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Description
Rogue found herself in some strangers’ garden. Yellow light illuminated it from the inside of the house, but she couldn’t see anyone inside. She walked across it looking around for the best way out of it.
She turned around hearing an odd sound and jumped seeing a boy next to a swing hanging off a tree branch. He smiled at her and bowed dramatically. “Guten Abend, Fräulein” he said.
She didn’t know where he came from or why he acted so friendly for no reason, but given the events from this entire evening - she didn’t expect anything good from him.
Apparently her fear was visible on her face because he lifted his hands and spoke in a calming manner; “There’s no reason for you to be afraid right now…”
She didn’t trust him on that one bit. Not after almost being torn to shreds by that man with claws.
“What do you want?” she asked trying to control the quiver in her voice. “Do you live here? I’m leaving, so don’t call cops or--”
The boy smiled at her sympathetically and shook his head. “I don’t live here. I actually live at Xavier’s Institute. He’s a good man who wants to help you… I want to help you” he assured softly as he stepped towards her. “I know it’s all confusing and it’s hard to believe a stranger’s words, but you do can trust me and my friends.”
Kurt had this feeling of almost a deja vu due to being here again and talking to his sister. It was the first time they spoke in the previous timeline but back then it ended up in her running away from them again. But a lot has changed since then. He changed.
But not everything was in his control to begin with. Last time he was doing good until Kitty followed him and showed some bad attitude, so Rogue tried to get away and him trying to stop her only ended up in being knocked out by her powers. So much for his memory of that day, everything else he knew from stories and the actual show. Rogue supposedly used the power she absorbed from him to teleport away, and everything went downhill from there.
But he won’t let that happen this time.
“I know that what’s happening to you right now is scary and you don’t understand it…” he said gently. He chose to keep a reasonable distance, give her space to feel safe. He knew so well what it’s like to fear someone crossing into your personal safety bubble. “I’ve been there too, in that moment when you realize something in your life is wrong” he saw her expression softening. “I was alone. I didn’t know who I am. I was afraid to show my face. Same as you, I didn’t trust anyone… But if you give us a chance, I promise you that w--”
But that was when the girl’s attention was drawn behind him, to where Kitty phased herself through the fence forcing Forge to follow with her. Pryde’s face hardened as she looked Rogue up and down. “She doesn’t look so tough” she said strutting towards her.
“Wait, Kitty! Don’t!” Wagner stepped in front of her to stop her from tackling the goth. “We’re dealing with it peacefully, alright?” seeing Kitty roll her eyes but stop, he started to turn around to Rogue again; “Sorry for t--”
But Rogue was already disappearing behind the other fence, having used that moment of commotion to flee.
Wagner inhaled with a grimace. “Great” he said to himself before teleporting after his secret sibling.
Kitty jumped a bit back when he teleported, but quickly regained composure and looked back at Forge with a slight frown. “I could have stopped her” said the young girl.
“I don’t think we are supposed to go with a ‘first shoot, then ask questions’ kind of way.”
Pryde’s fierce expression softened with regret. “Did I screw up?”
Forge’s brown eyes turned to the edge of the fence where the two adopted siblings have gone. “We’ll see about that.”
“So… what now?”
Forge’s eyes dropped on her again. “Why are you looking at me? Why would I know?!”
“I’m new!”
“Me too!”
“But you’re like-- older!”
Forge frowned down at her. He was in fact a lot older than her, but he did not feel like he has the authority to make any decisions here, given it was as much his first mission as it was hers. But guess it would be ridiculous to expect a 15 year old to do all the thinking here.
He exhaled and looked around. They sure shouldn’t stand around in a stranger’s garden and risk being spotted. Especially since the girl they ‘burgled’ here in for was gone. So they could either try to find the others or try to follow Rogue and Kurt. The latter seemed more likely to work out.
“Come on” he nodded at the fence Rogue jumped over. The siblings were probably quite ahead of them by now, and they weren’t guaranteed to even have gone in the same direction that he and Kitty would chose, but the only thing left here was to make educated guesses.
But then again educated guesses were also why he almost caused his best friend’s girlfriend to die recently, so it felt difficult to feel confident in going off of them.

