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She adjusted the safety goggles and ear protectors and reached for the handgun. The checkered high-impact nylon stock fit smoothly to her slick palm. Her thumb slid into the curved rest. She picked up the clip. Fifteen shots left. Easy peasy. With the heel of her hand, she inspected the magazine, flicked off the safety catch.
Twenty-eight ounces of metal alloy and plastic. Such a small object to shake her from head to toe. The square of the rear notch was bobbing like a rowboat in a storm, and she couldn’t line up the sights. She blinked the sweat from her eyes and stared out at the gently swaying outline of a paper man.
Concentrating so hard she blocked out the thuds around her, she racked the slide loading the first bullet into the chamber and extended her arms. In the tunnel of silence enveloping her, she fired. Pulled the trigger again and fired. Again, and again.
Through the sweat dripping into her eyes and blinding her, she aimed and fired. She didn’t stop until the sound of the trigger clicking uselessly on the empty pistol.
Flipping out the clip, she lined up the two empty magazines and brought out one more. In the relative privacy of the alley, separated from the shooter to her left by thick concrete, she took off her safety goggles, lifted the edge of her shirt and dried her throat and face. Her stomach was shiny with perspiration, and she fanned it, too, resignation settling on her shoulders.
At the end of that clip, she hadn’t been able to see the target. She’d gone as still inside as she could and simply fired—all she’d been capable of doing at that point.
She pushed the button to automatically send the target sliding on wire rails back to her. All fourteen shots were perfectly placed in a tight pattern. She traced one of the holes with her finger. It was so small. The exit wound would be big, ragged at the edges.
Working methodically from left to right, she marked the fourteen holes, the orange stickers stark against the cream paper. After she reattached the target to the frame with the available clamps, it glided easily back into place.
One more clip and she could go home. Go home to a house that sheltered her, protected her.
Leaning against the partition and lifting the edge of her shirt once more to dry her face, Ophelia froze with her shirt still gripped in her hands, her heart accelerating with anxiety.
Dean was here. She turned to look at him and he nodded once to her and then settled against the wall away from the alleys, as if he had all the time in the world. Like her, he wore headgear-type ear protectors. A pair of safety goggles dangled from his fingers.
Lightheaded with dread, Ophelia swung back to face the target, but she could feel Dean’s intense gaze on her back. Her skin prickled all over with awareness of him behind her, watching, judging, knowing. All those questions she’d avoided answering and now he was here. He would know that, no matter how she’d lied yesterday, she was still trapped in a dim warehouse.
She rubbed the sweat away from her eyes and slipped the goggles on. They fogged up immediately and she took them off. Emptying her mind of everything except the mundane task in front of her and forcing herself to move slowly, she cleaned the goggles and repositioned them, then picked up the pistol, butting the clip in.
Her knees nearly buckled with the effort of ignoring Dean.
Ready. Gripping the handle so hard she’d leave an imprint of the checkered design on her palm, she pulled the pistol close to her body keeping it pointed downrange while she grasped the top of the gun, pulled back and released, her insides shaking so much she was sure Dean would be able to see as she moved her hand allowing the slide to snap forward on its own. She could sense his attention as strongly as if he were at her elbow.
Aim.
Fire. Dead center, the bullet slammed into the cement wall behind the target and fell harmlessly to the 30-degree angled trap.
The gun was slippery in her hand, and she couldn’t get a firm grip. She wanted nothing more than to pull the trigger, firing until the clip was empty.
Even as she took a shaky breath and started to squeeze the trigger, pride and the promise she’d made to herself stopped her. She couldn’t just empty the clip without aiming. That would be cheating. Trying not to think about Dean behind her, Ophelia repeated her ritual. This time she scrubbed her hands so hard against her jeans that her palms burned.
No matter what, she wouldn’t stop. If she put the gun down one more time, she’d never pick it up again. Even with Dean behind her, reaching his own conclusions, she couldn’t stop.
Not if she ever wanted to roll with SWAT again.
And she did. She wanted her life back the way it had been. She wanted to be comfortable in her own skin again, not feeling this sense of dislocation that left her uneasy all the time, a stranger to herself.
Orange dots mixed with the sweat in her eyes. The silhouette fluttered in an errant breeze, seemed to turn toward her, materialize into the man who had caught her with her guard down. Through her blurred vision, Ophelia saw for a brief second the serrated ramp of the front sight of the pistol. Gripping the gun with outstretched hands, she fired in that one instant. Wobbling in front of her sweat-blurred eyes, the pistol sketched an ever-widening circle on the target. She couldn’t keep it steady enough to aim accurately.
Extended, her arms were rigid. She couldn’t command her muscles to relax and lower. She couldn’t move her thumb to the trigger. Locked in a death grip on the gun, her fingers hurt, and she was shaking too hard to turn the gun loose safely.
It was as if she’d never fired a gun before in her life.
A faint sound of distress escaped her.
In her panic, and with her ear protectors on, she didn’t hear Dean step up behind her. He was there suddenly, his long arms over hers, bracing her hands until the gun leveled again.
With his palms swallowing her hands, the gun seemed a toy as he pulled the trigger smoothly and steadily, one shot after another, the gun cracking out fifteen shots. The gun never jumped once in his firm grip, and his strength and calm flowed into her through his hard chest pressed tight against her damp back. A pattern smaller and tighter than her orange stickers blossomed in the silhouette’s torso.
On the last shot, the slide locked open on the empty chamber.
His arms stayed around her, the gun still pointing toward the target. He stepped back as he released her hands, but she didn’t turn around. She slid the clip out, the slide forward, and secured the pistol. Picking up the clip and never looking at Dean, she stashed it in her purse.
