Mercedes Cook. Now, there was a character. She was up to something. She'd set that little game in motion. Put the pieces into play to see what would happen.

Really, I had no one to blame but myself for walking into the trap.

"Kitty, can you come here a minute?" Ben called to me from the kitchen, leaning over the counter that overlooked the living room. I left the desk and computer to sit on the bar stool, where he indicated.

We stayed like that for a long minute, looking across the counter at one another. Now what? What had I done wrong?

I was about to say something when he put a gun on the counter between us. It made a clunking noise, a sound of finality. It was chillingly black.

I stared at it. Guns were Cormac's thing. Having the gun here, without Cormac, was just…wrong.

"What's this?" My voice seemed small.

"Nine-millimeter Glock semiautomatic, weapon of choice of law enforcement officers everywhere. Compact, light, has some kick because of that, but it's worth the trade. It can still do a fair bit of damage."

Dread fell like a weight over me.

He continued. "We're not strong enough to take on Carl and Meg hand-to-hand. We need other advantages."

Like hell. "Ben, no, I've never touched a gun in my life—"

"That's why I'm taking you to a range where you can practice."

"No. No no no. It's cheating. We're supposed to use claws and teeth. Survival of the fittest—"

"Law of the jungle crap?" he said. "You don't think they'd cheat given half a chance?"

As a matter of fact, they had cheated. T. J. had agreed to walk away when Carl killed him. I just didn't want to have to use a gun.

"Do it for me," he said. "It'll make me feel better. If you run into that guy alone, I want to know that you can drop him where he stands."

I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it had come to this.

When I got my voice back I said, "Is this one of Cormac's?" For a minute it felt like the bounty hunter was with us in spirit.

Ben shook his head. "Did you think he was the only one with a concealed weapons permit?" His smile turned sly.

Well. You learn something new every day. Even about the guy you're sleeping with.

The shooting range was in a low concrete building north of town, in the suburbs. It might have been any business, and I'd have probably overlooked the unobtrusive sign, black print on white, announcing guns, ammo, range. SEVEN DAYS A WEEK.

Inside, the place smelled like Cormac. Rather, Cormac smelled like a gun shop, if I had ever known what a gun shop smelled like. Gun oil, metal, burned powder. That said something about Cormac.

Ben picked up a couple boxes of bullets, headsets for ear protection, and safety glasses from the guy at the counter. Boy, there were a lot of guns locked up behind the glass case under that counter. They all looked dark and angry.

At the back of the shop, past the double metal doors, came the sound of gunfire. Two guns, I thought, firing slightly out of synch. One was faster than the other.

His hand on my back, Ben steered me toward that door.

The back room was straight out of a police drama—various booths opened into a long hallway. Targets hung on lines in the back. The people in the two occupied booths ignored us.

Ben was all business and got straight to work.

"First off, here's the reason so many accidental shootings happen with semiautomatics." He clicked a latch, and the clip dropped out of the gun's grip. Then he slid back a release, revealing the bullet still in the chamber. "Losing the clip doesn't mean the thing's empty."

He tipped the gun, knocking the bullet into his hand. Closed the release. "Now it's safe." He pointed to the target, pulled the trigger a couple of times, and nothing happened.

"Rule number one, never point a gun—empty, loaded, whatever—unless you plan on firing it. If you point it at a person, it means you want to kill them." He slipped the spare bullet back in the clip, put the clip back in the gun, pulled back the slide, chambered the round. Live and loaded. Rock and roll. Shit.

"Rule number two, if you need to kill someone, make sure the thing's loaded." He grinned.

"You've been hanging out with Cormac too long," I said.

"Yeah, well," he said, and left it at that.

"Who taught you all this? Rule number one, rule number two." He handled the weapon like he'd been doing this his whole life. Maybe he had. He'd grown up on a ranch on the northern Front Range.

"My father."

"Your freaky militia father who's in jail?" Yes, my boyfriend had quite the history. Two of his three closest relatives were doing time.

"Yep." He smiled. He handed me safety equipment. "Put these on."

How the hell did I ever get mixed up with him? I was a nice girl from the suburbs. I put on the glasses and earphones, which mostly muffled my hearing, but I could still hear him as he instructed.

Hold it like this, sight along these two points on the barrel, don't jerk at the trigger—squeeze slowly as you exhale. He fired, then fired again. The gun exploded with noise.

I flinched. Nothing good ever happened when I heard that sound. I was glad of the ear protection in this enclosed concrete space. We looked across to the target—he'd made two little holes off center, within the black circle.

"Now, you try." He handed the thing to me.

I took it like it was alive and had teeth. Sighing, Ben stood behind me, cupped his hands around mine, and guided them into place, showing me how to hold the thing: right hand on the grip, left hand underneath, steadying it. Our bodies pressed close together.

Okay, this part was kind of sexy.

"Don't brace your arms," he said by my ear. "Relax. Now, breathe out, tighten the trigger—"

Supersensitive, it felt like it only moved a millimeter before it clicked and the gun jumped in my hand. Boom, loud as an explosion, I felt it in my bones. My whole arm tingled. My heart was beating fast for no good reason.

"Hey, I think you actually hit the target." He pointed to a white tear on the edge of the paper, far outside the circle of black.

"I don't think I was even aiming." I furrowed my brow at the weapon.

"I couldn't tell," he said sarcastically. "Try again."

He reminded me to aim along the sights, but he didn't guide me this time. I was on my own. I fired. It still made my arms tingle, but I was ready for it this time. Again, I hit the target, but not the black circle.