The fingers on Brendan’s hand twitch when he dreams of guns.
One gun in particular: the Smith & Wesson 380 Bodyguard. There are loads of bigger ones, but Brendan suspects that big handguns are a sign of insecurity. (As in, big gun, small dick—something he’d never say to Sir, whose weapon of choice is a monster Glock 40.) And anyway, the Bodyguard speaks to Brendan. The way it looks, with the ruggedness of a revolver folded into the sleekness of an automatic. And a laser sight, which is just plain slick.
More than looks, he loves how it feels. The very first time he held it, the Bodyguard’s twelve ounces of polymer and steel nestled into his palm like a puppy’s head. Its sights seemed precisely engineered for his eyes alone, for the exact length of his arm, the trigger waiting for the touch of his finger to send the rounds, powpowpow—dead center into the man’s outline at the far end of the range. Perfect as dropping one in from the three-point line.
But now the dream is turning, as Brendan’s dreams so often do. The weapon in his hand shifts, all on its own. The laser dot jerks away from the paper silhouette to track along the wall, forcing his elbow out, fighting his wrist into an impossible angle. The red spark travels across the other people in the gun range, people with no right to be there—Principal McDonald, Mina Santos, Jock. All of them oblivious to the danger. And still the sharp red light crawls, to the floor, up Brendan’s body, touching his neck, his face.
Until he is looking straight at the Bodyguard’s perfect mouth (knowing that there is one round still in the chamber). The red dazzles his eye. In the dream, his forefinger twitches—
And Brendan jerks upright in the sweaty sheets, throat raw with the fading cry.