Hello, everyone!
Thanks to everyone who wrote a review, and to all new followers!
I'm going on vacation, so the new chapter will be in about two weeks :-)
Always happy to get advice and comments!
"Are you kidding me?" Emmett made big eyes when he heard her words.
"No. I'm going to participate in shooting competitions." Bella said.
"Do you know how to shoot?" Emmett asked looking at her as if she admitted that she arrived from another planet.
"Yes, I do." Bella nodded. "As I said before, the trigger is pressed with a finger and not..."
"I remember." Emmett interrupted her with laughter. "I just can't imagine you with a rifle. You are very similar to my sister, and she can't stand guns. When my father and I returned from hunting with prey, she did everything to distract us so that we went out and she could bury it. Father bellowed like a wounded grizzly then!"
"Do I look like your sister?" Bella was surprised.
"Yeah. Very much so. She's very smart and always falls too." Emmett said. "She was bullied in school because she's so... Well, a real nerd, in general. That was until I got to know that and beat the bullies down. Nerds, they are humans too, just... smart."
"Emmett, not only you're a gentleman, but also a thinker." Bella smiled, thinking that, perhaps, because of the similarity with his sister, McCarthy takes care of her as well.
"By the way, I became an uncle." Emmett said happily. "My sister gave birth to a boy. When he grows up, he'll be a baseball player too!"
"Maybe he'll be a nerd." Bella laughed.
"He won't. He yells as our coach already and tries to reach for a bat!" Emmett said. "They showed him to me on Skype!"
After another long and slumberous lecture about technical characteristics of the tank "Abrams" Bella decided to take the card to make a call home, but she was stopped near the phone box by Two-Face.
"Recruit Swan, are you familiar with webcam settings?" She asked.
"Yes, ma'am." Bella replied.
"Then follow me." Sergeant Young ordered and Bella dutifully hobbled along the corridor after drill instructor.
"Come in." Two-Face said when they entered the barracks, and opened the front door of her cabin.
Bella had never been in drill instructor's cabin but heard from Zafrina that its walls have lots of photos from Afghanistan, though there wasn't any photo with D.I. herself.
"There is a picture, but no sound." Two-Face said, pointing at the laptop on a table. "Fix it."
"Yes, ma'am." Bella nodded and sat on a chair in front of the computer.
A man in the uniform could be seen on the laptop screen. He was also sitting at the table in a darkened room and silently opened his mouth, trying to show something with gestures at the same time. Bella fumbled wuth the settings, checked the connection but found no problems.
"I don't know what wrong's, ma'am." She said. "Perhaps, it's easier to make a phone call."
"I know that it's easier. But he's in Iraq, not in the neighboring state." Two-Face angrily muttered.
Bella immediately realized that it was probably the same Uley, who Sergeant Young asked about yesterday on the phone. Meanwhile, the guy on the screen took a sheet of paper, quickly wrote something on it and brought it to the camera.
After reading the inscription, Bella realized that she saw more than she should.
In large letters on the sheet was written: "Sgt Young, will you marry me?"
Two-Face stilled for a moment after reading it and then looked at Bella and said.
"I should have done everything myself."
"I won't tell anyone, ma'am." Bella assured her, trying not to smile with all her forces, but Sergeant Young waved and took a sheet, also wrote something on it and brought it to the camera.
Uley laughed happily and showed off to the side a sign "okay", and then a crowd of strong guys in the uniform jumped to the screen. They raised Uley on his chair and began to congratulate him, waving at the camera.
"Idiots." Two-Face gently said. "And this is our best snipers… Swan, you're free." She told Bella.
Bella rose from her chair and out of the corner of her eye she saw the sheet that Sergeant Young showed Uley. There were only two words written: "Yes, Gunny."
Two-Face followed her gaze and repeated more persistently.
"You're free, Swan!"
"I beg your pardon, ma'am." Bella said and after a moment of thinking, she added. "Congratulations, ma'am."
Two-Face smiled wryly and said. "Thank you, Swan. But that is a military secret. Blurt it out and you'll go to the Tribunal."
Trying to get rid of the image in her head of Sergeant Young in a white dress with a veil and a rifle, which sticks out from the barrel of the bride's bouquet, Bella decided to finish what she started and to call home, until the lecture begins.
Renee answered the call.
"Hey, Mom!" Bella said and started to look for decent words to describe her life in the Marines, but then she heard hysterical sobs. "Mom? What happened?"
"Your father's got a mistress!" Renee issued through her tears. "Scoundrel!"
Bella didn't know what to say. It wasn't worth, probably, to remind Renee that she cheated first, with Phil, before the eyes of entire Forks.
