“It’s okay,” Milo says. He can see that I’m struggling. “It’s daytime. It was always going to be harder during the day.”
“It shouldn’t bethishard. Are we going to attack them at night?”
“If we have the choice, we will,” Milo says.
I hear what he’s not saying. We might not have the choice to attack them at night—because they might attack us first. We might be on the defense.
That’s a terrifying thought.
But all I can do in response to it is to make myself stronger, and so I will. I refocus my energy on creating the shield Milo’s trying to teach me.
He tosses a pebble at me.
This time, it deflects away, bouncing back to lie at his feet. We both cry out in surprise. “Did you see that?” I say, even though he obviously saw it. “I did it that time!”
“Yeah, you did!” he cheers. “All right, let’s try it with a bigger rock this time.” He picks one up off the ground.
“I wish there was a way to practice this without you chucking rocks at me,” I say, rubbing the rising bruise on my thigh from where he hit me a few rounds ago. “Can’t you just try to shove me or something?”
“No,” he says regretfully. “We already know you can keep out gentle touches without much trouble. What we need now is to see if you can deflect things that might actually hurt you. Trust me, I don’t like it either. I wouldn’t be doing this if I saw another way.”
I steel myself. “All right,” I say. “Go ahead.”
He pitches the rock at my hip. I can tell he’s doing it gently, trying not to make it too difficult. The knowledge distracts me, and I know I’m going to mess this up. I turn a little, taking the impact on my butt, where it won’t hurt so much.
“You can’t do it like that,” I say.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“You can’t throw me softballs. You have to throw it hard. If we’re attacked, the enemy isn’t going to take it easy on me.”
“You were just complaining about me throwing rocks at you,” he points out.
“Yeah, I know, but I was just bitching,” I say. “You have to throw the rocks as hard as you can.”
“That’s crazy. I can’t do that.”
“Do you want the first time my shield is really tested to be against an enemy?” I say.
He sighs. “You know I don’t.”
“Then throw it. You won’t aim for my head. An enemy would go for the kill.”
“Fine,” he says. “Butfocus.I’d really rather this didn’t hit you.”
I nod.
He draws back his arm to throw—
“What the fuck?”
The rock falls out of his hand. I whirl around at the sound of the voice, but I know who it is before I see him. I would know his voice anywhere.
Nate.
He’s staring at us, his mouth hanging open, and then he strides forward and positions himself between me and Milo.
“Were you going to throw arockat her?” he demands as if he has any right to act protective over me.