Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake) by Rachel Caine (red white royal blue TXT) 📗

my Sig 9mm, Vee’s gun, Sam’s revolver. All packed into cases the way they should be.

We’re just locking the car when Vee says, “Do you know that guy?” There’s something odd about the way she says it, and I turn to glance over my shoulder at her. She’s staring off to the right, and I follow her gaze.

There’s a man in a car parked across the street, but even as I see him, he puts the car in gear and drives away. I don’t get more than a glance at him, but I can see he’s white and is wearing a dark-colored ball cap. That’s the extent of my impression. The car’s a completely anonymous dark-blue sedan, a Toyota, and I see the rental car sticker in the window. It’s too late, and the angle’s too bad, to get a license plate. He turns the corner and is gone.

“Why?” I ask Vee. She’s still staring after the car, but she shifts her attention back to me. I see something odd in her gaze, something I’ve rarely seen in her. Vee’s all steel and smoked-glass strong until she breaks. She rarely shows weakness.

Right now, she looks afraid. And that wakes something deeply primal in me. We’re exposed out here. Far, far too exposed. My mouth goes dry. My pulse speeds up. And I find myself watching the street, waiting for something to happen.

Hypervigilance. It’s dangerous. I back it down, breathe deep. Panic is contagious.

“It’s okay, Vee,” I tell her. “We’re fine. Right?”

“If you say so,” she mutters, and grabs the case that holds her gun from me. “This one’s mine, right?” There’s no mistaking it. She chose a shiny paisley-patterned case in neon colors. Before I can ask her anything else, she’s moving for the gun range door, as if she doesn’t want to spend another moment out in the open.

I desperately, desperately want to be inside, in a windowless concrete room. Safe.

But I stay. I feel the cool wind on my face. I watch the traffic on the street, a river of metal and lights. I’m facing it down, the beast that comes for me out of the back of my mind. And it always, always has Melvin’s face.

Behind me, Sam says, “Gwen? You coming?” He says it gently, as if he understands, though I don’t know how he could.

“Yes,” I say, and I turn my back on my instincts and go to teach my kids—even Vee—how to properly handle a weapon that I pray they never need.

Connor does better than I could have imagined. He barely flinches at the sound of the shots. He’s steady and deliberate when I teach him proper arm position and stance. When he finally fires his first shot, he hits the target. Not dead center, of course, but in the ballpark. Most kids would celebrate that, but not my son. He looks at the target critically, makes the gun safe, and puts it down as if he’s been doing this his whole life. “I missed,” he says.

“You didn’t. It’s on the outline.”

“It wouldn’t stop him,” Connor says. Just that, and it tells me everything about my son and what his attitude will be toward guns. He’s not in this for sport, or fun, or excitement like the teens who are squealing and clapping in other lanes as they even come close to a good shot. Like it is for me, this is survival for him. Pure, simple survival.

I hate it. I mourn for what it says about how bleak his world seems to him. How inevitable it is that he’s going to need this skill, a thing he doesn’t want but will not flinch at learning.

My son is so brave it steals my breath.

I put my hand on his shoulder, and while he doesn’t pull away, I still feel the muscles tighten. Guarding. That’s another heartbreak for me as his mom, the knowledge that my touch can’t soothe away the pain anymore. That it might, in fact, add to it. I have to let that strike me and fade before I can master my voice to something like normal. “You’ll get better,” I tell him. “But let’s stop there for tonight, okay?” I check my watch; it’s been an hour and a half. Lanny looks incandescent with victory over her accuracy, and she and Vee share a high five while Sam looks on, shaking his head. I show Connor how to stow the gun properly in the case, then have him sit with the girls on a bench in the back as Sam and I take a quick turn in adjoining lanes.

Shooting feels like freedom to me. The world goes quiet inside my head—even the constant racket that soundproofing ear protection can’t quell. Everything narrows to me, the target, the weight of the gun in my hand. There’s a certainty to it that I don’t find anywhere else.

I brace, aim, and quick-fire, alternating shots between head and heart. Next to me, Sam does the same. We put our guns down and glide the targets. I step back with him to compare.

Evenly matched. His is just a hair closer on one of the head shots. Damn. I need to get in here more often.

I don’t realize that the kids have joined us until Lanny, at my elbow, says, “Jesus, Mom.” She sounds shaken and impressed. I put my arm around her, and all the arguments are washed away.

“Don’t fuck with the fam,” Vee says.

“Vee!” I chide.

“What?”

I just shake my head. After all . . . she’s not wrong.

As we’re packing up, the alarm sounds, and everyone steps back from their lanes, guns down and made safe—or, at least, most people obey the protocol. I see the range master coming down the row, making note of those who were sloppy about it, but he’s heading straight for us.

I feel my shoulders brace as he comes to a halt facing us, and I see Sam look up as well. Neither of us is aggressive, but