Chapter 17: The Finals.

Days gone by, I continued to practice my fast draw.

God, I got so bored. Jason coached me and helped me with my technique.

After a while I didn't have to think about what I was doing. It started coming natural to me. My breathing, my hand contact with the butt of the gun, thumbing. aligning, and shooting.

Muscle memory, he had called it.

My thumb became hard.

On the morning of the thirteenth day, I finally was able to outwit Jason. I pulled the trigger before he could slap away my pistol. He allowed me to practice with live ammo shooting at paper targets. He wouldn't let me draw and shoot. He told me that I'd probably shoot myself in the foot.

It took me over a week and a couple hundred of rounds of ammo to get me mastered. By the end of two weeks I could consistently drill all six rounds into center mass of a man-sized paper target at thirty feet.

By the end of another week, making it the third in a roll, I no longer had to think about what I was doing.

It all came naturally, my muscle memory was fully developed, and I knew that I was fast, really fast.

" In the very near future, I will be giving you your final exam. On that day, I don't want you to know what to expect from me." Jason said while strolling in the range.

That again? No way could he be serious. "We aren't really going to face each other"

"Indeed, we shall," Jason said in a calm, serious tone.

He walked away and into the gun room.

I scoffed and setup another target for myself, sure that he couldn't possibly mean what he had said.

Every day I continued to practice. Ammunition was expensive, and I couldn't imagine how much this was costing Jason. I knew I had gone through hundreds of rounds. Well, on the other hand, I reasoned my sponsors were wealthy.

Jason often took me to his heavily guarded big warehouse to scoop more shooting supplies along with groceries and other household necessities.

My weeks are far spent.

It would soon be time to return to my country home.

Justice Bianca called me every week. Ayo had not been making much progress. He had been placed with a foster home in Abuja that lasted only a few days.

The home couldn't handle his excesses either. He would get agitated and meltdown into screaming and rages. A few weeks later they had tried again with another home. That didn't work out as well, but Justice Bianca promised that she was doing everything possible to help him.

She had sent him to the best psychiatric doctors in the capital City. And even contemplating they might place him under psychiatric admission. I thought about my brother every single day and couldn't wait until I saw him again.

One night, Justice Bianca called. Jason spoke with her for a few minutes and handed the phone to me.

"Phood, I'm afraid I have some disturbing news,"

Bianca said, "it's about your brother"

My heart leapt into my throat. "Ayo? Is he okay?"

"This afternoon he ran away from the orphanage center. As I'm speaking to you we don't know where he is, Runso, Ayo has disappeared."

I argued with Justice Bianca about coming straight home.

"I guess he got the premonition that he'd be placed under psychiatric admission that was why he vanished. I will advice you," she said. "that your being in Nigeria sooner than expected will not make us find Ayo any sooner. My contacts with law enforcements are far and wide, and I've asked for a statewide BOLO. I'm using all of my influence to cast a wide net. I even asked Yinka and Ibrahim to help with the search around."

I didn't know she could order TheNews around too.

"We'll find him," she went on to say. "It's best if you stay with Jason and finish out your training. You have only a week to go before you return."

I understood the logic in what she was saying, but it didn't make me feel any better. My eyes teared up.I glanced around looking for Jason, He had left me alone. Good. I didn't want him to see me struggling like this with my emotions.

"Look,Mrs.Justice, Ayo is all I got."

"We will find him," she repeated. Then the line went dead.

I pulled myself together and went to find Jason, to let him know what was going on.

He listened but didn't have much to say.

Sleep eluded me that night. Where would my brother go? What was he doing right at that very moment in the middle of the night? Was he sleeping in the street? My feelings vacillated between fear, frustration, and anger.

By the next morning, I had worked myself into a bundle of nerves. Exhausted and agitated, I didn't feel like shooting and I made that known to Jason during breakfast.

"When you don't feel like practicing, that's when you need most to practice," he said. "You need to work through this, Runso. Let go of your emotions. This is a teachable moment."

Anger welled up within me. Holding it back took real effort.

Despite that effort, my tone was harsher than usual.

"Ayo is my brother, and I'm responsible for him."

Jason kept his voice calm. "That's not the case. You can hardly be held responsible for your brother's actions."

My frustration got the better of me and I blurted, "Look, you don't know nothing about it, the life he's had, the life I've had. I need to leave."

A flash of anger in Jason's eyes, the same look I witnessed the day he picked me up at the airport when I had threatened him and he had pulled the gun from the console of his car. "Okay then, meet me outside on the

firing line in five minutes." He stormed out of the room.

I thought about telling him to go to hell, but that look he had given me signaled that he would brook no defiance.

I marched outside and found Jason on the shooting range struggling with a large duffle. He undid the straps and pulled out a strange looking garment. Tossed it at

me where it landed at my feet kicking up a dust cloud.

"What's this?"

"Put it on," he ordered.

I held it up. Some sort of vest only really heavy. "Bullet Proof Vest?"

When I glanced at Denholm, he was already buckling his.

