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Some things you’re trained to do.
Other things you’re born to do.
This is the first life I’ve ever taken.
It won’t be the last.
* * *
ANASTASIA – AGE 10
My mom looks over her shoulder every time we leave our house. Her shiny, black hair always bounces when she turns her head, and her pretty brown eyes look around everywhere we go. She doesn’t think I’ve noticed, but she’s done it for as long as I can remember.
She still walks me to school every day. It’s only a few minutes’ walk from our home. A few of the kids from our neighborhood walk together without their parents. But not me. No... My mom says I’m not old enough to walk alone. I honestly think my mom would be happy if she could strap me in a baby carrier and take me with her everywhere she goes.
I’m not even allowed to go to any of my friends’ birthday parties. I get invited, but she always says no. She never lets me go to anyone else’s house. Maybe she watched one too many murder shows on TV. She’s always said the world is dangerous, that it’s a scary place, and we have to be careful.
I thought she was just paranoid.
But that was before today.
After school, we went to Mom’s friend George’s house. I love it there. It’s a big cabin in the middle of the woods. It doesn’t look that big from the outside, but once you’re inside, it’s enormous. George lives there with his wife and their daughter, Sierra. She’s a few years older than me, but she gets to do even less than I do. Sierra homeschools and rarely leaves their property.
According to Sierra, her dad is even more paranoid than my mom. When we come over, Sierra and I usually bake for fun while the adults go into the basement and do whatever they do. I never knew what the adults were doing down there.
We’ve been coming to this house for as long as I can remember.
Sierra was my first friend.
But today was different.
Today, I didn’t get to stay with Sierra.
Today, I didn’t get to bake the turtle fudge brownies we were planning on making.
Today, I learned what Mom and George have been doing in the basement all these years because today, they included me.
Mom told me that George was going to teach me something important. She told me I wasn’t allowed to be scared. That I had to listen to everything George said very carefully. That I had to be her big strong girl.
Today was the day I learned to shoot a gun.
They walked me down the steps of the basement and through a dimly lit long hallway before we reached a metal door with two large locks on the outside. Once we were on the other side of the door, George unlocked a cabinet bigger than my bedroom which was filled with all sorts of guns. Some of them looked longer than me. Others were small. A few were shiny and others scratched up. Two were even pink. He said they were Sierra’s.
George picked out one of the small pink guns then guided me over to a special lane with metal walls on either side. There was a piece of paper with a bull’s-eye in the center hanging down from a fancy metal hanger that moved at the touch of a button. Mom stood behind George and me... watching.
George spent a lot of time going over gun safety.
Treat every gun as if it were loaded.
Never disrespect the power and responsibility that comes with holding a gun.
Never point your gun at something you’re not willing to destroy.
If you’re going to shoot, shoot to kill.
Mom stepped up and shot a few rounds. Her shots were perfect. Dead center. Bull’s-eye. She didn’t hesitate. She wasn’t scared. Her hands didn’t shake.
The acrid scent of the gunpowder didn’t seem to bother her, even though it stuck in my throat. The loud bang reminded me of fireworks on the Fourth of July even with a set of earplugs muffling the sound.