xXx

With his sense of smell and hearing, it wasn’t difficult for Wolverine to find the other team on the main street. Just as he was about to swing onto the public area from one of the gardens, he heard Xavier say that Cody’s brain waves are fading from the girl’s mind.
“It can mean that the effect of absorption is only temporary. If Cody’s awareness disappears completely we might have a harder time finding the girl…”
Logan landed neatly on the pavement in front of the man. “Go ten gardens west from here. Kurt, Forge and the Half-Pint are trying to keep her there.”
“In this case we need to get there as quickly as we can” Xavier said.

xXx

“They’re not here anymore” Wolverine said after a few deep sniffs directed towards the fence of the garden where he left the young X-Men with the new potential recruitee. “They headed east.”
“Do you think something went wrong?” Jean asked.
“Professor, can you locate them?” Scott suggested.
Xavier focused for a moment. “Odd. I can’t seem to locate Kurt” he said low.
“Did something happen to him?” Summers asked.
“Shouldn’t have left the damn kids alone” Logan growled.
Charles lifted his hand to ask for silence as he focused on Forge instead. *Forge?*
*Ah, heck! What-- Professor?*
*Where are you?*
*Rogue ran away, Kurt followed her, we’re looking for them. We’re in front of a-- Kids’r’Us store a couple blocks towards the town centre… Hold on, I think I see Kurt! I think he’s knocked out or something.*
*We’re on our way.*
“Everyone, hurry, they’re straight ahead.”

xXx

By the time Forge and Kitty ran up to him, Kurt already managed to get to his knees against a brick wall as he rubbed his head. His inducer was still on, but his tail limply laid behind him and the boy seemed dazed.
“What happened? Did she touch you?” Silvercloud asked as they reached him. “You ok?”
“You were lucky!” Pryde said. “That whole Cody guy ended up in a total coma. You, like, could have--”
“She didn’t touch me” Kurt said seedily and then faintly gestured to an aluminium trash can lid on the sidewalk. It was dented.
Forge almost wanted to laugh. “Oh well, man. I’d ask how’s your head, but seems the right question right now seems to be: how’s your honor?”
Wagner ignored the ache in his forehead just to glare at Forge. “Very funny. Do you wanna test yours against this lid?”
“Guys, focus” Pryde rolled her eyes at the immature young men. “Where did the girl go?”
Wagner inhaled deeply as he climbed back to his feet and pointed faintly to an alley on opposite side of the street. “At least that’s what I saw last. I lost it for a moment.”
“Should we follow her?”
As if to answer Forge’s question, Storm descended from the sky above. Her cape fluttered as she landed on the sidewalk just behind them. “Is everyone alright?”
“I’ve had better moments, but ja, I’m good. Thank you for the concern, Frau Monroe.”
The woman smirked with slight amusement too, at his way of twisting her question to make it seem like addressed solely to him. The boy smirked back glad she got the joke rather than assume he was so full of himself.
“Everyone’s almost here” Storm informed them. “Then we go after the girl together. Professor managed to catch a glimpse of where she’s headed. It’s a cemetery nearby.”
‘So I guess tonight was destined to lead us there’ Kurt thought. ‘Despite she didn’t have my powers to get there’.
But he still hoped it can end differently.

