
    She steps behind me and slides her hands over my hips to position my body, her fingers pressing against me with tiny pricks