Hannah Adams was left with no other choice. Freshly out of university, she couldn't find a job anywhere she tried. So, she decided to regroup, come back to her hometown, where everyone knew her family and was ready to stick their noses in her busine...
I couldn't wait this fucking day to end. Two days in a row listening to stuff that you knew better than the instructors would make you feel like that. We were finally at the shooting range, ready to show our skills when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I looked and saw that I had two messages – one from Hannah and one from Max. I first opened hers which was sent a few hours ago.
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I still had no idea what was happening with her, but I guess it was something good if she sounded so excited about it. It made me ready wonder what it could be. I sent her I quick text that I'll call her soon and went to open Max's message, when the instructor from yesterday, this Klerk man called my name.
"Jones, why don't we make it a little bit different this time. Let's make it a competition in a way."
"It's already a competition." I had no idea what he wanted from me and where he was going with his idea, but I had a feeling it wasn't something good. I turned my gaze back to my phone, seeing the short message from Max.
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It made me feel really worried what was happening back home, was somebody injured? Did the sniper hit again? Was it something about the team or someone else? I was already touching his name to make the call when I heard my name again.
"Jones! You know the phones are forbidden right now. So drop it or I'll took it from you until we finish here."
"I'm sorry, but I have an emergency..."
"I don't fucking care, Jones. You are here with a purpose. We can't..." This dude! There was something wrong with him if he thought that shooting at targets is more important than something happening with my friends.
"I'm sorry, but I need to go." I turned around, ready to leave when I was once again stopped.
"You can't leave right now, Jones. You need to shoot first. If you do it, then I can let you go, but not before that, I'm sorry." This was coming from the second instructor, which looked like he was a little bit more understanding than Klerk, but not by much.
"Oh, fuck it." I quickly took my sniper riffle out of its case, laid on the ground and without much of a prep I started shooting at the targets. I took them one by one, doing my best to be as quick as possible while still hitting them death center. No more than 2 minutes later I was putting my riffle back in its case without even waiting for confirmation that my hits were good.
"You missed." That made me stop in my track. I didn't miss. I know that I put down all of my targets, I saw them go down through my scope, so what the hell was Klerk talking about.
"Excuse me?" I turned in his direction, waiting for him to elaborate on his statement.
"You missed. The last one."
"It's down. I didn't miss it."
"But you didn't shoot it in the center like the rest of them. In your perfect record, seeing as you are this amazing sniper that everyone is fascinated with, I see this shot like a miss." I hit the target probably two centimeters to the side of the bullseye, many of the people here would hit them even further from that. I had no idea what was his problem.
"Well, I don't see it like that. Plus, I made the shots quite quickly and was still on point. I'm guessing not many that are here will be able to do it...honestly..." I looked around trying to see if I know someone who could get even closer to my results. "...I don't think anyone here could to it even close." I could see Klerk's anger building after my words. I still didn't know what was his problem with me and why it was so important to be 100% accurate on some dumb exercise that was made more like a relaxing and bonding zone with the fellow shooters than a competition. I turned and finish packing my stuff, ready to leave when Klerk made one strange comment.
"Well, I know I can...I can even do it from the most unusual place, too, just point it and I'll show you."
"I'm not in a dick measuring competition, Klerk. I don't fucking care if you or anybody else is better than me, or if you could make the shots from a harder position. That's not the goal here, or you have forgotten why we are gathered?" I didn't wait for his answer, I turned around and walked towards my car while calling Max.
"Hey."
"What's wrong, Max?"
"Look." His voice was calm, but I could still hear the worry in it. "There was an accident." That made me stop in my track. All kinds of scenarios came rushing in my head, each one worse than the previous. "It's about Hannah." That statement made my legs feel like Jell-O. "She's alive." I took a deep breath; I didn't even know I was holding it before that. "She is at the hospital right now. They are checking her, making sure that everything is fine."
"What happened?"
"It was a car crash. She was driving to work when a big truck slammed into her car because he ran a red light." Fuck, that sounded serious. "Her car is totally wrecked, but luckily, he came from the passenger's side. It took some time for the firefighters to get her out of the car, but as far as I know, she was conscious throughout the whole thing. They made some scans and now we are waiting for the results."
"You with her?" I didn't like the idea of Hannah being on her own after an incident like that.
"Most of us are here...plus the girls. And her parents. We are not allowed to see her cause we are not family, but we are in the waiting room." I was with mixed feelings. I was glad that my teammates were there, making sure she was not alone, but at the same time I was really angry that I wasn't with them...
"I'm on my way. Be there soon." I ended the call before Max had a chance to say something else.
This drive back home was the hardest one I had even made. And I don't even remember the half of it. I was lucky that the road was fairly clear and managed to be at the hospital quicker than expected.
"Cleo, over here." I was looking around the halls in the hospital in search of my teammates when I heard Ali's voice. I walked towards her and saw that everyone was here, some in civil clothes, some still in their uniforms after their shifts, but all of my SWAT team was here...for my girl.
"You came quickly." I turn in the direction of Max's voice who was leaning against the wall.
"Light traffic."
"Sure." Everyone knew that was total bullshit, I was speeding through the whole drive here and was just prying a cop won't try to stop me. Because I wasn't sure if I was going to stop.
"What the hell are you doing here?! You are not welcomed, Jones." Here we go...I was wondering when I was going to meet with Hannah's father, looks like it was right now.
***We getting closer to the end, do you think Chief Adams will finally accept Cleo?
