The larger man cursed and made a move toward the safe, but Teonny had already grabbed the gun. She had no idea how to use it. She fumbled with it, but it was enough to scare the two men. They backed up. When she figured out how to turn the safety off, she pointed the gun at them with shaky hands, but they already backpedaled out of the closet.
She fired a shot, and they ran. Teonny shot again and again, even after they disappeared from the closet. She shot until the clip was empty as she sobbed before she dropped the gun and crawled toward her daughter. Before she even got to her, Teonny knew. She knew the moment that shot rang out. Her baby was dead.
She lay down next to her daughter and sobbed. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
The sounds of sirens registered. Those white neighbors must have called the police. Teonny didn’t care. At that point, she actually wished those men would come back and finish her off.
With that thought, she crawled toward the gun and picked it up. She knew there were no more bullets, but she tore the safe apart to see if there were anymore. There weren’t.
She released a pained and frustrated cry as she placed the gun to her temple anyway and pulled the trigger multiple times, praying for the best.
God didn’t hear her.
When the police finally found her, she was curled up next to her daughter, inconsolable and forever changed.
The sound of the gun clutched in Teonny’s hand vibrated through her body and pierced her ears. She never wore the sound-canceling earplugs the gun range provided. If Teonny ever needed to use a gun out in the real world again, she needed to be prepared, which meant no earplugs.
The gun range had become her obsession over the past five years. It was the only thing that left her feeling like she was actually in control. It was her attempt at righting her wrongs. She missed her targets five years ago. She’d be damned if she ever missed another target again.
Mommy.
The word sucked the air straight out of her. It echoed through her mind several times a day. Angel’s voice was still clear as the moment she said it before she died. It hadn’t gotten easier. In fact, her own daughter seemed to haunt her.
“Fuck,” Teonny murmured as she clamped her eyes shut and took in a deep breath.
When she felt she’d calmed down enough, she opened her eyes and pressed the button to bring her target toward her. She already knew what she would find, but after the triggering moment she just had, she allowed herself to feel a bit of pride that she hit the outlined paper of a human body in the head every single time.
A whistle sounded from behind her. Normally, she would tense up at the thought of someone behind her, potentially with a gun, but she didn’t because she knew exactly who it was.
Patrick.Or Prosper, as most people knew him.
She could always feel him before she laid eyes on him. Teonny didn’t even bother to turn around. The feel of his eyes on her made the hairs on her arms stand on end.
“I know you heard me.” Prosper tugged on one of the curls that fell out of her messy bun, and she finally turned around.
“I heard you whistle. You ain’t say anything to me, so I didn’t acknowledge you.”
He smirked. That man knew he was fine. His coffee-colored skin looked edible, and his muscles always seemed like they constantly tried to tear out of his clothes. The soft curls on the top of his head looked buttery, and his goatee was always perfectly lined.
It had been a long three years of trying to ignore her attraction toward him.
Prosper, on the other hand, never ignored his attraction.
He leaned down and kissed her cheek, invading her space and filling her nostrils with his cologne. When he pulled back, he said, “You know better, Peanut.”
She wanted to melt, but she held herself together. One thing she wasn’t looking for was love, though it seemed to have found her anyway.
They’d met three years ago at this very gun range. They never saw each other outside of the gun range, actually. Teonny neverallowed it. She protected her heart fiercely, and even though Prosper had penetrated it, she would never let him know that. It didn’t matter because his ass never let up.
He called her Peanut the first day they met because of the color of her skin. Teonny was sure that was the moment she fell in love with him, but she would never admit that out loud. She would, however, allow him to kiss her cheek any time he felt the need.
She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes. “Boy, please.”
“Ain’t no boy in here,” Prosper said as he looked around the small space and then behind him. “Looks to me like it’s just a grown ass man and a beautiful woman who won’t give him the time of day.”
“You got the time of day, Patrick. You’re just mad that’s all you’re going to get.”
He chuckled. “I keep telling you if you keep callin’ me by my government name, the least you can do is let me take you out to dinner. Hell, lunch? Coffee?” He put his hands up in a prayer position like he was begging her.
