James just grinned. “I love you more every day.”
Heat crawled up Kit’s neck. Fuck. Was he ever going to get used to open declarations like that?
“Darius,” Kit said, almost a whine.
Darius took mercy on him. “You two, step back. No, all the way back, don’t crowd us. Kit, come up to the line.” He set a pair of headphones around Kit’s neck, and one around his own. “We don’t need these yet. First, you’re going to practice aiming with the gun unloaded. Point at the target.”
Kit took a deep breath and aimed at the battered target across the room. “What next?”
There was silence beside him. Long enough that Kit lowered the gun and turned—to see Darius frowning.
“Kit,” Darius said quietly, just for them. “Have you fired a gun before?”
Kit froze. He’d fucked up.
Darius shouldn’t have thought to ask. It should have seemed obvious Kit had never fired a gun.
Kit resisted the urge to adjust his grip badly. Trying to hide would be even more suspicious. “A few times, yeah. Ages ago.”
Moving behind him, Darius adjusted Kit’s posture with gentle touches to his shoulders and hips. “You’ve got good muscle memory. Who taught you?”
Kit needed a lie. Any lie. “It was a friend’s birthday party. His dad had more guns than common sense.”
“I probably don’t want to know how old you were.” Darius didn’t sound suspicious, but he was good at hiding too.
Then again… maybe Kit’s story wasn’t suspicious. It wasn’t that weird to have shot a gun before. Kit was just overthinking it, because he overthought everything about his life.
“It was very irresponsible.” Lowering the gun, Kit grinned. “Not like you. Can I play with some bullets now?”
Darius chuckled and raised his voice. “Sure, if James takes the murderer out for a walk.”
Holden laughed, surprising all of them with an emotional reaction to someone besides Kit. “The hypocrisy is charming. You’ve both killed way more people than me.”
“My murders are nothing like your murders,” James said serenely.
Darius shrugged. “I wouldn’t say nothing like.”
James rolled his eyes and escorted Holden from the room.
Following Darius’s directions again, Kit loaded the gun. He was careful to make a small mistake the first time. He got it right the second, third, and fourth times, because he wanted to act inexperienced, not stupid.
Kit didn’t learn to shoot at a birthday party. Dad taught him out in the wilderness, on camping trips. Kit thought it was normal at the time. Fun. A new hobby to share with Dad, just like fishing and inventing new campfire burritos.
The warnings were normal too. The sort of thing Dad always said. “You shouldn’t ever need this. All you need to do is buy time until I come for you. I’ll always come for you.”
Back then, the promise hadn’t sounded like a threat.
Dad had enemies from his old life. He left that life behind because Kit was the best thing that ever happened to him. He wanted to give Kit his full attention.
Kit used to like hearing that. He felt special.
Shoving those thoughts back, Kit slid the headphones over his ears. He followed Darius’s directions and let Darius readjust his posture. Then he fired. The bullet hit two inches wide of the target’s outer edge.
Exactly where he aimed it.
4
“I don’t care if there’s a coverup.”
