Chapter 28

Lorenzo taught me how to grip the gun. He said the hand couldn't be too tight, or it would ruin the sensitivity on the trigger, and it couldn't be too loose either, or the recoil would kick the barrel skyward. He said your line of sight had to find that balance point between the rear notch and the front post, and that you had to hold your breath the instant you squeezed. He used a lot of words I'd never once heard in my past life: the parts of a firearm, the caliber of ammunition, the angle of a bullet's path. In his mouth those things sounded like a language he already knew by heart, and I was scrambling to learn every letter of it.