Chapter 69 Nellie
Nellie
Dad turns off the highway onto the farm-to-market road that leads to the shooting range.
It’s like a twenty-minute drive from our house; I’ve stayed silent the entire time, seething. Just being this close to Dad makes me wanna punch him in the face. I can’t get what I saw the other night out of my head. Him slumped over Jane’s mom, her smiling at me in that sick, evil way.
And now he’s acting all concerned about me because of Blair.
“You okay, honey?”
I sniff, nod, then turn my face to the window, away from him.
“You can open up to me, you know, if you want to talk—”
I shake my head, comb my hair forward, like a shield between us.
Can I open up to you, Daddy? Obviously you really give a shit about me. And Mom. No, fuck you…
And Blair.
She’s now suddenly become a saint.
Like, even though she’s absent, lying in a coma in the hospital, somehow she’s even more present. Getting even more attention.
God knows I’ve wished her dead many times, but for obvious reasons, I hope she makes it.
Dad pulls into the shooting range.
We’re the only car in the parking lot.
Good.
Most people don’t come out here in the middle of the week, during the day.
He grabs our guns out of the back; I carry the gear: our earmuffs, safety glasses.
Normally, I’d be excited to be out here with him—away from Mom, away from everything, just me and Dad out under the pines.
But at this moment, I can barely stand the sight of him.
“What’ll it be today, shooter? Glocks or rifles?”
It’s been a while since I’ve practiced on a Glock.
“Glock.” It’s the first word I’ve uttered to him.
The shooting range is a do-it-yourself operation. Dad strides the length of the lane, hangs our targets.
We then stand side by side and blast away.
I’m off my game today, my bullets barely striking the outline of the man on the paper target.
Dad, however, has hit the man in the chest, in the forehead.
I place the Glock down, shake my shooting arm out, roll my shoulders.
“Can’t hit ’em all,” Dad says, glancing over at me.
I don’t know why, but this is the wrong thing for him to say to me. At the wrong time.
“Gimme a minute,” I grunt.
He takes out a rag, starts cleaning his gun.
A rage so hot, it threatens to light me on fire comes over me. Dad knows I hate Jane, knows Mom hates Mrs. Swift, so how in the world could he have possibly betrayed us like this? What the actual fuck.
“I’m ready,” I say, staring straight ahead.
We aim, shoot. I hit my targets like the sharpshooter I am, wiping out the man’s brain with my bullets.
“Damn! That’s my girl!” Dad hoots, sticks his hand up for a high five.
I ignore him.
“Again,” I command.
It’s time for fresh targets.
Dad walks up the lane, his boots crunching on the pine needles, cocky with his hot-shit swagger, cold as ice.
As he removes the old sheets and is tacking the new ones up, I raise my Glock, get his head in my line of sight.
And take the gun off safety.