Free One Lucky Hero by Codi Gary

around the neighborhood and babysat for a few families who let her bring Daisy and Casey with her. She’d hidden the money she earned around their bedrooms until she could open her own checking account, but after her dad found one of her stashes—almost six hundred dollars—she’d installed dead bolts on all of their doors. Then it just became a race between her dad and her to see who could sell off family heirlooms the fastest.
    When she’d first started college, she’d taken a self-defense course, and just before her twenty-first birthday, had completed her firearm safety course. On her birthday, she’d walked into the store and bought a gun and a safe to hold it. She’d spent hours at the range shooting, getting better and better all the time. Between the locks on their doors and the gun, Violet had finally started to feel safe.
    The extra security wasn’t just to keep her dad from ransacking their rooms. If any of his druggie friends stayed over, she needed her siblings to feel safe, too. Daisy and she shared a room, and the Jack and Jill bathroom led into Casey’s. It had worked out well, especially on nights when her brother had been scared and crawled into bed with her anyway.
    Three years ago, though, everything had changed. One night, her brother must have forgotten to lock his door, because she’d woken up to him crying. Daisy had been staying the night at a friend’s house, and Dad hadn’t been around when they’d gone to bed. She could still remember the panic that had gripped her when she’d heard the crashes and thumps coming from Casey’s room. When she’d burst into the room to find her father throwing things around and screaming about money as he loomed over Casey, fear had been replaced by white-hot rage.
    â€œI know you have some, you little shit.”
    One look at her brother’s terrified face had sent Violet running to her room to get her gun from the safe. Her hands had been shaking so badly, she’d only managed to get one bullet in the chamber before Casey screamed again. When she got back to the room, her father was on top of Casey with his hands around his throat. She’d raised the gun and unclicked the safety.
    With a voice far steadier than the rest of her, she’d said, “Get off him before I blow your fucking head off.”
    It was as if he hadn’t heard her. Her breathing grew labored as tears pricked her eyes. This was her father. She was aiming a gun at her father’s head.
    Casey released a choked cry, and Violet shut off every doubt and worry, adjusting the end of the barrel for her warning shot. Before she could stress over what would happen after she fired her one bullet, she pulled the trigger, the bullet whizzing just over her father’s head and imbedding in the wall, plaster exploding over Casey and her dad. She couldn’t think about the fact that the wild-eyed man who turned toward her was still her dad, that despite this moment and all of the other bad ones before it, there had to have been some good ones, too.
    All she could think about was Casey. Getting him away from Dad, no matter what.
    Her dad scrambled off him, falling to the other side of the bed. When he stood up and wiped at a cut on his cheek, she held her ground.
    â€œNext time it won’t be a warning. You get out of this house and you don’t come back, or I’ll file assault charges.”
    Her dad had shaken off the pieces of drywall that coated his head and sputtered, “You’re bluffing.”
    Violet could still feel the sweat sliding down her spine and the pinch of sorrow in her heart as her eyes had blurred. She’d told herself she’d cry later, but in that moment, she’d had to be strong. Firm.
    She’d had to protect Casey.
    â€œTry me.”
    Violet still couldn’t believe it had worked. Maybe he’d been too high to notice the slight quiver at the end of me. All she