“She’s a little nervous, but she’ll be all right.” The glance Ben shoots me is laced with pride. “She’s tougher than she looks.”
Well. That puffs me up some.Time to woman up, Kate.
“Shecan answer for herself, thank you.” I throw my shoulders back, cracking my neck like a prizefighter. “And I’m fine. Point me to this eye and ear protection.” I see Ben hide a smile out of the corner of my eye.
Rick fits me with a flesh-colored over-the-ear headset that looks like noise-canceling headphones, only uglier. The clear goggles I’m supposedto wear cover more than half my face and aren’t very comfortable but, according to Ben, are totally necessary.
I strike a pose. “How do I look?”
He smirks, an amused twinkle in his eyes. “Like Ballistic Barbie.”
Rick gives us a couple of papers to initial and when I make a crack about signing my life away, he eyes Ben warily. Humor is wasted on Rick, apparently.
I follow Ben through a door and into a small room that appears to operate as a sort of soundproof antechamber. Once we’re inside, Ben shuts the door behind me, and just as I’m registering how close we are in this tiny, enclosed space, he opens another door directly in front of us and I’m bombarded by a cacophony of terrifying noises, sights, and smells.
If I was scared before, this sends me into overdrive. The sound of rapid gunfire assaults my senses and I’m jolting in fright every time I hear a blast, which is about every two seconds. If they’re this loud and terrifying with the headphones on, I shudder to think how quickly I’d go deaf if I took them off. The stench of gunpowder—the same sulfuric smell I’d previously associated with fireworks—singes my nostrils.Thanks for ruining Fourth of July for me, Ben.Spent shell casings litter the floor, and my boots kick a path through them as Ben leads us down the row.
How in the fresh hell did I get here?
I abandon all pretense of bravery and glue myself to his back, clutching his sweater like a frightened kid at a haunted house. He steers us down an alley that’s lined by partitioned stalls on our right and a long bench to our left. There are plenty of other people here, mostly men who look exactly as I’d imagined: law enforcement types with buzzed heads, stocky guys in muscle tees. I see a couple of women, including an elderly grandmother type with a shock of white hair, and I’m intrigued by her in spite of myself. They all ignore us as we walk by.
Ben stops at lane twenty, the last cubby as Rick’s promised, and sets his case down on the bench. He unzips it and pulls out a gun that’s not much bigger than the palm of my hand. I feel an acute sense of dread.
“This is a revolver. It’s the smallest gun I own. It actually folds in half, so it’s a good choice if you wanted to carry a concealed weapon. It would fit in your pocket or your purse. It’s the right type of gun for a woman who foolishly insists on walking home alone at night.”
I roll my eyes. “Concealed... do you carry a concealed weapon?”
“Not generally, no. There aren’t a lot of places you can carry in DC due to federal building restrictions. But in Texas...” He trails off.
“What about Texas?”
“People bring guns to church.”
I blanch. “Have you ever had a gun on you without me knowing it?”
“No. Though God knows I’ve needed one.” He winks, then holds the revolver out to me. “Enough stalling. Take it, get a feel for it. It’s not loaded.”
I don’t reach for it. “Or maybe not? How about I just watch you for a while? I think that might be better.” More visually appealing for me, at least.
“Kate, are we feeling a little...gun shy?”
I groan. “Did you googlegun punsor something?”
“I may have been gunning to use a few.”
I pause. “How many more do you have in your arsenal?”
He throws his head back and laughs. “You’re loosening up. This is good.”
“Hardly.”
He grabs my hand and holds it out, palm up. “Kate, take the gun.” And here I am, holding a gun for the first time.
It’s surprisingly light, closely resembling a child’s toy, making me even more concerned about the perverse world we live in where kids playwith realistic-looking toy guns. I turn it over in my hand and curl my finger into the trigger, testing the catch and release. It looks like a gun Bonnie Parker would slide back into her garter post-heist.
“How do you load the bullets?”
I practically have to shout the question. The cracks of surrounding gunfire coupled with the noise-canceling headphones make it nearly impossible to communicate. As it is, I have to stand about an inch away from him and read his lips when he speaks to me. Not helping my anxiety: having to stare intently at Ben’smouth.
