“Oh,” I muttered, not sure if I should be happy or sad about Bear choosing to leave me in the care of Rambo, prom queen edition. King strode up to the porch and shouted something to Rage who appeared again in the doorway, twirling the end of her ponytail.

“Ray or I will call to check on you,” King stated as he walked right past me and got back into the truck. Within seconds he’d already backed out of the driveway and disappeared down the road. I couldn’t see the truck but I could make out the dust billowing behind his truck and over the trees as King made his way out of Jessep.

I glanced up at Rage who pressed her lips together and frowned. I couldn’t help but wish I was still in that truck with him.

I shuffled up to the house but stopped just short of the broken down deteriorating steps.

“You shoot?” Rage asked, holding up one of my first place blue ribbons.

“Yeah. A bit.”

“Wanna have a little competition?” she asked with a mischievous smile, pulling two guns from her duffle bag.

Rage may be able to blow up buildings and if what King said was true, a lot more than that. But in a shooting competition I had a strong doubt that she could beat me and maybe a little distraction from reality was what I needed. After all, I had no idea how much time we had on our hands.

“Okay,” I said, pointing behind her. “There’s a fence on the back of the property. Might still be some of my old targets out there—”

“Nope. Not exactly what I had in mind,” Rage interrupted, checking her reflection in the chrome of one of her guns. She tossed me the other which I thankfully caught. “Come on,” she said, heading back up into the house.

“I can’t,” I said, twisting Bear’s ring in my hand.

Rage narrowed her eyes at me, “I figured that when I saw the look on your face when we first pulled up, but I have an idea. At least come up the steps.”

Reluctantly, I took the steps slowly, one by one, cringing with each familiar creak. I stopped “What bothers you most about this place?” Rage asked from the other side of the screen.

“Everything,” I admitted.

“Be more specific,” Rage said, letting out an exasperated sigh. “I already know that it holds some bad memories, yada yada, killed your parents here, yada yada.”

“Something tells me the last one wasn’t exactly a guess.”

Rage smiled sheepishly. “I know everything about everything.”

“Good to know.”

“So tell me what you hate about it. You know, besides the obvious, being-a-shit-hole, reason.”

“Well,” I started. “I hate that this is where my brother died, but I was young, so what I really hate is that my mother never changed his room or got rid of any of his stuff. It was like a ghost lived with us, one she liked better than me or my dad.”

“Keep going,” Rage said. “Close your eyes.” I did as she said and the images of all that was wrong with that place flooded my mind. I heard the squeak of the screen door open and started to open my eyes again. “Keep them shut,” she ordered.

I took a deep breath. “I hate the family portrait in the living room because my mom had it painted by one of her friends years after my brother died and instead of it being of the three of us my mom had my brother painted in. I loved my brother, and we had lots of pictures of him all around the house and I loved them all, but I felt like it was a slap in the face to me and my dad. We were alive, yet she treated us like we were the ones who were dead.”

“Good,” Rage said, tugging on my arm, making me take a step forward. “More.”

“I hate the rocking chair in my brother’s room where she was sitting when I realized she killed my dad. I hate that I know the exact place in my parents’ room where my father died. I hate the table in the kitchen where we had Sunday dinner and would all smile and talk about our days like there was nothing wrong. Those weren’t dinners. Those were lies.”

I felt another tug and took another step. “Okay, good. Now open your eyes.” I did.

“Wow,” I said. I was standing in the middle of the living room. “How did you do that?” I asked, noticing the panicked feeling was gone.

Rage replied with, “Because recently someone taught me how to overcome a fear, and I thought maybe I could pass that along to you.”

“Yeah, but how?”

“Easy peasy,” Rage said. Turning suddenly she aimed her gun at the family portrait hanging above the mantle of the little fireplace in the living room and fired, shattering the glass, sending it raining down to the floor, leaving a dusty rectangular mark on the wall where it had hung. She turned back around. “You take the power back.”

It was like suddenly something inside of me broke and without thinking I took a step past Rage, walking around the broken portrait in the living room in complete and total awe. “Yes,” I said, looking back up to Rage. “Let’s do it.”

Rage and I spent the rest of the afternoon making a competition of setting up vases, photos, stuffed animals, plates, and other objects of my hatred, taking turns obliterating each and every one of them.

Neither one of us missed a single shot.

“Have you ever missed?” Rage asked from her perch on the counter, as she watched me sweep glass into a dust pan.

“Yes,” I admitted, remembering the park and how I almost got Bear and I killed because I hit Mono’s shoulder instead of his chest. “Once, maybe twice.”

Only when shooting at people.

“You?”

Rage swung her legs back and forth and scrunched up her little nose. “Just once, although I’m starting to think I did it on purpose.”

We were both quiet after that as I cleaned up the mess, and Rage cleaned her guns. She’d been right. In order to overcome my fear I had to take the power back, which meant I couldn’t just sit around and do nothing when it came to my fear of losing Bear.

I had to do something.

Unfortunately, in order to do something I had to wait for Barbarian Barbie to turn her back.

At least long enough for me to borrow one of her guns.

Which I realized very quickly was going to be hard when she didn’t leave my side. When I showered, she sat on the toilet with the lid down and filed her nails. When I cleaned out the freezer, she did a bizarre series of stretches in the middle of the kitchen. When I went outside to throw away the trash, she kept pace beside me and complained about the heat.