Pest Control, page 3
Rhys shrugged. “Kinda? It should feel like it’s the right weight and shape for your hands. Like you have a good, steady grip on it. Here, try pulling back the string a bit and tell me how it feels.”
With Rhys’s guidance, Everett tentatively pulled the bowstring until it couldn’t go any farther—until his arms shook at the sheer effort it took to hold it in position.
“I-it’s fine,” he said through gritted teeth, clearly not fine, and Rhys couldn’t help the giggle that burst out of his chest.
“Okay, maybe we are gonna need to adjust those settings a bit. Sorry, rookie. I think it still has the same settings on that I used when I tested it in the shop. But good on you for being able to at least pull it all of the way back.”
Everett sighed in relief when he handed the bow back to Rhys. “This is way harder than I thought it would be. You’re making me feel like a weakling.”
“Don’t feel bad about it,” Rhys consoled as he whipped out his handy screwdriver to tinker with the settings. “I’ve been doing this for years. If you keep at this, I’m sure you’ll be able to build enough strength and skill someday—ah, I think this should be better now. Okay, here, try it again.”
This time, when Everett pulled the bowstring back, his arms stayed steady and strong, able to hold the position without major discomfort for a good few minutes. He looked up at Rhys with a wide, prideful smile. “Look! Look, I’m doing it!”
“Hell yeah, you are!” Rhys cheered, patting him on the back. “You’re not going to be able to get as much power in the shot with these lower settings, but as long as you can aim properly to shoot right through the heart or lungs, it’ll be enough.”
For the next few minutes, Rhys demonstrated how to nock the arrow into the bow, explaining how crucial it was to make sure the arrow was secure before pulling the string back. Doing so with a loose arrow would have caused it to fall out and potentially scare away flighty prey. Everett listened with rapt attention, nodding along to the words though probably not understanding much of the hunting jargon. Thankfully, it seemed he was honoring his promise from earlier to be a good student, even asking clarifying questions that revealed minor yet important details Rhys hadn’t thought to go over.
Frankly, being able to handle a compound bow wasn’t the biggest achievement in the world—hell, some children could—but to Rhys, it felt as significant as successfully climbing Mount Everest when Everett confidently nocked an arrow all by himself. When he pulled it back, his hands were steady, making him look as much a seasoned pro as Rhys. He wondered in the back of his mind if this was how teachers felt when their students understood and actually cared about the knowledge passed on to them.
Though, when it was finally time for Everett to take his very first shot, the feeling was replaced with undeniable nerves. Holding his breath with his fingers crossed behind him, Rhys prayed Everett would at least be able to hit the outer portion of the target, knowing that not doing so could easily shatter his student’s confidence—
“Holy shit!”
It didn’t miss. Instead, the arrow pierced through the red dot in the center of the target, leaving Rhys’s jaw dropping, and Everett letting out a high-pitched yelp. He dropped the bow and ran over to Rhys to engulf him in a suffocating bear hug.
“Oh my fucking god! Rhys! Did you see that? Did you fucking see that?” Everett yelled in his ear. “It went all the way through! Damn, Rhys, I thought you said those lower settings would be weak, but fuck! I hit the middle circle thingy! Can you believe it?”
“A bullseye,” Rhys whispered, looking in awe at the target over Everett’s shoulder. The arrow was still there, proof that it had, in fact, actually happened. For months, when Rhys had first been learning the ways of the bow, he hadn’t hit a single bullseye. And yet, Everett had done it as though it was the simplest thing in the world.
“I told you I’d be the best student you’ve ever had.” Everett grinned smugly, pulling back. “Are you proud of me?”
“Are you really asking me that?” Rhys shook his head before looking up at Everett with a smile. “Of course I am. Fuck, more than just proud. Everett, are you sure you’ve never used a bow before?”
“Nope,” he replied. “Never ever in my life, I swear.”
Rhys shook his head again in disbelief. “You really are something else.”
★
At first, Rhys considered it beginner’s luck—and maybe the fact that he had been such a thorough teacher—that Everett had managed to hit a bullseye on his first try.
