24. Maria
Chapter twenty-four
Maria
My heart melts over the way Christopher wooed new bunny away from Zinnia.
Once dinner is through, and I read Zinnia the sharing book again—at her request—she asks Chris if she can sleep with Mr. Rabbit.
He graciously agrees. “But new bunny will return to school. We don’t want the other children to be lonely.”
Zinnia looks so serious, then nods.
“Do you want to kiss new bunny goodnight? You’ll see him again next week when you return to school.”
Zinnia takes the cue and hugs new bunny, smooches his cheek, then relinquishes him to Chris without objection.
Yup, melting.
And it’s not just how adorable he is in moments like this. It’s how much he’s adjusted over the last several weeks. Ever since he said he wanted to really try, he’s been committed to learning how to be a better co-parent.
By the time Zinnia is finally asleep, I can feel the tug of dawn. I yawn and find Chris in the kitchen washing dishes.
“Leave them.” I offer him a towel to dry his hands. “I’ll clean up tomorrow night.”
Taking his hand, I tug him into the bedroom, lock the door, and strip. There isn’t enough time to make love, but I want to snuggle skin to skin.
He wraps me in his arms, sporting a hard-on.
“I wish we had time to make use of this,” I say, as I press against him.
He laughs. “There’s always tomorrow.”
And indeed, the first thing he does when we wake is make slow, passionate love to me.
Then we shower together. “What’s today’s plan?” I ask as I soap his back.
“We don’t need to scavenge tonight. We can use tonight to finally brush up on your shooting skills. How does gun practice sound?”
I bite my lip. “I don’t know…”
He spins around and grips my hips, then pulls my body under the shower spray, his gaze fixed intensely on mine.
“Maria. I’ve been asking you to practice at the target range for weeks, and you keep delaying.
It’s important you’re ready if we have another close call with the renegades rather than just distant passes.
You were ready enough to use a gun before.
” He cocks his head to the side. “What aren’t you telling me? ”
The minute he suggested the idea, my hands started shaking, and I hide them behind my back. “Uh… I, uh, I was bluffing.”
His brow furrows. “But you held the gun as if you knew how.”
“My grandpa had a gun and taught me the basics…”
“Go on.”
“He tried to teach me to fire it when I was a shade older than Zinnia. The noise scared the bejesus out of me. I refused to learn after that. And now, being vampire, everything sounds louder.”
He hugs me under the water spray as the soap rinses off his back. “I can find ear protection for you. But I don’t like the idea of scavenging together when only I know how to handle a gun despite your earlier bravado. If I get hurt, you might need to defend us.”
“I could bring my bow and arrow.”
“Too bulky. Look, I wouldn’t insist, except we’ve been lucky recently.
The renegades could revive their efforts and corner us at any time.
I don’t know how many were left alive after the truck blew up, or if others are out there who weren’t part of the attack.
You remember your first week here—how frequently they assaulted us?
I try to change neighborhoods randomly, but they might spot us and follow.
And the Lux won’t be so forgiving if we lose another truck. ”
I sigh. “Fine. I’ll try. With ear protection.”
He releases me from his bear hug. “Deal. If you can shoot an arrow accurately, you’re going to be a perfect sharpshooter with a gun. The recoil is the only difference.”
Great. I didn’t even think of the recoil.
We dry off, dress, and make Zinnia’s meals for the night. She’s already working on today’s school project and absent-mindedly picks at her eggs.
I finally intervene. “Let’s put your crayons aside and finish breakfast. Then you can dress. Can’t have the other kids seeing you in your PJs over the vidcon.”
Zinnia pouts when I sweep up her coloring book.
Chris grabs the puppet and starts tickling her with it.
She giggles.
He snuggles the puppet against her neck. “Come on, munchkin. Listen to your mother.” Then he pulls back to have it dance for her, singing each word and making a goofy face. “The sooner you eat, the sooner you can get ready for school and back to coloring.”
She laughs again. Picking up a forkful of scrambled eggs, she stuffs them in her mouth and smiles at Chris.
A tiny bit of jealously pricks me. She behaved for him. But I shake off the feeling. We may each have our own styles, yet we’re working well together. Which means I no longer have to carry the burden of raising Zinnia alone.
I finish cleaning the kitchen. Zinnia dresses on her own and resumes her seat in front of the 3-D vidcon, waiting for class to start.
Chris gestures for me to follow him. He unlocks the warehouse elevator, and we rise to the fourth floor. I’m still not accustomed to the swoop of the lift, and the sudden acceleration leaves my stomach on the ground floor.
He removes a tablet from a wall-mounted holder, consults it, and strides down a hallway between tall racks holding plastic bins. “The first night you arrived here, I moved all my firearms to a gun safe. One is in the garage. The others are up here.”
I follow him, eyeing the stuff his people have scavenged over the decades and preserved for future generations. Stuff I would have given my right arm for when we lived in the silo.
At the end of the racks, we stop in front of multiple metal cabinets. “These are gun safes. The taller vaults hold rifles.” He unlocks one and shows me.
Oh gosh. He wasn’t kidding. Stacks of rifles. “Where did you get these?”
“The Lux cleared out the military bases before civilians or rogue soldiers stole them. They tried to limit the damage. No one wanted World War III started in a Mad Max variant.”
“Mad who?”
