Free Iron by Amy Isan Page B

embarrassed just to be seeing the stupid thing again. The gun I couldn’t find a safety on. How humiliating.
    We’re standing close together, and it’s only then that I notice we’re alone. Nothing but the smooth wind and bright sun overhead to spy on us. He holds the gun out in his palm and shows it to me.
    “This is the gun, right?” he says. I nod. “Okay. Do you know how to shoot it?”
    I shake my head and lower my gaze down to his belt. “I couldn’t even find the safety... the trigger wouldn’t move when I tried that night. Logan, I know I said I wanted you to teach me, but...”
    “But nothing, I said I would. Look,” he says. I meet his eyes and he has a gentle expression. He points down at the gun and points out the different parts of it to me. “This is a double-action revolver, it doesn’t have a safety but I never told you that.” He says as he points at the back of the gun. “Double-action means you don’t have to cock it first by pulling the hammer down, but you have to pull the trigger that much harder.” He clicks the hammer down, then releases it slowly. “This is the chamber, which I’m sure you’ve seen before.” He flips it open and shows me the brass backs on the bullets. Each has a silver circle in the center.
    “What’s the silver circle?”
    “That’s what the firing pin strikes when you shoot it. It detonates the charge and sends the bullet out of the chamber and into the barrel, then, hopefully, into whoever is fucking with you.”
    I scrunch my eyes and notice the small grooves around the silver circle. “Okay...” I’m following well enough, but just thinking about actually using a gun again makes my heart race with anxiety. I couldn’t use it to save Sara from that asshole striking her, and Logan expects me to use it again?
    He shuts the chamber and points the gun out to some scattered bottles and cans that lay on a used railroad tie about fifty feet away. With steady pressure and firm control, he fires it and a loud and horrific bang startles me. Almost instantly one of the bottles shatters into pieces with a satisfying crunch.
    “Where did you learn to shoot?” I ask him. I sit back down on his motorcycle, my legs hanging off the side facing.
    “Surge taught me,” he says, with a hint of self-consciousness. “I actually forgot about that. He brought me out to this same spot.”
    “You were here with Surge?”
    “Yeah,” he says, lowering the gun and turning to me. “It was a couple of months before Los Devils broke up, but we came down here with the whole gang and made connections with some cartels down here.” As he recounts the experience, his expression turns sour and he frowns heavily. “I’m sure that’s when Surge met the asshole who gimped us on our last drop.”
    “Drop?”
    He smiles. “It doesn’t matter.” He sighs and walks up to me. I shift on the motorcycle seat and look away from him, glancing at the bottles and cans still standing at the end of the shooting range. I’m surprised they haven’t been knocked over by a gust of wind.
    “You should probably just tell me. After all, you got me in this deep.”
    “Drugs. A drug deal. That’s when I found out that you were probably in trouble.” I frown and keep my eyes fixed on a distant beer bottle. Its label is torn off and bleached.
    “Why? Why get involved in all this shit? It can’t be that much fun, can it?”
    He opens his mouth to say something but shuts it again. He scratches his arm, hiding one of his tattoos for a moment, then turns around. “It’s all I know.”
    All he knows? Like how he was raised? He gestures for me. “It’s your turn now, come here.”
    After hopping off the bike and walking up next to him, he hands me the gun. I grasp the handle tightly, making my knuckles go white. “Don’t death grip it,” he orders. The handle is warm to the touch and Logan is nearly touching my shoulder with his arm. I want him to.
    I lift the gun up and hold the bottom of