I looked out my bedroom window. I was kinda feeling sad that Nelly was feeling better. He had passed on the sickness to Michelle as she was with him when I poisoned his cookies. I didn’t feel bad knowing that I was happy with the outcome of my jealousy, Michelle did end up getting sick too in the end. She couldn’t come over to hang with Nelly as her parents placed her in quarantine.

“Hey Nelu!” Mary and Grace burst into my room and Nelly followed behind them. I greeted each of them before sitting at my desk.

“We wanted to know if you wanted to go to the shooting range with us. Nelly’s coming too.” Grace said as she looked around my room. Although this was not their first time in the house it was their first time in my room.

“Nelly wants to go to the shooting range?” I looked at my brother and he looked away. “Fine, I’ll get a jacket.”

When we reached the shooting range, Mary and Grace were already over excited. As we were all rich, so to speak, managed to book a whole section for as long as we wanted and a wide range of shooting instruments. Mary’s first pick was a cross bow and she practiced on it with Grace as Nelly went to go and fetch us snacks and drinks. I just sat back and watched them hold the bow wrong.

“Aren’t you going to join us, Nelu?” Grace said, sitting next to me.

“Nah, I just came to watch you guys make fools of yourself.” I smiled at my new friend. Sometimes I forgot that Nelly and I were supposed to be on a mission. It felt like we were getting used to being normal kids.

“You, sir, are a party pooper.”

“Who is a party pooper?” Nelly placed the drinks and nachos on the table.

“Your brother. He doesn’t want to join us with the cross bow.” Grace said crossing her arms.

“Well first of all, Grace. Mary’s holding the cross bow wrong.” Nelly said as he went over to help Grace’s friend. He stood behind her and helped her hold the weapon correctly, covering her hands with his.

“Is he flirting with her?” Grace narrowed her eyes in my brother’s direction.

“Yeah, they’ve been doing that ever since he had gotten sick.” I stuck a nacho in my mouth. “I think she likes him.”

“Well at least their love is blossoming. What about you and Jake.”

“I haven’t seen him in a week. I think he’s been ditching art class again.”

“How was the date?”

“Cute. That’s all I can say for now.” I said secretly smiling to myself as I thought about all the things that Jake did for me the other night.

“You are so adorable.” Grace said pinching my cheeks. She walked over to the other table that held the other weapons. She chose a rifle and went to try out her skills.

“Why aren’t you joining them?” The sudden voice behind me gave me a fright and I nearly fell off the bench. I turned around quickly and came face to face with Jake, literally. His face was centimetres from mine and I could eye the sparkle in his blue eyes. He looked as if he was going to kiss me before he suddenly pulled back.

“H-h-hi…” I slowly stood up and faced the smiling boy in front of me.

“Why aren’t you joining them?” He repeated his question.

“Um… I just came to watch.” I was trying so hard not to make a fool out of myself. “What brings you here? I haven’t seen you in class in a while.”

“Yeah I like to paint at home. I thought I was going to shoot a few rounds before I went back to painting. What brings you here?” He sat down on the table above where I was sitting and patted the bench, clearly indicating for me to join him. I timidly sat down on the bench, right next to his leg.

“Nelly, Grace and Mary wanted to come here, so I tagged along. I didn’t want to be at home doing nothing.”

“You should have started painting then. I told you that you should paint more often.” He stole a nacho off of our plate. Grace was pretending not to notice the two of us and I don’t think Nelly and Grace noticed Jake. They seemed to be in their own world.

“Whatever, mom.” I said half under my breath and Jake laughed. This made Nelly turn around and look at the two of us. Jake just waved and Nelly reluctantly waved back.

“I don’t think your brother like me very much.” Jake said after a while.

“It could be because of what he hears from Michelle and them. Or he’s just over protective.” I shrugged. “Don’t you want to go and take a shot?”

“I will if you will. Or else I’ll just sit here next to you until your brother comes to punch me in the face.” Jake said smiling sweetly.

“Fine.” I stood up and looked at the assortment of weapons and chose a bolt action rifle. “Me against you.”

“Are you sure you are up for that, hot shot?” Jake picked up the same gun. I just smiled and took my position behind the barrier. Jake took the one next to me. “Three shots and we will see who the winner is.”

“Whatever, loser.” I lifted the gun up and lined it with my shoulder. When I felt it was comfortably placed I took aim. Three shots and three times reloading, Jake and I were ready to review our work. We took down the sheets and compared.

Jake clearly practiced a lot. His shots were all within the inner circle, but I won because mine were millimetres away from being dead centre. The only reason for this was because I couldn’t show that I never missed a shot. After all I was under cover.

“Damn you are good.” Mary said leaning over my shoulder. Everybody had stopped practicing to watch Jake and I compete. “You too Jake. I can’t even get it on the damn paper.”

“Well you seem to be the winner, Nelu.” Like the night we went out, my heart fluttered when Jake said my name and his compliment almost made it stop beating. He smiled at me and my heart did stop.

“That’s Nelu for you.” Nelly threw his arm around my shoulders and effectively snapped me out of my trance. “He has always been such a good shot.”

“Is that why you didn’t want to shoot with us? Too afraid we will cry after you beat us?” Grace crossed her arms.

“Yeah sorry, I guess I was just thinking of how you would feel being crushed by me.” I shrugged nonchalantly as everyone laughed. When we had stopped laughing, Mary asked the dreaded question.

“How did you get so good? To get this great would have taken a lot of practice.”

“Not to mention years.” Grace added. Nelly and I looked at each other.

“Well, our dad wanted us to be famous in the world of sports. He signed me up for shooting lesson and Nelly for martial arts.”

“Why aren’t you guys entering competitions then? I’m sure you could have shelves upon shelves lined with trophies.”

“We didn’t want that life. And he gave up and moved on to something that interested him.”

“What was that?” Jake asked for the first time.

“At that time I don’t actually remember what it was.” I said scratching my neck and smiling sheepishly.

“Yeah he has been jumping from interest to interest in the years that we were with him.” Nelly jumped in.

“Which was basically our whole life.” I quickly added. When we wanted to, Nelly and I could come up with the best lies on the spot and still have them make sense.

“What happened to your mom?” Mary’s questions were beginning to annoy me and the rifle in my hand was tempting me to just kill her now and go home.

“We don’t have one.” Nelly and I said at the same time.

“We never knew her.” Nelly added.

“Oh…” Mary looked speechless for a while.

“What do you want as a prize, Nelu?” Jake saved the day by changing the subject.

“I’m not sure at the moment so why don’t I tell you when I come up with something.” I said smiling sweetly. Nelly squeezed my shoulder with the arm that was still on me. “I’m sure we can find something worthy of my victory.”

Jake and the girls just laughed while Nelly smiled. It seemed that Nelly wasn’t happy with my relationship with Jake, and I wanted to know why, especially if the tables were meant to be turned. After all Nelly was in love with our target.