Painting With Fire by K. B. Jensen

to the car window and eyed them. The man’s hand rested on the seat and twitched. “I’m not going to say anything.”
    Kevin turned and walked away, across the street, wondering if shots would ring out behind him, wondering if they’d get out of the car and beat him in front of the school. He couldn’t look back.
    He should have felt safer with the gun in his bag, but it felt heavy and unnerving. He worried about it somehow going off, even though it was nestled in its cracked leather carrying case. Kevin didn’t really want to pull it out. He didn’t want to try to shoot anyone. He had never even tried to shoot a gun.
    He walked across the street and passed the yellow school buses with their rumbling engines. The smell of diesel exhaust hung heavy in the air.
    Maybe he would have felt less uneasy if his father had had a chance to show him how to fire it. But the man never had the time to show him how to put the safety on, how to handle it. He was too young before his father died. Kevin had had to look all that up online with the model number and the help of a couple of Youtube clips, but it wasn’t reassuring.
    It seemed like his mother had forgotten the gun existed, up high on the closet shelf in her bedroom, out of sight.
    His hands had shook as he fumbled with the weapon in her room, but he thought he’d feel stronger with it nearby, knowing he could pull it out if he had to. He was trying to be responsible about it.
    He walked across the open cafeteria, past the tables and plastic benches and saw the school police officer hitting the buttons on the vending machine.
    He had stared at the officer’s gun, hanging off his hip in a black holster. He was a round man stuffed into a black corset, a bullet-proof vest. Kevin started to walk toward him. He wanted to talk, maybe it was the only way, but there was Justin, watching him from across the room with his eyes in narrow slits.
    Kevin’s stomach felt like it was filled with acid. His breath came out in tight, little spurts. It seemed like they were just waiting to catch him alone, like that was the only reason he was not dead yet. It was just a matter of time before they’d follow him home on his way back from school. They had been hassling him for months.
    He had sighed and kept walking to class. He jumped at the sound of a locker slamming behind him.
    In the classroom, he dropped the heavy bag to the floor and tried to listen as the gray-haired geometry teacher explained how to calculate the circumference of a circle. Kevin was usually good at geometry and he liked Mr. Olsen, but it didn’t make sense when he kept tuning out every other word.
    Kevin flinched when Mr. Olsen hurled a piece of chalk at the blackboard. White fragments flew in different directions. The teacher gave Kevin his most theatrically gruff expression. “Are you listening, Kevin?” he said.
    “Yeah, of course,” he had said. He swallowed and leaned forward in his desk, putting his arms around it. It was like he was lost at sea and holding onto a piece of wooden wreckage. He wrapped one arm around his notebook and hunched down over the lined paper, scribbling song lyrics and bowing down his head.
    “Angel don’t want me to sing,” he wrote. “Angel don’t want me to sing.”
    A moment before the bell rang, he stuffed the notebook into his bag and Mark, the preppy kid sitting next to him, saw the gun in the leather case. Kevin swallowed. It was like the gun wanted to be seen.
    “Listen, I can explain,” he said. Mark shuffled off and tried to avoid eye contact.
    “It’s for protection, Mark.” Kevin said. “I swear. Someone’s after me.”
    “Ok,” Mark said and walked briskly down the hallway.
    Fuck, Kevin thought. Within five minutes, the fat cop had him pinned down with his face against the shiny, gray hallway floor, twisting his wrists behind his back. The floor tasted of drool, dirty shoes and bleach as his mouth crushed against it.
    Justin watched as they pulled Kevin