The air was cold, dry, and smelled like gunpowder.

  Rows of empty lanes stretched into the white-tinted lit distance, lit by overhead lights. The walls were padded, sound-proofed, and stained faintly with age and echo. Every few seconds, the pop of a round in the distance. Echoes bouncing in the metal and rubber like ghosts.

  Natalie stood in one of the far lanes, alone. Carrying what felt like the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  She wore dark jeans and a leather jacket zipped halfway up. Her long blonde hair was tied back. The yellow-tinted safety goggles covered her eyes. Over her ears—heavy black noise-dampening headphones. She looked calm, but her jaw was tight.

  In her hands, a small, sleek 9mm pistol. Borrowed from the shooting range. A simple, utilitarian tool—not polished, not flashy. A weapon made for action, not show.

  She exhaled slowly. Brought the pistol up.

  THUMP. Her stance was grounded. Legs slightly bent. Elbows steady.

  She lined up the iron sights.

  Target: A silhouette of a man. Center mass.

  Natalie blinked once. Her hand trembled for a second—just for a second. Then steadied.

  BANG.

  A shell popped from the chamber, clattered to the floor.

  BANG. BANG.

  Her shoulders jerked slightly with each shot, but she held her stance. Muzzle flash lit her goggles in bursts.

  The paper target jumped, torn in the gut.

  She lowered the gun slightly, breathing hard. Steam came off her lips in the cold air.

  She was shaking. But not with fear.

  She looked at the holes she'd just made—grouped tightly, center mass. Better than her last set. Her fingers flexed. She could feel the rhythm coming together.

  This was control. This was the focus.

  She wasn’t running anymore.

  Natalie reloaded the pistol, slamming the magazine into the grip with a clean motion. She yanked the slide back, chambering the next round.

  This time, she didn’t hesitate. She lined the sights again—tighter stance, sharper breath.

  BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.

  Brass shells rained at her feet. The smell of metal and heat rose around her like smoke.

  Each shot is closer to the heart.

  She exhaled and lowered the gun again.

  ***

  The morning mist had burned away by the time Kazou and Wojciech returned from the woods. The training left a strange quiet between them — not uncomfortable, but weighty, like two men standing at the edge of something unspoken. The old hunting ground behind them was no longer just a place for wild boar and rusted targets. It had become something else. A place of acknowledgment.

  They walked in silence past the frozen rows of cabbage, through the skeletal orchard, back toward the house where the quiet hum of life had resumed. The smell of woodsmoke lingered in the air.

  Inside the house, Marek was laughing to himself in the kitchen, peeling potatoes with a blunt knife. Wojciech watched through the window, face unreadable.

  “I don’t let him handle anything sharper than that, though he already has handled something sharper,” he muttered, almost to himself. “His mother left in 92' when I told her my secret...”

  Kazou stood beside him, his breath still fogging faintly in the cold. His coat smelled faintly of gunpowder and pine. He didn’t say anything. Not yet.

  Wojciech turned toward him slowly, eyes harder now. “You know, you still don’t look like a killer.”

  Kazou blinked, surprised by the suddenness of it. “I’m not.”

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  “That’s good,” Wojciech said, nodding once, like a judge making a note in a file. “Scientists… they invent things. You people create. You save lives. Change the world. Or so I hear.”

  Kazou looked down. “That was the idea.”

  Wojciech smiled dryly, teeth barely showing. “Prove me wrong.”

  There was silence again.

  The older man reached into his coat and pulled out a flask, offered it wordlessly. Kazou took it and drank. The liquor burned. Something strong. Eastern. Old.

  They leaned against the wooden fence that overlooked the fields for a while, side by side—not as friends, not yet—but as men who had both seen things that could never be spoken of in rooms with too much light.

  After a long moment, Kazou broke the silence.

  “She left me a note,” he said. “Natalie.”

  Wojciech nodded slowly. “I figured.”

  “She thinks I’m wanted for murder.”

  “You might be,” Wojciech said without irony.

  Kazou flinched, but not visibly. His jaw tightened. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “I believe you,” Wojciech said. “But belief doesn’t mean shit when someone’s got a badge and a photograph.”

  They both stared out at the yard. Marek had run outside now, reaching for the flowers. Laughing like only children could — full-bodied, careless laughter. Pure and blind to the shadows in the grown-up world.

  Kazou watched him, then spoke slowly. “I met Casimir. Once. I didn’t understand what I was seeing until later. He was... beautiful. Horrible. He said things that made no sense at first. About memory. About fate. About a war inside the soul of man. And then he killed someone. Just like that. Calm. Smiling.”

  Wojciech’s hands tightened on the railing. “You ever look a man in the eyes while he dies?”

  Kazou didn’t answer.

