“Show off.” Kori had already demonstrated the fact that she’d rather decorate her target with 9 mm piercings, and I wasn’t sure whether that was because she was obviously violent in nature or because she had no other talents that I could tell.

Ian glanced at the drawing, then at me, then at Kris. Then he gave us both a quiet smile that made me blush.

While Kris nailed up our targets, I headed to the cooler next to the back steps to grab several bottles of water. When I stood with as many as I could carry, I was struck by the sight of them all together, doing what they did best, like any family might. Sure, my family’s together-time had been spent singing along with my dad’s acoustic guitar rather than shredding paper targets with high-velocity personal projectiles, but the gist was the same. They were together, and beneath the bickering over who’d hit the target’s left eye more times in a row and Gran’s nagging Kris to quit shooting Kori’s target on the sly, you could see that they loved each other. And that more than anything, they wanted Kenley back, to complete their family.

Seeing the pain they shared and how it drew them together made me ache with memories of my own, a pain so deep that for a moment I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. That ache grew sharper and gained focus, not in my chest, but in my abdomen. Beneath my scar.

My eyes closed and tears rolled down my cheeks before I’d even known they were there. The water bottles fell from my arms to bounce in the dirt and I clutched at my stomach, hating how flat it felt. How empty.

He would have been seven months along now, my baby that never was. He would have been mature enough to live, even if he’d chosen to come into the world at that very moment. But he would never be born. And he would never have a brother or sister, because the wound that ripped him from my life and from my body had ended any chance of me ever having another child.

My knees hit the ground, and my hands followed.

“Sera?” Vanessa called, and when I looked up I saw her at the end of the line of shooters, blurry through my tears. Alone, because she was missing her heart, too. With Kenley gone, did she feel as empty as I felt?

The others loved Kenley, too. They would have done anything to get her back. But in her absence, they still had one another.

Vanessa had nothing, now. Like I had nothing.

“Sera!” Kris set his gun on the table and jogged across the grass toward me, but I was already on my feet wiping tears away by the time he got there. I cursed myself silently and assured him aloud that I was fine. That I’d just tripped. That I hoped the water bottles hadn’t burst because of my clumsiness.

He didn’t believe a word I said; that was clear. But he only picked up the bottles and tossed each one to a member of his family, willing to let me grieve privately, even though I wasn’t actually in private. For which I was more than grateful.

Then he tacked Julia’s image up on the tree designated as my target, and as I took aim with a full clip, he leaned in close and whispered in my ear. “I didn’t know what your bad guy looks like, so I drew mine. Feel free to blow her sparkly brains out.”

With remembered pain still burning in my stomach and fresh loss aching in my chest, I took aim. My first shot hit the left side of her forehead, and after that, my aim only improved. I fired all eighteen rounds into Julia Tower’s effigy, and nearly all of them found their mark in her head, her throat and her chest.

By the time I was finished, they were all watching me as the sun—a fat scarlet ball—sank below the tree line to the west.

I didn’t realize I was crying again until the echo of my last shot rolled into the distance.

* * *

I’d just pulled a clean T-shirt over my head when someone knocked on my bedroom door. “It’s open,” I called, running my comb through hair still wet from my shower.

Kris opened the door, but stayed in the threshold. “I thought you might want these.” He held out two long tubes of paper, which could only be my targets from that evening’s shooting session. “And this.” His other hand held a roll of Scotch tape.

“Thanks.” They were for inspiration. I was proud of learning to defend myself, and potentially protect others.

I took the targets and waved him inside while I set the brush on my dresser. His dresser. Then I climbed onto the bed in borrowed socks and stood, leaning against the headboard for balance as I unrolled the first paper.

“We have to get you some clothes of your own. You can’t keep wearing Kori’s shorts.” He tore off a piece of tape for me as I positioned the first of that evening’s targets next to the one from that afternoon, already on display above my bed. His bed.

I took the tape he offered and secured the top left corner to the wall. “I have to wear something, don’t I?”

His brows were arched halfway up his forehead when I reached down for the next piece of tape. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t know how to reply.

When I tried to take the strip of tape, his hand closed around mine. “In case you’re tempted to misinterpret that as another mixed signal, let me be clear about three very important things. One—I like you. A lot.”

A fluttery feeling took over my stomach, like when I’d played on the swings as a kid, and I couldn’t make it go away.

“Two—I will never, ever hurt you, for any reason, and I don’t give a damn who your father was or how valuable you are to my mortal enemy.”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t blink. I could only stare down at him while he stared back up at me and the rest of the world seemed to fade into the background.