Page 45 of Emerald Vices

Pick me up, Natalia. You know how I work, don’t you? You’ve used me before.

Shuddering, I take a step back. Then I whirl around to Shura. “I’m calling it. This is useless!”

“Don’t say that. You’re just starting.”

“No, it’s been half an hour, and I’m further from the gun than when we started.” I sag. “I thought I’d at least shoot it before I freaked out.”

He turns from the pool house for the first time since I banished him from looking at me. “Stop seeing the gun as a weapon?—”

“It is a weapon.”

“It’s a tool,” he argues. “What makes all the difference is who’s holding it.”

All at once, I see my own hands rising in front of me, a gun folded between them… aimed at Andrey’s chest.

“Exactly! Look at me—I’m a freaking wreck.” I take another step back. “I shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a gun.”

Shura looks like he wants to agree. But instead, he walks over and picks up the gun. Without any hesitation, he raises it and aims at a tree in the distance. He mimes pulling the trigger. “You just need to be confident.”

“Which automatically disqualifies me.”

He lowers the gun, pointing the muzzle at the ground and flicking on the safety before he turns to me. “Confidence can be learned. But if you don’t want to do this, Natalia, you don’t have to.”

I consider going back to my glossy-haired, poreless therapist and telling her I failed my first homework assignment, and my stomach curdles with shame. “No, I want to do this. I’m just… scared.”

“Okay. Tell me what you’re afraid of.”

I glance at the gun in his hand like it’s a venomous snake that might strike at any moment. “Everything.”

“Care to be more specific?”

“I’m afraid of looking at it, touching it—basically, all of the five senses are off limits,” I ramble. “Also, of dying.”

Shura looks like he’s not sure what to do with me, and I relate to the feeling. I don’t know what to do with me, either.

I cover my face with my hands. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know this isn’t helping. But every time I see a gun, I see my parents being killed.”

Shura puts the gun down and walks closer. “You’re thinking about yourself on the wrong end of the gun. Try to imagine holding it. If you were threatened and the only way to save yourself is to pick up this gun and shoot, would you do it?”

Again, I see myself aiming the gun at Andrey, my mind blank as I pulled the trigger.

I shake my head, my chin wobbling. “I don’t—I can’t?—”

“Misha,” he says suddenly. “Think about Misha. Would you pick up this gun to save Misha?”

The scene unfurls before my eyes—Misha and I trapped in a room with Nikolai or Slavik. If one of them went to hurt Misha, murder in their eyes, would I be able to pick up a gun with the intention of using it on another human being?

“I would shoot.” The words roll off my tongue without a hitch.

Shura nods. “Precisely. Now, pick it up.”

I take a few tentative steps forward, my hand reaching for the revolver. Breathe, I tell myself. Just breathe.

Then my hand clamps, sweaty and slippery, around the handle, and breathing is no longer part of the equation. My lungs are sealed shut, and I rip my hand away so violently that the gun clatters off the table.

Shura catches it before it can hit the ground.

“You touched it,” he offers generously. “That’s a start.”

---