Chương 24: Someone She Was Afraid Of

Six's original hunch that the hit on Claire had something to do with her father's family grew stronger once they went through the scrapbooks. She mumbled under her breath a lot but he heard it all.

Her mother's birth name and the name she was using at the time of her death were different. That was highly suspicious. If he had to guess, she was probably hiding from Claire's father.

But what did he know? That was what he thought based on a lifetime of seeing families take out hits on each other for the sake of money. He didn't understand the concept of a family bound together by love instead of blood.

After looking through those scrapbooks it seemed that both Claire and her mother had been raised in the kind of family forged through love that she had talked about before. He wondered what that sort of childhood would have been like.

The kind with holidays, toys, and trips. That world was so far from what he had experienced that he couldn't quite fathom it.

Six sort of hoped that this wouldn't be over before Halloween because he wanted the chance to experience a holiday Claire's way. He doubted she would let him stick around once the imminent threat had passed.

It had taken quite a bit of observation but the conclusion he came to about her changed behavior before and after she was aware of his protection was that she was afraid. Not only of being killed but of him specifically.

Watching so much TV the past week had helped him get a feel for body language and emotions. Claire had to provide context frequently because he didn't understand why the characters were acting the way they were but that helped him reach his conclusion.

He supposed he couldn't really blame her. He had been sent to kill her originally and had broken into her house multiple times.

Six wished she wasn't afraid of him though. He wasn't quite sure why that mattered to him but his chest felt tight whenever he noticed a fearful response from her. He had never cared what anyone thought of him before.

Claire was different. As his only friend he wanted her to like him. She was interesting and fun to be around, which was a far cry from every other person he had ever known. He didn't care who thought he was scary aside from her.

He had to prove that he wasn't a threat to her. But how? He wasn't good with words. All he really had was actions.

Hadn't he done a decent job so far? Saving her life multiple times, wanting to learn more about her, and giving her advice on how to better protect herself. He was doing his best here but she was still afraid of him!

"What are you doing?" Six asked.

Claire was pulling out a whole bunch of different food items and measuring them into a bowl. He had never seen anything like this before so he had no idea what she was supposed to be doing.

"I'm making sugar cookies! I'm going to show you how to decorate them once they're done. It'll give us something to do and a dessert so it's a win-win," she explained.

Decorate? He didn't know that word either. She had gotten a bit impatient about explaining word definitions to him after a while and showed him how to look them up on his phone.

Six searched for it and discovered that 'decorate' meant 'to make something look more attractive by adding extra items or images to it.' He didn't understand how that could be applied to a cookie so he simply watched Claire go.

He was mesmerized by her simple actions as she hummed to herself and seemed to dance around the kitchen getting different ingredients and adding them as if she had done this a million times before. It seemed that making cookies was as familiar to her as combat training was to him.

Eventually she cleaned off the table and covered it with something white before plopping the ball of dough on top of it and making it flat with some sort of wooden utensil. Once it was flat, she stepped back and beckoned him over.

"You can do this part with me," Claire informed him. "It's pretty easy. Push the cookie cutter down into the dough and shake it a little to make sure it cuts all the way through. Try to put them as close together as you can without overlapping, like this."

She showed him what to do as she talked, using oddly shaped metal or plastic objects that must be the cookie cutters she mentioned. Six took one a bit hesitantly but followed her lead and looked to her for approval after doing two.

Claire nodded so Six continued on, slightly pleased that he had managed to get it right on his first try. He kept going until all of the available space was filled then stood back so she could show him what to do next.

She used a different utensil to scoop the shapes off the table and onto a metal sheet that went into the oven. Then she balled up the remaining dough and rolled it flat again.

The two of them got back to cutting out shapes and she reminisced as they went. "My mom and I made these for nearly every holiday growing up. After she passed away I fell out of the habit for a while because there was no one to share them with but then I got into these royal icing cookie decorating videos and wanted to learn how to do them myself.

"That's what I'm going to be showing you how to do today. You have amazing motor control so you should be able to pick this up pretty quick. If not, you can still eat the ones I make so it's not a big deal. It took me a lot of practice to get it down."

Six was a little surprised that Claire wanted to show him something she used to do with her mom. Her wording plus the way she had talked about her mom previously made it sound like this was a special family thing in her mind. So why would she share that with someone she was afraid of?