Chapter 4: Learning to Bite With the Other Hand

The desert wind sliced across Painted Ridge that morning, carrying with it the dry scent of dust, scorched sage, and sun-baked juniper, and as Mika Thorn perched on a low, jagged rock, her left arm still screaming with dull, relentless pain from the bandage crudely but carefully wrapped around her shoulder, she realized that survival often meant bending oneself into shapes one had never known existed, and that today she would have to do just that, learning to fight with a hand that had never truly been hers.

Her revolver felt foreign and heavy in her right hand, the familiar weight she had wielded so fluidly with her left now strange and awkward, as though she were gripping a wild animal that might bite her at any moment, but she forced her fingers to curl around the grip and flexed her wrist, letting the gun rest against the bones and sinew that, until now, had never carried the burden of precision and recoil, and she allowed herself a bitter laugh at the memory of the teacher, the devil in glasses, who had left her shoulder ruined and her pride sharper than any bullet wound, as though he had anticipated this very moment, planting in her mind a silent challenge she could not ignore.

“He made me fight with my weak side,” she muttered under her breath, the words barely audible above the wind whipping around the ridge, but sharp enough to sting with resentment and resolve, her dark eyes narrowing against the sunlight as she imagined him there, leaning against a boulder, smirking behind those impossibly calm glasses, the faintest glint of amusement in his gaze, as if he could see every falter of her grip, every misstep of her aim, and yet found it infinitely entertaining rather than threatening.