  “That’s what monsters do, you know. They watch. Not out of cruelty. Curiosity.”

  Kazou turned to him. “You think he’s a monster?”

  Wojciech shrugged. “I don’t know what he is. But whatever he is… he’s not done yet.”

  Kazou’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, people like that — they don’t leave bodies for attention. They leave them to say something.”

  Kazou felt a tremor run through his ribs. A quiet panic. “Another man... He was Casimir's assistant or something, said I would witness something. That Natalie and I… would be Casimir's chosen.”

  Wojciech spat into the grass. “Then the bastard thinks you’re part of his little opera.”

  Kazou nodded. “I think he wants to prove something. To someone. Or maybe just to himself.”

  “And what do you want?”

  The question landed heavily.

  Kazou didn’t answer immediately. His breath caught.

  “I want to stop him,” he said at last. “Before more people get hurt. Before he turns Natalie into whatever he sees in her. Before he rewrites her.”

  Wojciech was silent for a long time. Then:

  “She’s important to you.”

  Kazou nodded once.

  Wojciech looked away again, eyes scanning the horizon like an old soldier counting the days between wars.

  “I used to know men like Casimir,” he said at last. “They looked normal. Charming. Genius, even. But they had one thing missing inside. A compass. And when you take that away from a man, it doesn’t matter how much science he knows. All that brilliance turns into rot.”

  Kazou didn’t move.

  Then Wojciech stood straight and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll stay here a few more days. Rest. Eat. We’ll get you clean clothes. I’ll give you more time on the range. But then you go. You go and find him.”

  “Wojciech,” Kazou said suddenly, “why are you helping me?”

  The older man kept silent for a few seconds. Then he exhaled through his nose — a dry, almost amused sound. “Because you remind me of someone,” he said. “And because I’ve seen what happens when no one helps men like you.”

  Kazou gave him a sidelong glance. “Someone like me?”

  “I knew a boy once,” he said slowly. “Years ago. Warsaw. He lived in a tenement with his grandmother. Quiet type. Never caused trouble. But one day, the local boys beat him bloody for saying something strange at school. Something about death not being real. Something about numbers. I found him afterward. Sitting on the curb. Covered in blood and chalk dust. You know what he said to me?”

  Kazou shook his head. Wojciech’s face darkened.

  “He asked if I could kill them for him.” He stared at the horizon. “I didn’t. But someone did. Days later, two of those boys were found. Throats slit. The other disappeared.”

  “Who was it?” Kazou asked.

  Wojciech didn’t answer. But his silence spoke. “I didn’t know who he was back then,” the man went on, quieter now. “Just a kid. An innocent boy who wanted to erase his vision of 'evil'.”

  Kazou’s brow furrowed. “And you… You were a hitman at that time?”

  Wojciech gave a low chuckle. “Yes... But I couldnt kill at the request of a child... I just couldn't. My leader said so. No killing without asking him first. I was born into a Poland that wasn’t free. Then raised by men who taught me that freedom came at a price. By the seventies, I was a name on no one’s record. Just a ghost. The kind of man the state uses when diplomacy fails.” He paused. “They trained us to kill quietly. Efficiently. But never carelessly.”

  Kazou studied him. “You’re not that man anymore.”

  Wojciech turned to him, the light fading from his face as the sun slipped beneath the trees. “No,” he said. “But that man is still inside me. And now… I keep him on a leash.”

  “Have you ever killed someone who didn’t deserve it?” Kazou asked.

  Wojciech’s jaw tightened. “More than once. And every time, I swore it would be the last.”

  Silence settled again between them, but this time it was heavier.

  "I'm so sorry..." Kazou muttered.

  “I want you to be careful,” he said. “Casimir isn’t just dangerous because he kills. He’s dangerous because he knows how to make people believe in him.”

  Kazou nodded. “I’ve seen it.”

  “Then you understand,” Wojciech murmured. “He’s not after power. Not in the way most men are. He’s killing to witness something, excluding everyone but you and Natalie. And men like that… they don’t fear death. They welcome it. They want to control it. Shape it.”

  Kazou looked down. The words settled in his chest like stones. “I’ll stop him,” he said quietly.

  Wojciech turned, and for the first time, there was something close to sympathy in his eyes. “I hope you do,” he said. “But when the time comes, I want you to remember something.” Kazou raised his eyes. “You’re not a killer, Kuroda,” Wojciech said. “You’re a scientist. A man who heals. A man who searches for truth. Don’t let him take that from you.”

  Wojciech opened the door. The warmth of the house spilled out. The smell of stew. Of life.

  “Come on,” Wojciech said with a soft grunt. “Before the boy eats it all.”

  They stepped inside together. Two men. One haunted by the past.