xXx

The mansion became completely silent after everyone left, and Fallen found herself pacing around the halls. All the unspent energy and motivation was becoming even more annoying the longer she was restricted; a week of medical arrest was bad enough, then another few days of not going to school - that she could do with. But another week of no trainings?
Maybe it was more her anxiety of falling behind that got her so rilled up, rather than any sort of actual motivation. Either way, she was restless and irritated. Especially since everyone else was out there right now, trying to get through to Kurt’s adopted sister. That wasn’t something she wanted to sit out.
At last she gave up pacing and went to grab her leather jacket, combat boots, her first-ever allowance money and walked out the front door. The cool evening made her feel better instantly. She wasn’t outside since before her coma, and being outside felt like a breath of fresh air - literally. There was nothing more soothing than a late walk with music on.
She undid her tangled up earphone wires on the way down the driveway and made sure to lock up the gate behind her before she headed towards the city.
If she can’t sit still, too worried about what everyone else is doing and how she’s left out, the least she can do is spend some of that energy exploring Bayville. After all, if nothing else was about to go wrong, she was supposed to spend a long while here, and so far she only knew the quickest route to Bayville High and back, and some of the park that was between the Institute and the city center, a little off to the side.
She walked along the edge of the park and then got off the route to school. It wasn’t as quiet as she’d hoped - it was a Friday night after all. People of all ages were out - drinking, partying, dining or just walking. Observing them was the second best to just having streets all to herself.
Her eyes shifted from passersbys to closed window shops, to busy restaurants, but it was one specific building that made her slow down to a stop.
The Cohen Shooting Range. And according to a piece of paper hanging in the window, it was still open for another two hours.
Fallen’s fingers traced the folded banknotes in her pocket. She considered it for a moment before pushing on the door. There was a small lobby with a few chairs where a teenage boy sat, slumped down with a handheld console and a tall desk; behind the desk, a strong-looking, tattooed man was counting bills. The man gave her a critical look.
“Are you lost?” he asked in a deep voice.
Putting on a face to match an I-belong-here attitue, she smiled at him. “No, I’m looking to rent a spot and say…” she looked at a visualised list of available firearms. “Colt’s Double Eagle? What can a hundred bucks get me?”
The man eyed her critically. “ID?”
Harris confidently pulled out the state identification card that Professor Xavier conjured into existence through the magic called Money & Influence. She hoped that her signature smokey-eye makeup will be enough to make her look older and the man won’t look at the year, but just to make sure she conveniently placed her finger over it.
“Nice try” the man said as if she told a tired joke. “You know your way out” he turned away from her, resuming his work by the register.
The girl remained in her spot, looking for a loophole to get her on that shooting range. She really needed to release some of that energy from being cooped up and removed from the heart of the action.
The man raised his eyes back to her, a warning look on his face. “Have I not made myself clear enough for you?”
“Easy, Bram, easy!” the boy with a handheld console got up from the chair now and came over to them with a smile. “She’s my friend, and she’s late” he shook his head at Fallen, his arm coming to rest on her shoulder. She resisted the instinctive urge to shake him off and watched where he’s going with this.
“You know her?” the tattooed man asked sceptically.
“Sure, that’s Blake. You saw her ID yourself” the boy shrugged carelessly. Fallen’s eyes ever so slightly twitched. How could he know her legal name, or any name for that matter?
The man gave a tired sigh.
The boy turned to Fallen. “Sorry, I zoned out on the game. But you should have said ‘hi’ or something” he waved his console at her before addressing the man behind the counter again. “I’ll get us everything myself, you take care of stuff here, no worries!”
Fallen felt the boy’s hand meaningfully urge her towards the room behind the counter. He let go of her shoulder and went over to a locked cabinet in the back.
She hung back, cautiously observing the boy as he produced a key from his pocket and grabbed a set of protective gear from the locker. He handed her goggles and ear muffs which she hesitantly took. “Do I know you?” she asked low enough that her voice wouldn’t carry over to the man at the counter.
The boy put his hand over his heart with a grimace. “Oh, it hurts. You don’t recognize me?”
She pried her memory, but to be honest she found there were holes in it after the coma. He looked to be about her current age, with thick blond hair and a youthful, slightly tan face. She saw him somewhere before for sure, but couldn’t put her finger on it.
“We share some classes?” he hinter, his hands gesturing as if to urge her to remember.
“Right” she started to be able to place his face in the back of some class.
Her shoulders relaxed; so it wasn’t a trap after all. She had a history of consciously putting herself in dangerous situations just to feel that she wants to stay alive, but this time she wasn’t looking for one of those. Luckily, it seemed that she didn’t find it.
She smiled apologetically at the blond. “Sorry, I was never very good with faces to begin with, and I had some memory issues recently on top of it. Your name’s… Noah? Noah something, right?”
The boy beamed. “There you go! Now come on, you came here to shoot some guns, right?”
Before she could ask any more questions he threw on his own ear-muffs and waved at her to follow. He led her to the next room; one man was there with who seemed to be an instructor. The instructor greeted Noah with a nod before focusing his full attention on the trainee. The blond boy retrieved a gun and bullets and placed it on a table by one of the plexiglass-separated stands.
Fallen noticed it was Colt’s Double Eagle, exactly how she asked the man at the counter. So the boy was listening sooner than he interfered. Why did he interfere anyway? And on what grounds did he have anything to say to begin with?
She looked beyond the blond at the instructor and the man two stands away. It wasn’t a good moment to ask those questions, especially since she’d have to be almost shouting them over the ear muffs. The boy started explaining the rules to her; going over basic safety guidelines of the facility and gun use in general.
By the time he was gone, the instructor and his trainee left.
“You’re too young to be an instructor” she cut Noah off as soon as they were left alone. “Do you work here at all?” she removed her earmuffs.
The boy looked lost for a moment. “Eee… not necessarily?” following suit, he removed his earmuffs as well.
She frowned at him. “Then why are you trying to tutor me and how did you just overrule legal requirements to get me in?”
The boy scoffed. “I’ll give you a hint. My full name is Noah Gabriel Cohen.”
It took her a few seconds before she remembered where she saw the last name before. The name of this place. The Cohen Shooting Range.
“Your family owns the place?”
“Co-owns, but yeah” he smirked at her. “As to answer your other question, I grew up around guns because of this place and my father’s general obsession of them. I can probably teach you more than half of those instructors. And the best part is, it’s on the house” he offered her the gun.
Fallen looked at the weapon in his hand before shifting her eyes back to his face. “Why?”
“What why?”
“All of this, why” she rolled her eyes. “Getting me in, instructing, making it all free - why. Because if you think this is in any way, shape, or form going to get you anything from me--”
“Woah, woah” Noah put his hands up defensively. “I’m not trying to get any favors or anything like that for this--”
“Or dates, anything like that.”
A little perplexed, the boy added; “Okay. Or dates. Look” he sighed. “We’re Freshmen, most of us are strangers. The only person I know in most of my classes is my best man, AJ. I’m just trying to make some more friends and one of my classmates coming here seemed like the perfect opportunity so I jumped on it.”
The girl let her attitude simmer down a bit. It sounded legitimate enough.
Noah once again offered her the handgun.
This time she took it.