“I’ll show you the movie when Zinnia’s asleep. She doesn’t need any more nightmares than she already has from being raised in a missile silo.” He closes and locks the doors and then opens another cabinet. “Handguns. We’ll practice with these.”
Some look like the gun my grandpa had. I point at one. “What’s that?”
“Revolver. Manual load. I prefer a Glock with an extended magazine.”
He might as well be speaking a foreign language. “You realize none of what you said makes sense to me.”
“Sorry. I’ll explain when we get to the target range.”
He places two guns and ammunition into a bag he carries, locks the cabinet, and we check in on Zinnia. She’s still engrossed in the lesson being taught.
He locks all the doors from the outside—including Wolfie’s—so Zinnia can’t follow us, and flips a switch to turn off the power.
Even if she defeats the locks, the automatic doors would remain shut.
And he adds a bar across the cat door as a backup.
My heart warms every time I see him go these extra lengths to protect my baby.
Once we’re in the domestic animal dome, Chris loads four bales of hay onto the bed of the utility truck.
He drives us past the last grazing fence to an empty pasture, where he builds a tower of bales.
Then he pins pages from a coloring book to one bale.
From the haystack, he walks a straight line to where I wait, taking long strides and counting out loud to twenty-five. “That should do it.”
“What?”
“About seventy-five feet.” He draws a line in the dirt with his heel, then grabs an armful of rocks and lays them in a straight line to mark it.
“We stand here for target practice. See the cartoon man with a handlebar mustache? The one Zinnia colored? I’ll aim for his head. I gave you the other character.”
“Seriously? You want to use Zinnia’s artworks?”
He leans over and kisses me. “You can’t keep all of them. And they make a perfect target, since I don’t have any traditional bull’s-eye sheets to practice on.”
My grandpa had some printed concentric circles on paper, so this time I know what he’s talking about.
He identifies the parts of the gun, loads the ammunition, and tells me a bit about the manufacturer’s name. Then he shows me how to sight the target.
“Time to give it a try.” He hands me ear protection. “Are you ready?”
“I guess.”
“Adjust the headband so the cups fit securely over your ears. No gaps. Once you’re ready, I’ll go first.”
We both don the large ear coverings. After mine are set, I nod at him.
When he fires, I jump. Even with the earmuffs protecting my hearing, the bang is loud, and the night insects stop clicking.
He fires a few more times and puts each bullet through the cartoon character’s head.
Wow.
When he lowers the gun, he gestures for me to remove the muff covering one of my ears.
“Now, with vampires, you aim for the center of their chest. I want you to practice aiming at the head for now because it’s bigger, but don’t pull the trigger.
” He hands me the gun and shows me how to double-grip the handle.
“Keep your finger resting alongside the gun until you’re ready to fire. Got it?”
“Yeah, I guess.” My hands shake as I hold the Glock with both hands and look through the U-shaped sight.
“Great. That’s a good start.” He moves behind me, his body against mine, his hands brushing along my arms until he reaches the gun and adjusts my grip. “Keep breathing slowly. In and out. Don’t hold your breath. It’ll increase your tremors.”
His hips press against my butt, and his hard-on is easy to detect.
I huff. “You’re just doing this to get fresh with me.”
“Maybe.” He laughs. “Or maybe I’m trying to get you to relax. And I think it’s working.”
He’s right, darn him, because my hands are steadier than they were when he first handed me the gun.
“Okay. I’m going to cover your ear. You’ll aim and pull the trigger. Just like you aim an arrow.”
With both muffs on, the night insects that started up again sound muffled.
The cartoon character is a person with a mouse’s face. I look down the sight, finding the mouse’s head, and aim between its oversized ears, then slide my finger inside the trigger guard and pull. The shot goes wide, completely missing the paper.
Chris lifts my ear covering. “My bad. I forgot to tell you to keep your finger straight and gently press, don’t pull. If you pull, you’ll have a tendency to jerk the gun. Also, fire at the end of an exhale.” He releases my ear covering, wraps his arms around me, and guides me into position again.
Bang.
I can’t believe it. A hole appears in the mouse’s forehead.
Chris lifts my earmuff. “Good job. Now, don’t stop. Five fast rounds.”
We keep practicing until there is nothing left of the mouse’s head and I’m out of ammo. I slide off my ear protection.
Chris takes the gun from me and explains more about the care of the weapon.
“Can we go back? I want to check on Zinnia.”
“Sure. We can review more gun safety later.”
On the drive back, he glances over at me. “Are you okay with how I handled things last night? And this morning?”
I squeeze his hand. “Last night was perfect. This morning? I’m so used to it being just Zinnia and me…I felt a little uncomfortable at first when Mr. Rabbit settled her.”
“Oh.” He stops the truck and turns to me. “If you want, I’ll back off.”
“No. That’s not what I mean. Um, you don’t have to be perfect. We’ll both make mistakes. We just have to work together as a team. Which we did.” I kiss his cheek. “How are you feeling?”
“Awkward. I wish I knew more of this stuff. My last experience with children was being a child myself. And those methods are clearly outdated.”
“Maybe Ms. Kalina has a book she can send us. I’d be interested, too, since I didn’t grow up in a dome. We could read it in bed together.”
He wraps his arms around me for a luscious kiss. “We wouldn’t get much reading done in bed.”
“We’d get enough.”