But Alexei wasn’t any enemy; he was the first enemy. The one I’d outgrown, the one I’d stopped being afraid of a long time ago when larger monsters entered my sights . . . but still the first. The one whose gaze had prickled me as I pulled a five-year-old Slavka away from him at the shooting range, the one who made me think perhaps it would be just as well if I learned to shoot. Not only so I had a father’s skills to teach my son someday, but if the moment came to defend us. Well. Here it was. Die here, and Alexei would try his best to swan home a hero and claim my son.
