Gated Read Free

to be lions sometimes.”
    He’s using my nickname—the one he gave me becauseI’m always watching everything, taking things in. Usually I like it and the way his voice warms when he says it, but not now. Today it just makes me feel weak.
    He guides my rifle back up onto my shoulder and gently moves my braid from between it and my cheek. I focus in on the woman cutout first and level the gun. I have to do what he’s asking. I owe it to him, to all of us.
    “When you pull the trigger this time, you will aim for the head or the heart,” Pioneer whispers in my ear. “Show me, show them”—he points at Will, Brian, and Marie—“how much you love us.”
    He backs away to stand with the others. I can feel their eyes on me. I chew on my lip.
Get ahold of yourself. They aren’t even real
. I aim at the woman’s chest. Breathe in and out. Then I close my eyes at the last second and pull the trigger. When I open my eyes, there’s a hole in the cutout’s chest.
    “Good. Now again,” Pioneer commands.
    I aim at the smaller target. I try not to see its small hands and feet. I concentrate on the black middle of the plywood. Still, when the bullet explodes out of my gun, my chest tightens. Pioneer makes me shoot both targets again and again and again. They are mangled and unrecognizable when I’m through, but I’m not as sick as I was to start with. I still don’t like the shooting, but I can at least do it now without flinching each time.
    Pioneer’s grinning widely at me. “That’s my girl!” He pulls me to him and kisses my forehead. His shirt smellslike hay and grass and gunpowder. “Your sweet nature is what I love most about you. But unfortunately, until this world is no more, that nature is dangerous. To you and to all of us. You have to prepare for the months ahead of us yet. Get strong.” He tilts my chin up and looks me in the eye. “Let me prepare you, Little Owl. The more you fight what I tell you, the harder things will be for you.” There’s an edge in his voice now that undercuts the warmth of his embrace. It makes me shiver.
    “You all will help her come around, won’t you? You’ll let me know if she needs my undivided attention again as we go forward toward these last days?”
    My friends nod obediently. I swallow and focus on the grass beneath my feet. I’m everyone’s project now. I can’t look any of them in the eye. I’m just too embarrassed.
    “Well, now, afternoon lessons begin in twenty minutes,” Pioneer says. “Hurry and clean up. I’ll be expecting you all to be on time.” He turns and heads for his truck without looking back.
    Silence settles over us. We pull our targets off their mounts and replace them with new ones from the shed at the far end of the field. Dust still swirls in the air from where Pioneer’s truck kicked it up. I cough as some of it goes down my throat.
    When the range is back in order, Will and I follow Brian and Marie to the cornfield and the road beyond. The air between"1e air be all of us is still awkward and tense. I hate that I’m proving to be such a failure at defense—even Marieis more reliable at it. I’m not sure how to readjust my instincts, be as quick to shoot as everyone else. Pioneer’s help hasn’t changed this.
    Halfway to the road, Marie turns and points her gun toward the range again. She lowers her voice, makes it sound vaguely mechanical. “I’ll be back,” she says. Her face is perfectly deadpan. It breaks the awkwardness between all of us, and I want to hug her for it.
    Brian rolls his eyes and laughs. “What is it with you two and the Terminator movies? I thought they were supposed to be for guys.”
    Marie and I look at each other and she grins. “Um, it’s impossible not to quote them when Pioneer’s shown them to us about a zillion times. And besides, when there are guys in them as totally hot as that Kyle character, they most definitely become girl movies.”
    Brian plugs his ears. “Not listening,” he says a