Description
Rogue found herself in some strangers’ garden. Yellow light illuminated it from the inside of the house, but she couldn’t see anyone inside. She walked across it looking around for the best way out of it.
She turned around hearing an odd sound and jumped seeing a boy next to a swing hanging off a tree branch. He smiled at her and bowed dramatically. “Guten Abend, Fräulein” he said.
She didn’t know where he came from or why he acted so friendly for no reason, but given the events from this entire evening - she didn’t expect anything good from him.
Apparently her fear was visible on her face because he lifted his hands and spoke in a calming manner; “There’s no reason for you to be afraid right now…”
She didn’t trust him on that one bit. Not after almost being torn to shreds by that man with claws.
“What do you want?” she asked trying to control the quiver in her voice. “Do you live here? I’m leaving, so don’t call cops or--”
The boy smiled at her sympathetically and shook his head. “I don’t live here. I actually live at Xavier’s Institute. He’s a good man who wants to help you… I want to help you” he assured softly as he stepped towards her. “I know it’s all confusing and it’s hard to believe a stranger’s words, but you do can trust me and my friends.”
Kurt had this feeling of almost a deja vu due to being here again and talking to his sister. It was the first time they spoke in the previous timeline but back then it ended up in her running away from them again. But a lot has changed since then. He changed.
But not everything was in his control to begin with. Last time he was doing good until Kitty followed him and showed some bad attitude, so Rogue tried to get away and him trying to stop her only ended up in being knocked out by her powers. So much for his memory of that day, everything else he knew from stories and the actual show. Rogue supposedly used the power she absorbed from him to teleport away, and everything went downhill from there.
But he won’t let that happen this time.
“I know that what’s happening to you right now is scary and you don’t understand it…” he said gently. He chose to keep a reasonable distance, give her space to feel safe. He knew so well what it’s like to fear someone crossing into your personal safety bubble. “I’ve been there too, in that moment when you realize something in your life is wrong” he saw her expression softening. “I was alone. I didn’t know who I am. I was afraid to show my face. Same as you, I didn’t trust anyone… But if you give us a chance, I promise you that w--”
But that was when the girl’s attention was drawn behind him, to where Kitty phased herself through the fence forcing Forge to follow with her. Pryde’s face hardened as she looked Rogue up and down. “She doesn’t look so tough” she said strutting towards her.
“Wait, Kitty! Don’t!” Wagner stepped in front of her to stop her from tackling the goth. “We’re dealing with it peacefully, alright?” seeing Kitty roll her eyes but stop, he started to turn around to Rogue again; “Sorry for t--”
But Rogue was already disappearing behind the other fence, having used that moment of commotion to flee.
Wagner inhaled with a grimace. “Great” he said to himself before teleporting after his secret sibling.
Kitty jumped a bit back when he teleported, but quickly regained composure and looked back at Forge with a slight frown. “I could have stopped her” said the young girl.
“I don’t think we are supposed to go with a ‘first shoot, then ask questions’ kind of way.”
Pryde’s fierce expression softened with regret. “Did I screw up?”
Forge’s brown eyes turned to the edge of the fence where the two adopted siblings have gone. “We’ll see about that.”
“So… what now?”
Forge’s eyes dropped on her again. “Why are you looking at me? Why would I know?!”
“I’m new!”
“Me too!”
“But you’re like-- older!”
Forge frowned down at her. He was in fact a lot older than her, but he did not feel like he has the authority to make any decisions here, given it was as much his first mission as it was hers. But guess it would be ridiculous to expect a 15 year old to do all the thinking here.
He exhaled and looked around. They sure shouldn’t stand around in a stranger’s garden and risk being spotted. Especially since the girl they ‘burgled’ here in for was gone. So they could either try to find the others or try to follow Rogue and Kurt. The latter seemed more likely to work out.
“Come on” he nodded at the fence Rogue jumped over. The siblings were probably quite ahead of them by now, and they weren’t guaranteed to even have gone in the same direction that he and Kitty would chose, but the only thing left here was to make educated guesses.
But then again educated guesses were also why he almost caused his best friend’s girlfriend to die recently, so it felt difficult to feel confident in going off of them.