"And it would be okay if it was some slut from the bar. Or Amanda Stevens. She's like a rubber woman, it would be shameful to be jealous to her." Renee continued to strike with her own special logic. "But he... He sleeps with Sue Clearwater! With the widow of his best friend! And this man was re-elected as sheriff of Forks again! He's the one that should be arrested by the vice squad! We aren't still divorced, by the way, and he..." Renee tragically sobbed. "Bedhopper!"
Stunned Bella didn't know what to say about it. Is Charlie dating Sue? Of course, they always spent a lot of time together, especially after Harry's death. But Bella was sure that only friendship and fond memories of untimely departed loved one connected them.
"Now I understand what he wanted! He avenged to me! Made me believe that he loves me and want to return! And now he throws me away when I'm having his baby!" Renee sobbed.
"And the baby is his?" Bella failed to keep amazement to herself. "But what about Phil?"
"Phil may be the father of the baby as well! But he will surely make a paternity test! Laura Morgan saw me with Charlie and denounced him everything!" Renee cried. "How could he do this to me! Never trust men, Bella! They always need only one thing from woman!"
Bella thought that if you offer men only one thing, you will be used only for this then, but instead she said.
"Everything will be okay, Mom. You will still get the money for your child, no matter who turns out to be a father. Sorry, I must go. I have a lecture."
"Bella..." As if suddenly Renee awakened. "How are you doing?"
"I'm fine." Bella replied. "I've killed three talibans already."
"Very well," Inattentive Renee said, who having asked a question, as always, didn't bother to listen to the answer. "Good luck, dear."
"Yeah, thank you. You too" Bella said and hung up.
"Swan! It is fifteen minutes before the lecture! Get your ass in the audience!" Passing Sergeant Carmen Rodriguez shouted. "And pull up your pants! They hang like you took a shit in them!"
"Yes, Ma'am!" Bella happily responded and, quickly moving with crutches, skipped to the lecture, pulling up her pants on the go.
"Why are you so content?" Zafrina asked when Bella sat beside her at the table, beaming.
"I'm not at home!" Bella happily breathed.
"I would have liked to be at home." Bree said softly and looked at straight as an arrow Victoria. "I'm afraid of her..."
"Don't worry, baby," Zafrina smiled, putting a hand on Bree's shoulder. "We won't let this bitch hurt you!"
After the lecture, they all went to the training ground. Today recruits had the first lesson of handling weapons.
Standing there, Bella felt willies throughout her body. Today she told Emmett confidently that she was going to participate in shooting competitions. But she had no idea how other recruits from her platoon shoot.
"Zaf, do you know how to shoot?" Bella asked her comrade.
"With a gun." Zafrina said. "It isn't safe in my neighborhood to leave the house without gun, there is a chance you don't come back home in one piece."
Sergeant Young and two other drill instructors showed them the structure of M16 rifle, which they already have seen at the lecture, and then quickly moved on to the practical exercises.
The first five recruits shot so bad that Bella relaxed slightly, and the hurricane in her stomach began to subside.
Finally there is something she can do not worse, but even better than the others, perhaps!
"Recruit Reno! Enter the position!" Two-Face ordered, who in spite of her engagement was just as harsh and severe.
Not looking at anyone, Victoria took the rifle and lay down on the ground, placing it on the palm with familiar gesture. Her hands weren't trembling, knees and heels were firmly pressed to the ground, and her left hand held forend tightly.
"Fire!" Two-Face ordered.
Victoria didn't flinch, fired, and the whole platoon groaned.
"Fucking hell! Is she a human being at all?" Maggie from Kansas said in shock.
Bella looked at the target and realized that she'll get the first place in the competition only in case of Victoria's sudden abduction by aliens.
Recruit Reno shot right in the heart of the "enemy's" torso.
Expression of almost rage instead of rapture appeared on Young's face.
"Stand up, Recruit Reno!" She demanded.
Victoria rose and stood before her, stretched out in attention.
"Recruit Reno," Sergeant Young said surprisingly quiet and because of this even more ominously. "Who got you prepared?"
"What do you mean, ma'am?" Victoria asked, not at all frightened by her sudden aggression.
"Answer the commander's question, recruit!" Two-Face barked. "Who trained you? I've been watching you for a long time, Reno, and I've read your file. Orphanage, three foster families. You worked as a waitress after high school. There's no mention of any special training. But I know very well where teach to shoot like that. And I want to hear from you where you got all those skills. Tell me, Reno, or I'll turn you over to the military police and have them interrogate you."
The whole platoon froze in amazement, and Victoria reluctantly answered:
"I was trained by a Chief Petty Officer of the Navy SEAL."