Chapter 15 #2
“You have something else planned,” I observed, to which he nodded. “You’re not worried about, like… being seen with me?”
“In Pembroke Pines? At this time? No, not really.”
“Not just by your dad’s people,” I clarified. “Aren’t there people around who basically stalk your family like y’all are celebrities. We could end up on Instagram. It could get posted to Fame-o-Licious. Then what?”
Kain laughed at the thought. “Nobody’s puttin’ us on Instagram where we’re headed.”
This served to pique my curiosity.
Within seconds, I was in the passenger’s seat as Kain pulled out of the driveway. Out of habit, I checked my phone. It was dead.
“Do you have a phone charger?” I asked.
Eyes straight ahead, he replied, “Yeah, check the glove compartment.”
I reached in front of me and pulled the handle. Inside the glove compartment, I found notebooks, some pens, a charging cable, a box of earplugs, and…a handgun. I stopped for a moment, taken by surprise at first.
Well, damn…
Noting my pause, Kain added, “Should I have mentioned that was in there?” referring the gun.
I sighed, reaching for the charger as I tried to avoid even touching the weapon. It was the same model as the one he’d used to teach me how to disarm a gunman.
“Is that the same one from my self-defense lesson? The same one from your room? Or do you just have several.”
Kain didn't speak until he hit a red light.
“I know what you think the right answer is, but trust,” he said, “If I only had one gun and still felt the need to bring it everywhere I go... That'd be… alarming. That's the type of thing someone does when they’re scared as fu—”
“So it is another gun,” I interrupted, nodding. “How many do you have?” I asked.
“That's really not important,” Kain responded. My eyes narrowed.
Crossing my arms, I questioned, “If there’s nothing to be afraid of, then why so many?”
Kain shook his head, a little impatience flashing in his features as he kept his eyes on the road.
“Better to have a gun when you don't need one, than to need a gun when you don't have one,” he said, turning the steering wheel of his car slowly. I leaned backwards into the passenger's seat and sighed.
“Do you find yourself in a lot of situations where you need one?” I asked, staring out my window, only halfway wanting the truth. The streetlights flashed the inside of the car with light periodically as we passed them.
“Yes,” Kain said shortly, explaining nothing. “Change the subject.”
He wasn't asking, he was telling me. I sunk into my seat, opting to close off communication altogether. Kain didn’t seem to mind.
Gradually, the greenery of suburbia morphed into the grays and browns of an industrial district. Houses and grocery stores were quickly replaced with housing projects and liquor stores. I turned from the window and looked at his side profile as he drove.
Why are we in the hood?
An earlier, jumpier version of myself would have already asked a dozen questions, starting with that one.
But the person sitting beside me had my trust. We’re just passing through.
That’s what I told myself. I’d never been to a neighborhood like this before.
Surely, I knew they existed. I’d seen movies.
“So I’ve counted three guns.” I just couldn’t drop it. “And yet you’ve never shot anyone before.”
Kain’s eyebrows came together in confusion, his eyes veering off the road for a brief moment to glance at me.
“Did I tell you that?” he asked, genuinely thrown off.
I blinked incredulously. Did he lie to me on our first date?
“Yeah!” I almost yelled. “You told me on our first date that you’ve never killed anyone before. Remember?”
What if my father was right?
“Oh…” Kain sighed, pulling into a parking lot. Apparently we’d arrived at our destination. I was too heated to take a look. “About that…”
“You lied to me?” Now I was yelling. Kain’s demeanor stayed unbothered. For the first time, his ability to stay so composed in the midst of chaos, pissed me off. “You lied to me!”
“No,” he corrected, voice relaxed. Before I could sigh in relief, he said, “You misunderstood me.”
What the…?
“H-how is that…” I groaned in frustration, holding out both my hands as if I were weighing something. “You’ve either killed someone, or you haven’t, Kain. Not much room for misunderstandings.”
Could I ever be with a killer? I could put up with a lot of things—his nonchalance about brutality, being one. But taking someone else’s life? What kind of conscienceless bullshit!
Kain held out his hands as if he were weighing something as well, mirroring me.