xXx

With his sense of smell and hearing, it wasn’t difficult for Wolverine to find the other team on the main street. Just as he was about to swing onto the public area from one of the gardens, he heard Xavier say that Cody’s brain waves are fading from the girl’s mind.
“It can mean that the effect of absorption is only temporary. If Cody’s awareness disappears completely we might have a harder time finding the girl…”
Logan landed neatly on the pavement in front of the man. “Go ten gardens west from here. Kurt, Forge and the Half-Pint are trying to keep her there.”
“In this case we need to get there as quickly as we can” Xavier said.

xXx

“They’re not here anymore” Wolverine said after a few deep sniffs directed towards the fence of the garden where he left the young X-Men with the new potential recruitee. “They headed east.”
“Do you think something went wrong?” Jean asked.
“Professor, can you locate them?” Scott suggested.
Xavier focused for a moment. “Odd. I can’t seem to locate Kurt” he said low.
“Did something happen to him?” Summers asked.
“Shouldn’t have left the damn kids alone” Logan growled.
Charles lifted his hand to ask for silence as he focused on Forge instead. *Forge?*
*Ah, heck! What-- Professor?*
*Where are you?*
*Rogue ran away, Kurt followed her, we’re looking for them. We’re in front of a-- Kids’r’Us store a couple blocks towards the town centre… Hold on, I think I see Kurt! I think he’s knocked out or something.*
*We’re on our way.*
“Everyone, hurry, they’re straight ahead.”

