Masked by Janelle Stalder

around her apartment whenever he stayed the night. She wasn’t sure what was worse at this point. Her nose scrunched up in distaste.
    Guns had always made her nervous. Shooting one wasn’t really an experience she’d hoped to have in her lifetime. There was just something so callous about firearms. At least when she fought Roman hand-to-hand, there was a level of skill that had to be mastered. Sure, she could seriously harm someone that way, but she had more control over the situation when she was just using her arms and legs to attack. You introduced firearms to the equation and it didn’t matter who was the more skilled, it bottled down to who could pull and shoot faster.
    However, she reasoned, since she was stuck in this alternate lifestyle for however long it took her to do as her father commanded, she supposed it was a smart idea to learn, at the very least, how to shoot one of these things. Not that she wanted to use one – ever. But if she was going to find herself in dangerous situations like the two just past, it might make sense to have some extra protection.
    Great, she thought, now she was rationalizing. This, in her opinion, was the first step to using firearms and violence as a solution, and accepting it as a reasonable choice in a hostile scenario. Was this how it had happened to Charlotte, Bridgette wondered? Did she slowly desensitize herself to what was really right and wrong, until all the ‘wrongs’ became acceptable? It was a shaky path at best, and one Bridgette didn’t like walking.
    Bridgette heard him move until he stood behind her. Then suddenly his arms appeared on either side of her, one of his large hands covering hers which held the gun.
    “Come on,” he coaxed, taking the gun and forcing her to grip it properly beneath his hold. “Aim at your target and let’s see what this baby’s got.”
    She snorted. “You sure you don’t want me to leave you two alone?” she asked, desperately buying time before she’d actually have to shoot the damn thing.
    His voice came just beside her ear, his hot breath sending a shiver down her spine that she tried to hide. “I’m sure,” he said lowly.
    Bridgette closed her eyes against the multitude of sensations his voice enticed when he spoke in that tone. Focus , she scolded herself. If she was going to do this, she had better be concentrating fully. Shaking it off didn’t help since her body rubbed up against his in the process. He was standing too close, clouding her mind like he always seemed to do.
    “Ready?” he asked, his voice right back where it made her think impure thoughts. Her friend Michelle would have had a field day with all this if she could see how Bridgette was reacting to the man behind her. One of the things Michelle had always teased Bridgette about was her lack of desire for the male species.
    It wasn’t that Bridgette hadn’t liked any men, because there had been a few she’d spent some time with. There was just never a spark there. It was like going through the motions for the sake of doing it, but never actually feeling any of it. She’d tried to explain this to Michelle once before, but it had gone completely over her head. She couldn’t understand why Bridgette couldn’t just find a man and settle down. Some girls dated men for the attention and companionship, but Bridgette wanted much more than that. She wanted someone who sent her blood boiling, and who felt the same way about her. That elusive spark people always spoke about. She wanted that.
    Well there was certainly something between her and Roman. The only problem was Roman thought she was her sister…it sort of put a damper on things. Roman wasn’t flirting with Bridgette, he was flirting with Charlotte. That reality snapped her out of her thoughts.
    Roman curved his upper body around her back, raising the gun level with the target at the other end of the room. Then his warmth was gone. Bridgette took a deep breath, focusing on her target, rather