"Hold on a minute," I said.

"It's time," he said. "Your final exam. If you're so determined to return to Nigeria, you'll need to beat me first."

I yelled, "You're freaking crazy. I'm not doing this." I dropped the vest to the ground.

"Rule of engagement number five, know that you are going to prevail. If you think you're so fast, if you know that you're going to prevail, what do you have to worry

about?"

The man was truly insane. "Yeah, but something could possibly go wrong? I might fire wild and hit you in the arm or leg, maybe even in the head. I could kill you."

"It Won't happen," Jason said. "You're too consistent, too good to make such a novice error."

"Glad you have such faith in me, but what about you? Because I'm not anxious to get shot. Today is not a good day to die."

"Put the vest on," Jason said, his voice completely normal. "You need to do this. Until you draw down on a man, you will never know for sure if you've mastered

the craft. You'll never know if you've internalized the five rules."

"If I'm ever in a position where it's me or the other guy, I'm confident that I can handle it. I am not going to shoot at you. It's just plain stupid."

Jason finished strapping on his gun belt. A revolver similar to mine rested snug in his holster. He tapped a finger against the side of his head. "Doubt. You'll always carry doubt with you. That's the purpose of this exercise. The final hurdle. Do this, Phood and I promise while wearing your gun, you will fear nobody."

His words made me waver. They rang true. I would always carry doubt until tested.

"Pick up the body armor," he said.

I looked at the vest lying at my feet. Bent down and took it.

"Go ahead," Jason prodded.

I slipped it on all the while thinking about the insanity of the situation at hand called exam. What would Mom say if she was alive and saw me now?

"Load." Jason said.

My hand trembled as I dropped the cartridges into the cylinder of the S&W500.

Jason stood there cool as a warm breeze blew making me more nervous.

He pointed down the range. "Stand beside the target frame. Thirty feet."

I took a deep breath and walked down the range, turned, and faced my teacher.

He pointed at his chest. "Remember,

center mass. Let your emotions flow away through the soles of your feet. Be confident."

Except I was far from confident. I was a wreck, worried about Ayo worried that I might fire wild and kill the idiot facing me.

What then? How would I explain that to

the police? How would I explain that to Justice Buanca or Dr. Dogonyaro? I'd be put away for life and then Ayo would

really have nobody"

The thirty seconds buzzer sounded and somebody bashed me in the chest with a baseball bat. At least that's what it felt like.

I might have passed out, but the next thing I recalled was gazing at the sky while flat on my back. Unable to breathe, I gasped for air, black spots dancing in my vision. Then I saw Jason's face looking down on me.

"You have a collapsed lung. Get on your side." He got to his knees and rolled me over, bent my leg up to my chest and said, "Easy. Slow, deep breaths. Don't panic."

I sucked in air and eventually my breathing returned to normal. My chest ached. "What happened?"

"A SW500 happened," Jason said. "Five-hundred foot pounds at about a thousand feet per second impacting your ribcage. The body armor redistributed the impact and saved your life. Apparently,

you disregarded rule of engagement number three. You were totally preoccupied and definitely not in control of

your emotions and attention."

"Yeah, apparently." I coughed and almost vomited. God, the impact of the bullet made my chest hurt.

He reached out a hand. Helped me to my feet. I bent at the waist, hands on my knees. Got myself together.

"As to your final exam,"Jason said. "You failed miserably. You are a young man possessed of incredible talent and skill, but also a dead man, nonetheless." While

walking away, he called over his shoulder, "Resume practicing"

I straightened. "Hold on."

He ignored me and kept walking toward the gun room.

"Tm talking to you," I yelled.

Jason stopped and turned.

"Yes, okay, I screwed up. My head wasn't in the game and I'd be dead. Let's call it a trial run. I want a rematch."

He stood there for a moment and said, "Your virgin chest is already vibrated. Taking another hit and you might suffer serious internal injury"

"That's for me to worry about."

He approached and looked me in the eye.

"Are you sure you want to retry this?"

I pointed at the firing line. "Take your position."

He grunted and walked to the line.

I stood down range and squared up with him.

As soon as his hand returned to his side I blasted him. His arms pin wheeled, his eyes went wide, and his mouth formed a

perfect round 0. For good measure, while he stumbled backwards I shot him again. He went down just like that.

I ran to his side. He gawked at me wearing a dumbfounded expression.

I shook my finger in his face and said in a mocking tone,

"Apparently, you disregarded rule of engagement number one. In a gunfight, there are no rules, except to win by any means necessary. I wasn't going to wait for

your stinking thirty second seconds mind countdown. I Wasn't going to play by your rules."

Jason said nothing. He just lay there flopping around until eventually regaining his senses. This time, I helped him to his feet.

"Was that good enough for you?" I asked. "Did I pass my final exam?"

Jason coughed and sputtered. He gathered himself and glanced my way. "The student teaches the teacher. Yes, you passed." He placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Well done."

He staggered like an old man back into his gun room.

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... to be continued.

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