“That’s right. It’s the size of the kill zone in an average man’s head. I made it so that it would move because when someone is intending to abduct you or murder you they’re moving as they come at you. If they see you have a gun they might even bob and weave. So, I made a moving target for practice.
“You’ll know when you hit it because the bullet will make a sharp ping against the steel.”
Angela let out a deep breath. “I don’t know if I can hit it when it’s moving.”
“You have to,” he said. “You’re going to practice every day until you can hit that wobbling triangle with every shot.”
“Every shot?” She shook her head. “I don’t know, Grandpa, if I’ll ever be able to do that.”
“If it’s ever necessary, your life will depend on you making that kill shot first time, every time.”
Angela nodded her determination. “All right. I’ll practice until I can hit it. Well, at least most of the time.”
“Every time,” he repeated with stern finality.
Angela looked at him for a long moment. “Every time,” she said with resolve.
Angela was determined not to quit. After a lot of practice she could hit the triangle every once in a while—when it was still. But once he wound up the device and it started wobbling around, it seemed hopeless. She missed the triangle every time. It was frustrating trying to follow the target and fire off rounds.
He urged her to settle down and not to fire until she was on target, but it was always gone before she could pull off the shot. She didn’t see how she was ever going to get good enough to hit it, much less good enough to hit it reliably.
It was several months and tens of thousands of rounds before she hit the wobbling triangle for the first time. When she heard the ping, it surprised her. She stood staring as the sound echoed back from the forest. She wasn’t sure if it had been by chance or intent.
Over the months that followed, she would shoot every day they were at the cabin, usually for hours at a time. There was little hiking or fishing, which she regretted, but the shooting had become important to her. It was a challenge, but also fed an inner yearning to do better. The effort of concentrating so hard often left her soaked in sweat at the end of a session.
One autumn night, as her grandfather was taking a shower, Gabriella sat on the edge of the fold-out bed as Angela snuggled under the covers. The fire in the woodstove was low, and the woodsmoke smelled good.
“Can I ask you a serious question, Grandma?”
“Of course. You know you can always talk to me.”
Angela turned her head, listening to the shower run through the closed bathroom door. She turned back.
“Why is he doing this? This isn’t just teaching me to shoot a gun. This is something different, I can feel it. There’s something serious about this, but I don’t know what it is.”
Her grandmother looked off in thought for a time.
“We think that maybe you’re different, Angela.”
Angela’s brows drew together. “Different?”
“Yes, piccolo.” “Piccolo” meant “little one” in Italian. It was a term of endearment her grandmother used on occasion.
“I don’t understand.”
She finally looked down at Angela. “We have long suspected that you’re different—special. You’ve shown it in a thousand little ways that we can’t really put our finger on or explain.
“But then, when you did what you did to that girl who hit you, we knew. It may seem like you simply defended yourself, and you did, but there was more to it. You’re not like other girls, other people, Angela.”
“I know. I don’t know how to explain it either, but I know I’m different. Sometimes it makes me afraid. Sometimes it makes me glad. I don’t know what it is, but I know I’m different than other people.”
“We think you are. We think you’re meant for something.”
“Something? Like what?”
Her grandmother shrugged. “We don’t know. But we think you have some purpose to your life. When you put that girl down the way you did, we knew. It was the first sign we could point to. You’re different. Your life will be different. We decided that your grandpa should start teaching you what you need to know for that life, for that person you will become.”
Angela made a face. “I don’t understand.”
Her grandmother smiled a sad smile. “I know, child. But one day you will.”
“What person will I become?”
“It’s too early to say for sure. Have patience and keep being yourself and you will grow into that person you’re meant to be. Now, get some sleep.”
THIRTEEN
Then, one day the following spring and over a half a year after starting, after thousands upon thousands of rounds fired, as she stood there in the woods, her gun in hand, her gun feeling like an extension of herself, Angela blinked as an unexpected feeling washed through her.
It was as if a doorway had opened in the darkness and she suddenly saw everything beyond in a new light.
She had come upon those mental doorways before. With each one she passed through she would discover that she understood the world in a new light. Things became clear to her. She had always thought of those doorways as simply part of growing up and learning new things, making connections she’d never made before, and maybe they were.
But this doorway was distinctly different, and decidedly more significant.
In that moment of insight, Angela was no longer aiming at a steel target. That was what she had been doing up until then—trying to hit a steel triangle as it wobbled and zigzagged.
Throughout her practice, she had often thought of the steel triangle as the bad guy. But it was always her conscious mind imposing that thought on the target. It was her imagining it.
This was similar, but at the same time somehow profoundly different.
This was a visceral desire to kill those bad guys.
It gave her goose bumps.
She thought about Frankie and the kind of men who abducted and murdered women. In that moment of clarity, it was no longer a target. It had become a man coming for her, coming to hurt her, coming to end her life.
A kind of primal fear welled up from inside. She could taste it in her mouth. This had morphed into life and death.
This wasn’t about shooting at a target anymore. This was a savage coming for her. This was about killing him before he could kill her.
Some mysterious piece of a cosmic puzzle that had been looking for where it fit in her life finally snapped into place.
She no longer felt frantic about trying to follow the triangle. Instead, she felt a sense of calm come over her.
The random movements of the steel triangle didn’t exist independently. They couldn’t. A killer all alone didn’t bob and weave. He became connected to his victim. She became a part of that connection.
She no longer chased the target. Instead, it pulled her through that connection.
It was no longer a metal triangle. It was the area between two eyes and the tip of the nose of a killer coming for her. It was the portal into his skull, a gateway for her bullet, the pathway to her salvation.
Her one chance to live.
That understanding gave her a sense of purpose and inner calm. At the same time, in that calm she held on to a core of rage at a killer, letting that fire burn deep within her.
It all came together in a heady rush. It gave her goose bumps and took her breath. The frustration was gone. It felt as if she had passed through a hidden doorway into a new kind of connection with the target.
She was able to lock on to the target so solidly, so reliably, that no matter which way it jumped, the gun went with it. The bullet found it.
She heard the salvation of ping, ping, ping with every round fired.
Angela couldn’t hear the birds anymore, the wind in the trees. The steel triangle wasn’t wobbling every which way anymore. It was instead moving with her in slow motion.
Time seemed somehow suspended.
Time was hers.
The target was hers.