“Sometimes you shoot someone, and they die,” he posited. Unbothered. Calm. Chill. “And sometimes you shoot someone, and they don’t. You get what I’m saying?” His head tilted to the side, inspecting my frantic features thoughtfully. “I didn’t lie to you.”
“You’ve shot someone before… and they lived,” I concluded. “So you’re capable of killing someone.”
“If I’m not mistaken,” Kain started, his serious eyes practically searing a hole through mine, “I told you I was capable on our first date.”
He really did. If my memory served correctly, Kain told me that the only thing stopping him from killing my attempted rapist the night we first met, was me. One look at me and he knew I wouldn’t be able to handle it.
He was right.
Even now, I was a mixed bag of emotions. It was like finding out Santa Claus wasn’t real.
“Was it life or death?” My question was meek.
Kain’s eyebrows climbed slightly. “Meaning?”
“When you… shoot at people… is it usually a kill-or-be-killed situation?” I rephrased, my voice going up an octave. “Do you absolutely have to? Or do you just want to?”
“Both.”
For once could you stop being damn honest with me!
“Why?”
Kain shook his head like there was some obvious point that I was missing.
“You don't walk in my shoes without makin’ lots of enemies. What’s worse is that…
I don’t actually make them,” he explained.
“Sometimes, just having the wrong name makes the enemies for you. Niggas you’ve never even met before, just ready to shoot you dead.
Some people have gotten it in their heads that I’m the sole obstacle standing in their way to greatness.
And so they think that if they get rid of me, they can finally get what they want.
They won’t hesitate. So I can’t either.”
“I don’t understand,” I complained.
Kain smiled faintly. “That’s funny,” he said more to himself than to me. “I can’t think of anyone else, but you, who would understand.”
Blinking, I slumped in my seat, thinking hard about what he’d said. It took me a moment, but when it finally clicked, I drew in a sharp breath. Kain’s words not only made sense, but they reminded me of my own situation.
“Your father being who he is… When he makes an enemy, you make an enemy, too.” Our circumstances, if I really thought about it, weren’t so different.
Kain nodded, the gesture having a slight melancholy color to it somehow. “Your two months… My twenty years…”
“And you’ve still never killed anyone?” Now it seemed like an accomplishment. Imagine me, a state attorney’s daughter, actually impressed that my boyfriend had managed to not kill anyone his whole life.
Kain unbuckled his seatbelt and relaxed in his seat. “Nope. I prefer to skip the legal implications of a murder. Even if it is self-defense.” He tossed me a look, a mischievous glitter in his eye. “My record’s squeaky clean.”
“How have you managed to keep it up for so long?”
Kain shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s rarely ever gotten so bad that I needed my gun. But when I do, I aim for the hands. Just before they can get a clear shot. Kinda hard to pull a trigger with a fucked up hand. It took some practice…”
“Oh my gosh, this makes so much sense!” I brought my hand to my mouth. “That’s why they call you Trigger Fingers!”
Kain laughed at that, and it was not the sound of mild amusement. He seemed to find what I’d said very, very funny. Hilarious, actually. Even though I didn’t understand what was funny, I loved the sound of his laugh.
“Called. Tell your Pops to update his file on me,” Kain said between chuckles, automatically knowing how I knew his street name. “Nobody’s called me that since high school.”
“You’ve been doing this since high school…”
“I did this exclusively in high school,” he clarified. “Goin’ away for college has been good to me. Life’s been much quieter for about three years now.”
“Until now,” I amended.
Kain nodded, agreeing with me. “Until now.”
“Sooo,” I stretched the word curiously. “How does a teenager develop such impressive aim?”
“That’s a good question,” Kain said, reaching for his door handle. “Follow me out, and I’ll show you. We’ll call this self-defense lesson number two.”
Confused, I squinted as he let himself out of the car. After unbuckling my seatbelt and letting myself out, I firmly planted the heels of my pumps into a blacktop parking lot. We were still in the hood, I observed, taking in my surroundings as I shut the door.
The car locked secure and I turned to look at Kain over the hood of his Camaro.
He gave me a reassuring smile and nodded toward a warehouse-like building ahead of us.
The tan paint of the structure was faded, almost blending against a backdrop of earthy colors.
Walking side-by-side with my boyfriend, the name of the building came into view as we got closer.
Shooting Range