This one was really fun. It's a part I had cut from the original story because the training section was already so long.

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Chicken Little (mid-Shadow Directive)

This takes place during one of Henley's training sessions after she comes back from her near-drowning.

He said it was going to be fun. That it's the best kind of high to jump off something without a harness, just trusting yourself and your training and not totally sure you'll make it. He lied.

Come on! You'd be dead if we were in a real situation.

Clint is currently perched on an impossibly narrow ledge of a building in the simulation room that's almost ten feet away from me. For him, that's not even that long of a jump; he went over almost three minutes ago with as much ease as if he was walking.

Stop telling me that! I know, okay!

I'm so fed up with that same reason, probably because I know he's a hundred percent right. I'm out of breath-still-even though I've been gauging that jump in my mind from a standstill for what seems like forever.

You'll never make it with a standing start. Back up and take a run at it. We're only five feet off the ground anyway.

The way they make this floor looks like it's twenty-five stories.

I have no idea how they painted that, or if it's some kind of Star Trek level holographic projection, but I could swear I'm standing on one of the skyscrapers I used to pass all the time back home. I can even feel wind in my hair thanks to a pair of fans that move throughout the room on a ceiling track to simulate conditions for sniper training.

It's all in your head, just push through it.

Easy for you to say. You have no sense of safety.

And you're just a chicken.

The second Clint's hands form that sign I feel a bubbling anger in my stomach. That's what the kids in school used to call me, because my odd name could be shortened to "Hen". It got unbearable.

I channel that old resentment, back off, and then race toward the edge of the "roof". I'm going to have to vault myself onto a parapet that rises about a foot from the flat roof, and then use that to give myself an extra boost and launch myself to the other side. At least, that's what it looked like Clint did, he was moving too fast for me to be sure.

For one perfect moment, I can see myself making it. I imagine myself in one of those old spy movies I used to love, the James Bond series or Mission Impossible. I feel like I'm watching from outside my body when I spring onto the ledge in what I think looks like a pretty sexy, graceful move. And then I hit the wall.

I'm hanging onto the ledge by my fingertips, wondering how I had the presence of mind to grab on when I knew I wouldn't make it. Then Clint's hands grip my upper arms and he's dragging me forcefully onto the roof. Good Lord, I forgot how strong he is. He's lifting me like I'm paper.

I'm lying on the tar-paper roof, panting and trying to breathe again after smacking chest-first into a solid wall, with Clint leaning over me and laughing.

"I never seen anything so funny in my life. You had this real serious look on your face but you were flailing around like a discombobulated frog during the whole jump. And the look on your face when you realized you weren't gonna make it-it was better than those cat fail YouTube videos."

I may not be able to breathe, but I somehow manage to snark back. "You watch those things?"

"Cats are so dumb. Always reminds me why I prefer dogs."

I'm sure he thinks he's successfully distracted me from his earlier comment that made me so mad. But I am not going to let it go that fast. I brush away the hand he offers me and stagger to my feet under my own power. Granted, I look as wobbly as a bar stool with a missing leg, but I DO NOT need his help.

"If you ever call me Chicken again I swear I will strangle you with your own bowstring." I'm trying to look angry but I guess it looks the same as my ridiculous determined face because Clint smirks.

"Ok, fine, Chick."

"Clint! That is WORSE! Just stop it!" I'm probably turning redder than a tomato, but at this point who cares?

"Okay, how 'bout 'Mother Hen'?"

NO! I'm moving before I know it and my leg sweeps out and trips him. It would be fine if he hadn't been standing right next to the edge. Next thing I know he's on his back on that weird floor, and now I'm the one laughing and jumping down to land in a semi-graceful crouch-although really, after what he just said, do I really just look like an idiot when I try to be badass?-and give him a hand up.

If you ever call me one of those names again, I will do the same thing and it may not be in a simulation room.

Ok, point taken. I'll only call you names in safe places.

What are you supposed to say to that? I decide it's better to say nothing at all. I know he's found something to antagonize me and he's going to remember it for some time when I'm least expecting it. But I really don't care. It's the kind of thing friends do-drive each other crazy but not really mean it. We might be at each other's throat but we'll always have each other's back.

Let's hit the showers.

I'm more than ready to agree to that suggestion. We walk off together, Clint limping slightly where he must have landed on his hip, me limping real bad where my landing smacked my foot. I feel a smile creeping across my lips. Maybe, impossibly, we might be becoming friends. Heaven Forbid.

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I couldn't resist doing this when I was telling someone about Henley's name and they said, "It's a cool name, but it would be really easy to make some really annoying nicknames out of." It just seemed like something Clint would totally do, especially in the early days.