But when the days of bow training flew by and his student still hadn’t missed a single shot—not even when Rhys introduced greater distances and obstacles in the way—it had become quite obvious that Everett’s raw talent deserved far beyond the simple excuse of beginner’s luck.
A prodigy, Rhys called him, and rightly so.
With nothing much else to teach Everett about using a compound bow, Rhys decided to move his student onto the next aspect of hunting within a week rather than the three he had originally planned. Though, much to Rhys’s immense disappointment, Everett wasn’t exactly a well-rounded prodigy.
“I hate this,” Everett complained with a huff. “I thought you said that this was going to be easy! I’m so bored, and it’s so cold! Why are we out here in the rain for so long?”
“Well, how was I supposed to know that you have the patience of an absolute child?” Rhys whisper-yelled, giving a sharp elbow to Everett’s side that had him letting out a pained yelp. “We’ve literally only been sitting here for less than an hour, Everett. That’s barely any time at all. Almost all of my hunts have me camping out for days before I even see a glimpse of a deer, so you better get used to it. And it’s barely raining, which we can’t even feel because of the trees.”
“But why do we need to wait for the deer to come to us? Why can’t we just go, I don’t know, track one down? Wouldn’t that be easier? I’m not even learning anything; we’re just sitting here.”
Rhys rubbed at his temples. Even though it wasn’t even noon yet, he was beginning to feel a wicked headache brewing.
“Listen here,” he said. “I know you think you’re hot shit after shooting all of those bullseyes, but just that doesn’t make a good hunter. Patience does. And that’s what I’m teaching you today. How to be quiet, how to make a blind, how to camouflage, how to use bait, and how to be fucking patient.”
“Oh, whatever.” Everett scoffed. “Patience shmatience. That wasn’t even an answer to my question. Why can’t we just track the deer?”
“You’re being such a brat right now, you know?” Rhys grumbled. “Yes, sometimes it can be easier to track down prey rather than wait for them. But, since it’s getting close to winter, they’re trying to eat as much as possible. So, they’re harder to track and easier to lure when they’re moving around so much. Hence, the apples.”
Rhys gestured to the large pile of apples set out beyond their bush blind, glistening with raindrops. “Just trust me, okay? I know what I’m doing.”
“Trust shmust.”
“Oh my god, stop doing that!” Rhys groaned, throwing his head back. “Can you please stop arguing with me and be quiet? You’re probably scaring all of the deer away, and I can’t focus with you blabbing!”
Everett huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t smell any deer, but whatever. I’ll shut up.”
He stayed quiet for almost a good two hours of precious silence, leaning back against the tree and doodling in the mud with a stick. It reminded Rhys of himself as a child—forced to spend hours listening to the preacher babble at church every single Sunday, a quite boring affair that had been barely alleviated by him sketching all over his children’s copy of the Bible. So, he understood. His mother had always been so immersed in the service, just as he was with the forest, attuned perfectly to every sound, scent, and movement.
Although there was no way he would even think about packing up early for Everett’s sake, he still felt a twinge of pity for him.
But thankfully, Everett wouldn’t have to wait much longer. Around sixty yards in the distance, Rhys caught the slight movement of the tree branches and the soft snap of hooves stepping on a stick. Somewhere out there, a deer stood hidden behind the thick foliage, seemingly deciding whether or not to take the risk to step into the small clearing where the pile of enticing apples lay.
Rhys narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the shape of its body, which wasn’t an easy task since the dark clouds didn’t leave enough light to contrast fur from leaves. Combined with the distance, there was no way he’d be able to make a good shot. He needed the deer to emerge in order to aim correctly for its vital organs, or even hit it at all. Which meant they’d have to be absolutely silent for it to feel safe enough to do so.
Nerves buzzed underneath Rhys’s skin as he remembered how important this kill was. They might not get another chance like this one, not if winter came early. He tried his best to take in deep, long breaths, hoping his hands would stay steady. He could do this. The deer just needed to take a few more steps, and he would be golden.