xXx

By the time Forge and Kitty ran up to him, Kurt already managed to get to his knees against a brick wall as he rubbed his head. His inducer was still on, but his tail limply laid behind him and the boy seemed dazed.
“What happened? Did she touch you?” Silvercloud asked as they reached him. “You ok?”
“You were lucky!” Pryde said. “That whole Cody guy ended up in a total coma. You, like, could have--”
“She didn’t touch me” Kurt said seedily and then faintly gestured to an aluminium trash can lid on the sidewalk. It was dented.
Forge almost wanted to laugh. “Oh well, man. I’d ask how’s your head, but seems the right question right now seems to be: how’s your honor?”
Wagner ignored the ache in his forehead just to glare at Forge. “Very funny. Do you wanna test yours against this lid?”
“Guys, focus” Pryde rolled her eyes at the immature young men. “Where did the girl go?”
Wagner inhaled deeply as he climbed back to his feet and pointed faintly to an alley on opposite side of the street. “At least that’s what I saw last. I lost it for a moment.”
“Should we follow her?”
As if to answer Forge’s question, Storm descended from the sky above. Her cape fluttered as she landed on the sidewalk just behind them. “Is everyone alright?”
“I’ve had better moments, but ja, I’m good. Thank you for the concern, Frau Monroe.”
The woman smirked with slight amusement too, at his way of twisting her question to make it seem like addressed solely to him. The boy smirked back glad she got the joke rather than assume he was so full of himself.
“Everyone’s almost here” Storm informed them. “Then we go after the girl together. Professor managed to catch a glimpse of where she’s headed. It’s a cemetery nearby.”
‘So I guess tonight was destined to lead us there’ Kurt thought. ‘Despite she didn’t have my powers to get there’.
But he still hoped it can end differently.

