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“It’s not much, but you’ll be safe here,” Frank mumbled, pushing open the door to the one-room top-floor apartment overlooking the 207th Street trainyards on the northern tip of Manhattan.“Thanks,” Karen said softly, stepping inside. The place was old and peeling, but immaculately clean and tidy in a way that reminded her of her grandfather’s garage workshop. He’d been a Marine, too.There wasn’t much furniture—a table with two chairs, a sofa, a bed, a small television and a radio standing atop a battered six-drawer dresser. In the dish drainer by the sink, a single plate and mug, with a single fork drying in the attached mesh cup.What there was a lot of was ammunition, boxes and boxes of it stacked shoulder high along the wall behind the sofa.“Shower’s in there, if you want to get the blood off,” Frank said gently.But she just shook her head. “Where do you keep the guns?”Frank had promised her, two seconds before the door was broken down and he’d thrown his Kevlar vest over her to protect her from the hail of bullets that followed, that she had to trust him if they were going to get out of this alive, and that he would never lie to her. He kept his promise. He’d gotten her out alive.“Here,” he said, nodding to the large closet to their left. Only then did she notice that the door was secured with a large padlock.“Let me see.”He thumbed through the combination and pulled the doors open wide, revealing as he did so the corrugated steel panels he’d bolted to the inside of the doors to reinforce them. The entire closet was lined with them, in fact—he’d turned the entire closet into a makeshift armory. And there, hanging on steel brackets from floor to ceiling were more military-grade weapons than Karen had ever seen in a single place.In the middle, taking pride of place, was Frank’s M82. She reached forward and touched it lightly, as if she expected it to be hot, then reached forward with both hands and lifted it gently off the brackets. It was heavier than she expected, but not terribly so; she’d hauled heavier things in her life. It was as heavy as a sleeping child and she instinctively cradled it like one, rocking a little to keep the weight distributed. Strange how her body responded like that to 30 pounds of weight in her arms, like it was a piece of new life instead of an instrument of death. She wondered if they felt the same to Frank, too.Frank studied her face for a long moment, trying to read her intention. “You want to take her out for a spin?” he finally asked.“Yeah.” She spoke more to the weapon than to him. Frank nodded. They climbed out the window onto the fire escape, and headed up to the roof. It was a frozen, windless night—good for target practice, because there was almost no moisture in the air to fuck up the scope, and a much lower chance of anyone out for a night stroll walking into the field of fire. Frank had never hit an innocent yet, and he wasn’t about to start now.Karen was shaking so hard from the adrenaline and the cold and the we-almost-died-tonight that when Frank handed her the box of .50 cals to load into the magazine, she dropped it, scattering bullets as long as her hand everywhere around the roof.“Karen.” Frank’s challenge was gentle but firm: He wasn’t going to let her touch his weapon if she couldn’t get her shit together.“I’m fine,” she said, more to herself than him, and got down on her knees to collect the spilled ammunition.It was so cold out that the bullets made her hands ache, so easily did they absorb the chill. But it was good—the pain centered her, brought her back to the task at hand. A lethal stillness crept over her as she counted and confirmed that she’d found all the rounds she dropped, and by the time she was ready to load the magazine for real, an all-too-familiar calm had come over her, the same urgent stillness that had allowed her to always hit a vein on the first stick no matter how dopesick she was.Glad to see that instinct was still good for something, she thought wryly, ignoring a phantom itch on her arm.“Better?” Frank asked.She felt an enraged smile twitch at the corner of her mouth. After the night they’d had, she wasn’t sure she’d ever feel better again. “I’m ready,” she said instead.She knelt next to Frank as he positioned the shot. A scorchmark on the brickwork of the low rooftop retaining wall told her this was a place he used often, and once her eyes were at the same level as his, she understood why.Before them yawned acres of empty train track. Most of the rolling stock stored there was clustered on the tracks closer to the maintenance bays, but as close to the river as they were, they had nearly half a mile of clearance between them and an outbuilding attached to the Sanitation Department garage situated just uptown of the trainyard.“What’s the target?” Karen asked.Frank sighted through the scope and adjusted the aim slightly. “Here,” he said, moving out of the way so she can lie on her stomach and see for herself.The building, she realized was left unfinished long ago, with reinforced concrete pilings rising from the roof to support a fourth floor that was never built. At some point, though, Frank had gone over and spray-painted targets on them.“I can’t believe nobody’s noticed those,” she remarked.“Maybe they notice them, maybe they don’t. But they probably don’t figure that the person using them is sitting on a rooftop 547 meters away.”“What happens when they do figure?”“I suppose I find a new apartment,” Frank said, with that rare wry smile of his that she can’t help smiling in response to.“You ever afraid you’re going to hit someone by mistake?”“I don’t make mistakes, ma’am,” Frank said, scanning the abandoned building with his telescope.“Don’t call me ma’am,” Karen sighed. “Makes you sound like a hillbilly.”“Yes, ma’am,” Frank said, and she elbowed him.“All right,” Frank said, all business now. “Field of fire’s clear. You ready?”“Yes, sir,” she replied, but didn’t turn to see if he smiled. She placed her finger on the trigger and began to scoot up toward the scope.“Trigger discipline,” he reminded her. “C’mon, you know this. You confirm the field of fire is clear first, do you understand?”“Sorry,” she mumbled.“’Sorry’ don’t make up for blowing someone’s head off, Page,” Frank said, firmly but without anger. “No fucking around now.”Karen hyperextends her hand against the stock so it’s clear that none of her fingers are anywhere near the trigger as she adjusts her position and checks her sight again. The crosshairs are aimed a smidge up and to the left of the target, and she begins to shift the gun when Frank stops her.“No, it’s good,” he said. “That far out, the bullet’s gonna drop about two inches, and windspeed’s only about three knots, but you still gotta account for it.”“Sorry.”“Again, sorry ain’t worth shit,” Frank said. “Move.”She rolls out of the way so he can re-check the scope and readjust the aim. She’d only moved it half an inch, but even that had been too much for Frank.“Let’s do it right this time, okay?” Frank said. “I’m freezing my balls off up here.”Karen nodded and resumed her position next to the rifle. She fixed her eye against the scope and confirmed that the field was clear before placing her hand on the trigger. The stock was freezing cold against her shoulder.She was spooning on a rooftop with thirty pounds of death in her arms. She could vaporize a man’s head with the pressure of a kiss. After the night she’d had, she needed this more than anything she’d ever needed in her life. “Ready,” she said softly.“Take the shot, Page.”She took a deep breath, the way he’d told her to, and checked the scope one last time as she finally, finally curled her finger around the trigger. The trigger was freezing cold against her finger and her belly was nearly numb against the roof, but her blood was hot, so hot in her ears and her neck and chest, and she willed her heart to stand still and for a moment it obeyed, and the pounding stopped, and as she slowly released the muscle in the belly holding back her breath, she contracted her finger against the trigger and energy thrummed through the weapon, knocking her off balance and stealing her breath and sending her heart into an ecstatic skitter.She rolled onto her back and found herself looking right up at Frank, kneeling next to her, checking the damage with his scope and giving an appreciative nod before looking down at her with that tiny smile only she recognized as such, the one he always saved for her.“Good shot.”