“Hey, Rhys,” Everett stage-whispered, shaking him by the shoulders. “Can we take a lunch break?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Rhys regarded him with a glare. Couldn’t Everett see he was trying to focus? That there was a deer right in front of them?
“Not right now,” Rhys hissed as quietly as possible, raising his finger to his mouth and making a shh sound.
He trained his eyes on the area again, watching as the deer barely poked its head out from behind a tree to scan the area. It was only a doe, no giant buck as he’d hoped. He normally didn’t shoot does, but he was desperate, and this one was old and large enough that he had no qualms about it; she must have gone through multiple fawning seasons already.
Carefully, he lifted his crossbow and slowly nocked in an arrow. Any second now, she would step farther into view, and then he would be able to line up his shot.
“But I’m so hungry; we had breakfast, like, five hours ago,” Everett whined. “Oh, wait, didn’t you pack some rabbit jerky in your bag?”
Rhys’s body, and the doe’s, tensed as still as statues at the sound of Everett talking and unzipping his backpack.
“Everett, don’t you fucking dare—”
“Relax, I won’t make you look for it. You just keep staring at those apples, and I’ll eat; don’t worry! Now, where is that little baggie… Ugh, Rhys, why is there so much damn stuff in here? It’s like you packed everything in the cabin.”
As Everett rifled through the bag, all of the tools inside clanged against one another and bags of medical supplies crinkled, creating a symphony of chaos that had the doe taking a step back to hide behind the tree again. Rhys’s breath picked up at the worry that she was about to bolt. He really, really wanted to curse and smack the shit out of Everett, but that would only cause the doe to be even more fearful.
Combined with the pitter-patter of rain, all of the noises affected his own anxiety as well. He couldn’t focus on calming himself down when all he could think about was his anger at Everett, the pressure of needing to aim perfectly, his own hunger, the exhaustion from sitting out there for hours, the fear that the doe would run away, the fear of starving, and all of those fucking noises. It was too much, way too much for him to handle, making him so anxious his vision blurred and his hands shook as he pulled back the bowstring.
“Rhys, I can’t find it—”
His complaining was cut off by the sound of the doe kicking at the foliage and the whirr of a desperate arrow shooting at nothing and only succeeding in impaling a tree.
“Goddamn it!” Rhys screamed as he fell onto his ass, tugging at his hair violently. “I could’ve had that! Fuck!
“Wait, was that actually a deer?” Everett asked with eyes widened in disbelief. His gaze flickered back and forth between the forest and Rhys, who had begun to rock back and forth and hyperventilate. “Oh shit… Rh-Rhys, um, hey, a-are you okay?”
Rhys didn’t—couldn’t—respond to him verbally. He couldn’t even hear the words, not with the loud ringing in his ears. He tried his best to remember the coping strategies he’d learned years ago from his therapist, but he couldn’t get his breathing under control, which only added to his panic. Panic. He was having a fucking panic attack, something he’d only experienced a couple of times since he’d moved to the forest. He thought he had been getting better, but no. No, he hadn’t, at all. He was the same old Rhys who couldn’t handle his emotions. He could never escape, no matter how hard he tried.
A hand gingerly touched his shoulder, warm and familiar. Words were being spoken at him in a voice just as familiar. He tried his best to latch on to the sensations, to ground himself in reality, yet he was already much too overwhelmed with the world swirling around him to be able to. He could only sit there in the pouring rain, shivering and covered in mud, forced to endure and wait out the storm raging inside him for what felt like hours of torture until he could finally shove the touch away, his body unable to sustain the panic state any longer.
“G-get off me!” Rhys exclaimed. “Don’t f-fucking touch me!”
Everett let out an oof as he fell into the mud, splashing it all over the both of them. “Rhys, what—I was just trying to help you!”
“Help me? Help me? Really?” Rhys scoffed as he stumbled onto trembling, weak legs. “Fuck you, Everett, you weren’t helping me at all!”
Everett blinked. “I…wasn’t? But I thought the touching was helping you calm down—”
“You’re the damn reason I was panicking in the first place! And now the reason we are going to starve because you couldn’t just listen to me for one second!”