xXx

The mansion became completely silent after everyone left, and Fallen found herself pacing around the halls. All the unspent energy and motivation was becoming even more annoying the longer she was restricted; a week of medical arrest was bad enough, then another few days of not going to school - that she could do with. But another week of no trainings?
Maybe it was more her anxiety of falling behind that got her so rilled up, rather than any sort of actual motivation. Either way, she was restless and irritated. Especially since everyone else was out there right now, trying to get through to Kurt’s adopted sister. That wasn’t something she wanted to sit out.
At last she gave up pacing and went to grab her leather jacket, combat boots, her first-ever allowance money and walked out the front door. The cool evening made her feel better instantly. She wasn’t outside since before her coma, and being outside felt like a breath of fresh air - literally. There was nothing more soothing than a late walk with music on.
She undid her tangled up earphone wires on the way down the driveway and made sure to lock up the gate behind her before she headed towards the city.
If she can’t sit still, too worried about what everyone else is doing and how she’s left out, the least she can do is spend some of that energy exploring Bayville. After all, if nothing else was about to go wrong, she was supposed to spend a long while here, and so far she only knew the quickest route to Bayville High and back, and some of the park that was between the Institute and the city center, a little off to the side.
She walked along the edge of the park and then got off the route to school. It wasn’t as quiet as she’d hoped - it was a Friday night after all. People of all ages were out - drinking, partying, dining or just walking. Observing them was the second best to just having streets all to herself.
Her eyes shifted from passersbys to closed window shops, to busy restaurants, but it was one specific building that made her slow down to a stop.
The Cohen Shooting Range. And according to a piece of paper hanging in the window, it was still open for another two hours.
Fallen’s fingers traced the folded banknotes in her pocket. She considered it for a moment before pushing on the door. There was a small lobby with a few chairs where a teenage boy sat, slumped down with a handheld console and a tall desk; behind the desk, a strong-looking, tattooed man was counting bills. The man gave her a critical look.
“Are you lost?” he asked in a deep voice.
Putting on a face to match an I-belong-here attitue, she smiled at him. “No, I’m looking to rent a spot and say…” she looked at a visualised list of available firearms. “Colt’s Double Eagle? What can a hundred bucks get me?”
The man eyed her critically. “ID?”
Harris confidently pulled out the state identification card that Professor Xavier conjured into existence through the magic called Money & Influence. She hoped that her signature smokey-eye makeup will be enough to make her look older and the man won’t look at the year, but just to make sure she conveniently placed her finger over it.
“Nice try” the man said as if she told a tired joke. “You know your way out” he turned away from her, resuming his work by the register.
The girl remained in her spot, looking for a loophole to get her on that shooting range. She really needed to release some of that energy from being cooped up and removed from the heart of the action.
The man raised his eyes back to her, a warning look on his face. “Have I not made myself clear enough for you?”
“Easy, Bram, easy!” the boy with a handheld console got up from the chair now and came over to them with a smile. “She’s my friend, and she’s late” he shook his head at Fallen, his arm coming to rest on her shoulder. She resisted the instinctive urge to shake him off and watched where he’s going with this.
“You know her?” the tattooed man asked sceptically.
“Sure, that’s Blake. You saw her ID yourself” the boy shrugged carelessly. Fallen’s eyes ever so slightly twitched. How could he know her legal name, or any name for that matter?
The man gave a tired sigh.
The boy turned to Fallen. “Sorry, I zoned out on the game. But you should have said ‘hi’ or something” he waved his console at her before addressing the man behind the counter again. “I’ll get us everything myself, you take care of stuff here, no worries!”
Fallen felt the boy’s hand meaningfully urge her towards the room behind the counter. He let go of her shoulder and went over to a locked cabinet in the back.
She hung back, cautiously observing the boy as he produced a key from his pocket and grabbed a set of protective gear from the locker. He handed her goggles and ear muffs which she hesitantly took. “Do I know you?” she asked low enough that her voice wouldn’t carry over to the man at the counter.
The boy put his hand over his heart with a grimace. “Oh, it hurts. You don’t recognize me?”
She pried her memory, but to be honest she found there were holes in it after the coma. He looked to be about her current age, with thick blond hair and a youthful, slightly tan face. She saw him somewhere before for sure, but couldn’t put her finger on it.
“We share some classes?” he hinter, his hands gesturing as if to urge her to remember.
“Right” she started to be able to place his face in the back of some class.
Her shoulders relaxed; so it wasn’t a trap after all. She had a history of consciously putting herself in dangerous situations just to feel that she wants to stay alive, but this time she wasn’t looking for one of those. Luckily, it seemed that she didn’t find it.
She smiled apologetically at the blond. “Sorry, I was never very good with faces to begin with, and I had some memory issues recently on top of it. Your name’s… Noah? Noah something, right?”
The boy beamed. “There you go! Now come on, you came here to shoot some guns, right?”
Before she could ask any more questions he threw on his own ear-muffs and waved at her to follow. He led her to the next room; one man was there with who seemed to be an instructor. The instructor greeted Noah with a nod before focusing his full attention on the trainee. The blond boy retrieved a gun and bullets and placed it on a table by one of the plexiglass-separated stands.
Fallen noticed it was Colt’s Double Eagle, exactly how she asked the man at the counter. So the boy was listening sooner than he interfered. Why did he interfere anyway? And on what grounds did he have anything to say to begin with?
She looked beyond the blond at the instructor and the man two stands away. It wasn’t a good moment to ask those questions, especially since she’d have to be almost shouting them over the ear muffs. The boy started explaining the rules to her; going over basic safety guidelines of the facility and gun use in general.
By the time he was gone, the instructor and his trainee left.
“You’re too young to be an instructor” she cut Noah off as soon as they were left alone. “Do you work here at all?” she removed her earmuffs.
The boy looked lost for a moment. “Eee… not necessarily?” following suit, he removed his earmuffs as well.
She frowned at him. “Then why are you trying to tutor me and how did you just overrule legal requirements to get me in?”
The boy scoffed. “I’ll give you a hint. My full name is Noah Gabriel Cohen.”
It took her a few seconds before she remembered where she saw the last name before. The name of this place. The Cohen Shooting Range.
“Your family owns the place?”
“Co-owns, but yeah” he smirked at her. “As to answer your other question, I grew up around guns because of this place and my father’s general obsession of them. I can probably teach you more than half of those instructors. And the best part is, it’s on the house” he offered her the gun.
Fallen looked at the weapon in his hand before shifting her eyes back to his face. “Why?”
“What why?”
“All of this, why” she rolled her eyes. “Getting me in, instructing, making it all free - why. Because if you think this is in any way, shape, or form going to get you anything from me--”
“Woah, woah” Noah put his hands up defensively. “I’m not trying to get any favors or anything like that for this--”
“Or dates, anything like that.”
A little perplexed, the boy added; “Okay. Or dates. Look” he sighed. “We’re Freshmen, most of us are strangers. The only person I know in most of my classes is my best man, AJ. I’m just trying to make some more friends and one of my classmates coming here seemed like the perfect opportunity so I jumped on it.”
The girl let her attitude simmer down a bit. It sounded legitimate enough.
Noah once again offered her the handgun.
This time she took it.