✔ᵉⁿᵍˡⁱˢʰ Ghost Story - American Assassin✔

shot 05

As soon as Nathalie was on the dusty dirt floor, or as Hurley announced, as soon as her back hit the ground, flattened out, she couldn't even look. Within a second, if that was even a blink of an eye, Ronnie had grabbed her arm, trying to get to his knife, where she hit the ground the next moment with Ronnie crouched over her.

"Are you at least trying?", Ronnie wanted to make sure if this was really all Nathalie could do or if it was just a warm-up and they could both get serious now, "That having you under me would be easy, I didn't know it would be that easy though. Come on. Second round. Maybe we'll both have some fun. Together."

"They always say you shouldn't go to bed with the first best guy (you meet) and yet you're sitting on top of me," Nathalie coughs after a groan, propping herself up on her elbows, waving Ronnie closer with her index finger, waiting until his face was inches from hers, then head-butting him, "What a shame. For the sake of that face, too. I hope it wasn't too hard on the nose."

With her skull rumbling, Nathalie put a hand on Ronnie's chest; pushed him off her so that he stood up on his own; puffed out her cheeks as she got to her feet and waited a moment so as not to topple over as everything spun around her. She didn't care that her head was now pounding like crazy, as if she had been hit with a sledgehammer, and that she was going to get a huge bump on her forehead in the next few hours. No one had seen this coming. One did not have to put up with everything. The bloody nose and the reaction to it had been worth all the pain.

Reaching the top of the forest path, Nathalie turned back to the clearing when someone called her name and saw Ronnie pointing back and forth between his eyes and hers with his index and middle fingers spread, and Nathalie knew he wouldn't let that stand, she should be careful and get this back. You always meet twice in life.

On the best way to become the closest of friends.

•••

Immediately, Nathalie took a few steps back with her index fingers raised, almost to the wall, after there was a knock and Ronnie entered the room. Definitely sooner than expected. Well, actually, she hadn't had a specific time in mind, but not now.

"Come on, relax," despite what Ronnie would say, Nathalie didn't make the slightest effort to change her position, "Do you really think I'm going to break every bone in your body for that little nosebleed? If I had seriously wanted to return the favor, it would have happened immediately, not now, after the fact. Sometime in the distant future. Better to do it now and be done with it. Fast, simple and effective action. No delay to allow your counterpart to prepare. Whatever your intentions for your stay, you won't "die" in the process.

"Says the Marine who hasn't or can't do anything else for ages," Nathalie replied tensely, lowering her arms in slow motion and keeping an unblinking eye on Ronnie, especially when he makes a move, no matter how small, "None of you seem particularly normal to me. Starting with Hurley and ending with you. What kind of shit has to happen to a person before they're like you guys? The gun thing is already pretty fucked up."

"This is not about who suffered what trauma after another. In his day, Hurley was one of the best. Now he's supposed to train the best through his years of experience and prepare them for what most in the FBI or CIA aren't prepared for," Ronnie began, sitting on a corner of the table in the middle and putting his hands in his lap from where he looked at Nathalie, "We're ghosts, according to Hurley. It's all about acting before anyone notices. Especially with terrorism, that's what Hurley's program was originally created for. It didn't stop there. A basic-trained cop wouldn't survive long. Without what you call this fucked up way, nobody would. CIA or FBI?"

"Neither," a voice in Nathalie's head laughed, "CIA, FBI or Homeland, no thanks, private security.

"I guess the government is one of your biggest clients and supporters," Nathalie said directly, at the first try, a bull's-eye that she never expected and never thought she would hear from Ronnie, "From what I've seen of you so far, I guess basic police training, otherwise your job is completely different. Because your self-defense is absolutely for the ass. No offense, but Hurley wouldn't keep or tolerate someone like you around here."

"Forcedwhatever. A huge security company whose employees have no training in security and no idea about self-defense does not make a good impression and so it became mandatory," this training was not so bad in itself, but not when you were forced to do it, because it was about your job, no matter how well you had been doing it for years and additionally had to reach a certain score at the end so that the standard was right, "no matter if in the police, CIA, FBI, Homeland or any other government security form. Since I didn't want to be in the field anyway and had long since specialized, it was a waste of time for me, so I chose the shortest one. What else do you need to know about me?"

As Ronnie listened and looked down, a grin finally spread across his face at Nathalie's question. Something will be found.