Gone

fired a long gun before. He had no real idea how to use the scope. But how hard could it be?
    He slid into the leather strap and tested his shoulders for freedom of movement. The rifle was heavy, and a little long. The rubber-cushioned butt came down to the back of his thigh. But he could manage it.
    Then he hefted the pistol. He squeezed the cross-hatched grip and wrapped his fingertip around the trigger. Drake loved the feel of this gun in his hand.
    His father had taught him to shoot, using his service pistol. Drake still remembered the first time. The loading of shells into the clip. Sliding the clip into the butt of the gun. Ratcheting the slide to lift a round into place. Clicking the safety.
    Click. Safe.
    Click. Deadly.
    He remembered the way his father had taught him to grip the butt firmly but not too tight. To rest his right hand in the palm of his left and sight carefully, to turn his body sideways to present a smaller target if someone was shooting back. His father had had to yell because they were both wearing ear protection.
    “If you’re target shooting, you center the front sight in the notch of the rear sights. Raise it till your sights are sitting right under your target. Let your breath out slowly and squeeze.”
    That first bang, the recoil, the way the gun jumped six inches, the smell of powder—it was all as clear in Drake’s mind as any memory he had.
    His first shot had completely missed the target.
    Same with the second because after feeling the kick the first time, he had flinched in anticipation.
    The third shot he had hit the target, catching just a piece of the lower corner.
    He had shot up a box of ammo that first day and by the time he was done, he was hitting what he aimed at.
    “What if I’m not shooting targets?” he’d asked his father. “What if I’m shooting at a person?”
    “Don’t shoot a person,” his father had said. But then he relented, relieved no doubt to find something he could share with his disturbing son. “Different people will tell you different techniques. But if it’s me, say I’m doing a traffic stop andI think I see the citizen reaching for a weapon, and I’m thinking I may have to take a quick shot? I just point. Point like the barrel is a sixth finger. You point and if you have to fire, you shoot half the clip, bang, bang, bang, bang.”
    “Why do you shoot so many times?”
    “Because if you have to shoot, you shoot to kill. Situation like that, you’re not aiming carefully for his head or his heart, you’re pointing at the center of mass and you’re hoping you get a lucky shot, but if you don’t, if all you’re hitting is shoulder or belly, the sheer velocity of the rounds will still knock him down.”
    Drake didn’t think it would take six shots to kill Astrid.
    He remembered with vivid, slow-motion detail the time he had shot Holden, the neighbor’s kid who liked to come over and annoy him. That had been a bullet to the thigh, with a low-caliber gun and still, the kid had nearly died. That “accident” had landed Drake at Coates.
    He was holding a nine-millimeter Glock right now, less powerful than his father’s forty-caliber Smith & Wesson, but a lot more gun than the target twenty-two he’d used on Holden.
    One shot would do it. One for the snooty blonde, one for the retard. That would be cool. He would come back, give his report to Caine, and say, “Two targets, two rounds.” That would wipe the smirk off Diana’s face.
    Astrid’s house was not far. But the trick would be to get her before her little brother used the power to disappear again.
    Drake hated the power. There was only one reason whyCaine and not Drake was running the show: Caine’s powers.
    But Caine understood that the kids with powers had to be controlled. And once Caine and Diana had all the freaks under control, what was to stop Drake from using his own nine millimeters of magic to take it all for himself?
    First things first.
    He stared at Astrid’s house from halfway down the block. Looking for any sign of which room she might be in.
    He crept around to the back and up onto the back porch. The door was locked. Anyone who locked their back door locked their front door. But maybe not their windows. He hopped up onto the deck railing and leaned out to get a purchase on the window. It slid up easily. It was not an easy thing getting through the window without making a lot of noise.
    It took him ten minutes to go through every room in the house, look in