“So, what happened with Ned the other day?” I said as I pressed the first round into the extra 9 mm clip. “You just freed him, with no clause to make sure he could never hurt you? Why would you do that? Especially after what you’ve already been through?”

She stared at the table, considering for a second before she answered. “It never occurred to me that he’d want to hurt me. I’d just set him free. I thought he’d be happy!”

“I’m sure he was.” I huffed. “He was a happy threat.”

“I’m not...wired that way.” She shrugged. “I don’t look at the rest of the population and see seven billion threats. I can’t live in a world where everyone’s my enemy. For my own sanity, I need to believe the monster who killed my family is just that. A monster. An aberration.”

“He is. But he’s not the only one.”

“I know, but...” She looked up at me, frowning. “I don’t understand how you can stand it, seeing enemies everywhere you look.”

“I don’t see them everywhere, but I am constantly aware that they exist, and that’s particularly true for you. Julia wants you dead, so all her people are your enemies. If Ruben Cavazos finds out who you are and that you’re here, he’ll want you in custody. That means that nearly everyone you meet in the city is out to kill you or sell you to the highest bidder.”

“Even you?” Her eyes asked even more than her words did.

“No. Not me.” I took a deep breath, then spit out the truth along with a grin meant to disguise it as a joke. “I want to keep you.”

She smiled, just a little, and I had to clear my throat and look away before I tried to kiss her again.

“Okay, show me how to use this thing, or I’m just going to assume it works like they do in the movies.”

“Don’t. In real life, you have to reload when you run out of ammo, and you’re probably not going to be chasing bad guys across busy intersections while leaking blood from three bullet holes in your side. Ian’s pretty badass, and one was enough to drop him. But before you learn how to use this—” I picked up her gun, barrel pointed toward the tree line “—you need to know what it is and what it holds.”

“It’s a Glock 22.” She ran one finger over the side of the barrel, and I noticed that her attention to the gun seemed...fond. Not quite eager, but not afraid. “Says so right here.”

Okay, she had me there. “Do you know what that means?”

“Glock is the brand name. Twenty-two is the style number. Also says it was made in Austria, but I’m not sure that’s relevant.”

“Not for today.” I wanted to smile, but I resisted. This wasn’t a date; it was a lesson. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t noticed that her hair smelled like strawberries and her borrowed shirt—Van’s this time—was a little snug around her chest. “And what does this Glock 22 fire?”

“Forty-caliber rounds.”

“Which means?”

She rolled her eyes over my beginner-level questions. “It means that the bullets this thing shoots are four-tenths of an inch in diameter. If you wanna go bigger, you can get a .45 or a .50, but unless you’re shooting elephants or the walking dead, the .50 is probably overkill. On the smaller end, you have the 9 mm, which is measured in millimeters, obviously, instead of inches. That’s what that thing fires.” She glanced at the pistol I’d borrowed from Kori’s collection. “Or, you can get a .38. Or even a .22, like Vanessa’s.”

I stared at her. I couldn’t help it. Fruit-scented toiletries, tight shirts and gun talk—Sera Brant had just outed herself as the perfect woman. “I thought you’d never fired a gun.”

“I haven’t.”

“Then how do you know all that?”

Her brows rose and she looked just cocky enough to be intriguing. “I researched it while you were in the bathroom. Gran’s desktop should really be password protected.”

It would be, if she could remember a password from one day to the next.

“You read fast,” I said, and she grinned.

“I learn faster.”

“We’ll see. Using a gun is a little different from reading about them. Let’s start you on the 9 mm. It has less recoil.”

“Nuh-uh.” She shook her head firmly, her long, dark ponytail swishing against the back of her shirt. “Kori says you get to keep any gun you take from someone else, and I took this one from Mitch, fair and square. Which means it’s mine now. I want to learn on my own gun.”

“Fine.” Why are girls always so stubborn? “Your clip’s loaded, and there’s one round in the chamber. How many shots can you fire before you have to reload?”

She stared at the gun on the table, as if she might actually be able to see through the grip. “Um...fifteen in the clip, right? And one in the chamber. So that’s sixteen.”

“Close. Your clip actually holds seventeen.” A cloud passed overhead, and our shadows melted into the grass. “Plus one in the chamber makes eighteen.”

“Damn.” Sera frowned at the extended clip, and she looked so disappointed by her mistake that I had to stop myself from patting her on the back. “Okay, so what do I do?”

“Pick it up, but don’t put your finger on the trigger yet.”

Sera picked up her gun, and suddenly every bit of confidence her research had lent her drained, along with the blood from her face.