Page 44 of Sniper

“Don’t be. I get it and that’s exactly why we’re here.” He took my hands in his and stared straight into my eyes. “I know you want to be able to take care of yourself and you’ve done a damn good job of it so far.”

I snorted my disbelief.

“You’re still here, Katey. That’s more than lots of women in your situation.”

I nodded and looked away before he saw the hint of emotion in my eyes.

“The confidence you’ll get just from knowing that you can take care of yourself will help, I promise. The nightmares won’t stop completely, probably and definitely not right away, but you’ll be surprised how different they are when you know you can fight back. It’ll help, I promise.”

A gun. I’d learned to fear them over the years and that wasn’t all down to Ethan. “He slept with one under his pillow and he… wasn’t afraid to use it to get his way.”

His jaw clenched tight. “Motherfucker.” Sniper’s anger on my behalf only tugged at those emotions I’d tried to bury deep. “Okay,” he exhaled and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Let’s test out these guns.”

I grabbed the biggest gun and held it in my hand. “It’s heavier than I imagined.” It was really heavy, in fact. “How in the hell are kids using these things?”

He shrugged. “It’s the rush of being cool. And being a bad ass. Are you ready to test it out?”

I nodded nervously. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

Sniper took the big gun from my hand and replaced it with a smaller one as he stood behind me, towering over me. My breath caught in my throat when his arms went around me until his hands wrapped around mine. “Okay, relax a little. I know it seems counterintuitive, but I need you to relax.”

“Hard to do with you being so hard.”

“Ignore it. I’m trying to.” His voice was thick and growly as he gave me instructions. “Line up your shot on the inhale and squeeze the trigger on the exhale.”

The first few times I missed the target wildly. Okay, for the first hour, I missed the paper entirely but slowly during the second hour, I started to improve. “What am I doing wrong?”

“Nothing,” he laughed. “Nobody becomes a sharpshooter overnight.”

“Not even those with a teacher called Sniper?”

“Not even them. Let’s try something a little bigger but I want you to dig your feet in and ground yourself before you shoot.” He pressed a soft kiss to that spot right behind my ear. “Relax,” he whispered.

I nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Relax.” Should be easy now that my heart was racing a million miles an hour.

“You got this.”

His show of support and those kind words helped. “Okay,” I repeated the word softly and went through the steps Sniper had given me. I squeezed the trigger and hit the target three times. “Oh shit, I did it! I hit the target!” I jumped up and down excitedly, waving the gun wildly.

Sniper grabbed my wrist and aimed the gun to the ground before he slipped it from my grasp. “You hit it.” His smile was magnificent and when he wrapped me in a hug, I wanted to stay and live there forever.

“Thank you, Sniper.” Emotion welled within me, and I hugged him tighter before releasing him and getting back to it. The truth was that I felt powerful with that piece of metal in myhands. I wasn’t scared and that was something I hadn’t felt in far too long. I knew there was no guarantee that I’d be able to pull the trigger if Ethan got close enough, but Sniper was right, knowing that I could take care of myself made me feel better.

I had to just hope that belief propelled me into actuallybeingsomething more than a scared woman on the run.

Three hours later, Sniper put the guns away. “What are the chances I can buy one of these for myself?”

“Let’s do a few more lessons first, yeah?”

“Fine,” I grumbled. “A few more lessons.” I felt lighter as we walked out of the building into the desert sun, freer. I felt like a different woman altogether, like a woman who wasn’t burdened by fear and a psycho ex.

“How’d it feel?”

I turned to face him and smiled. “Amazing. I felt confident for the first time in a long time and powerful.” I couldn’t resist wrapping my arms around him again. “Thank you for this. It helped more than I could have expected.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Sniper

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