“I-I—” Everett shrank under Rhys’s sharp glare as if pinned to the spot. “I’m sorry?”
“‘Sorry’ doesn’t cut it,” Rhys snapped.
He didn’t like the frightened look on Everett’s face—didn’t like that he was the cause of it—but the anger and frustration that bubbled inside of him was hard to ignore, hard to suppress. In his rage, he picked up his bow from the ground, snapping one of his arrows in the process.
“Now this spot is ruined. No deer will come back here. And this day is ruined too. Goddamn it!”
In the cold autumn air, Rhys’s heavy breaths puffed from his nose like torrents of smoke from an angry dragon. And even though he was almost a whole head shorter than Everett, in his rage, he seemed to tower over the poor man. Everett couldn’t even meet Rhys’s sharp eyes as he cowered in clear shame and guilt.
“I’m sorry, Rhys” was all Everett managed to say, yet again, his voice warbling as if he was seconds away from crying and rolling over onto his back to present his stomach like a dog.
“Stop fucking saying that,” Rhys snarled.
He grabbed his bow, and Everett’s, shoved them violently into his bag, and left the broken arrow lying pathetically in the mud—a complete waste of an arrow he had crafted so perfectly.
“‘Sorry’ doesn’t put food on the table. You better not fucking complain about dinner tonight because I swear to god if you even dare to after today—” He cut himself off with a shake of his head. “Come on; let’s go on home now. We have other shit to take care of.”
Rhys didn’t give Everett a chance to reply nor gather all of his things before he started trudging back toward the cabin. He walked so quickly Everett could barely keep up, limping behind him.
Chapter Four
Dinner that night was a tense affair.
The two hunters—failed hunters—were both starving after a very long, trying day. Yet, after they had scraped their bowls clean of fish stew, their bellies still rumbled quite loudly. Technically, there’d been enough for them to gorge themselves on, but without the safety net of the deer he’d hoped to bring back today, Rhys had to enforce the rationing policy, lest they die of starvation halfway through the upcoming winter. He had expected some sort of complaint from the ever-hungry Everett when he set down a half-full bowl. But after the events of earlier that day, the brat seemed to have diminished into a shell of the energetic, needy man he’d been only hours prior.
Not a single word had been spoken over their meal, the sounds of Everett’s slurping and Rhys’s spoon clinking against the wooden bowl echoing in the small cabin. Everett winced every time he made a bit of noise and looked guiltily at Rhys as if deathly afraid of being reprimanded again.
“Here, I-I’ll take care of the dishes tonight” were the first rushed-out words Everett said all evening as he took the bowl from Rhys. Though, before Rhys could thank him, Everett had already scurried away to the sink in the blink of an eye.
Rhys was still angry, rage and disappointment simmering low in his stomach. In the last few hours, he’d had time to calm himself enough to a see he’d majorly fucked up, just as much as Everett. Sure, Everett had messed up the hunt, but Rhys had been way out of bounds for throwing what was, basically, a temper tantrum like a child denied his dessert. It wouldn’t bring the deer back, after all, and had probably scared even more potential prey away from the area.
He loathed the look on Everett’s face, how he walked on eggshells in order to not set Rhys off again and seemed as if he was about to grovel for his forgiveness. Rhys had never been good at apologizing, so it took two whole hours into the night before he finally decided to cut through the thick tension in the air.
“Everett,” Rhys started. His gravelly voice startled the man seated with him—yet quite far apart from him—in front of the roaring fireplace.
“Y-yeah? Do you need something?”
And that hurt too—that Everett automatically defaulted to being, in a way, Rhys’s obedient slave.
“That’s— No, I don’t need something.” Rhys shook his head, gazing straight into the flames. “I wanted to apologize. For earlier, for how I acted. I didn’t… I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I didn’t mean to scare you? Yeah. You don’t have to forgive me, but just know that I… I don’t know. I feel bad about it. I thought I had better control over myself than that. I shouldn’t have taken my anxiousness out on you. But please don’t be scared of me, not like everyone else. Please.”
