Honor Road by Jason Ross (best non fiction books of all time TXT) 📕

In those shooting sessions, Mat taught William the Glock handgun, not the shiny, heavy pistol William had taken from the house. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure how the handgun functioned. It didn’t look anything like the Glock.

He found the magazine release and dropped the gleaming, silver mag into his hand. The bullets were thicker than Mat’s nine millimeter rounds.

With the magazine out, he tried to pull back the slide. By jamming it against his hip, he managed to get it back until it clicked open, just like the Glock. The breach was clear of brass, but William still handled the firearm as though it was loaded, pointing it in the opposite direction of sleeping Candice.

“Where’d you get that?”

He startled, but quickly covered it with a grin. “I stole it from my dad’s workbench.”

“Your dad, huh?”

“I stole it from Mat’s workbench.”

“Don’t be too hard on him.” Candice sat up from the sleeping bag and leaned on an elbow. Her naked clavicle showed under the collar of the too-big T-shirt she’d found in the closet of the abandoned house where they’d come to hide. “He’s doing the best he knows how.”

They were both runaways now, and William didn’t care. Whatever happened, they’d be together.

“What’re you planning on doing with that?” she stared at the big handgun.

“Erm. Nothing. It’s just to protect us from rats,” he lied.

She lowered her brows and gave him a look that said baloney.

“Mister Jensen needs to be stopped,” William sputtered, then felt foolish for saying anything so dramatic. He hadn’t even figured out the gun yet.

His heart galloped like a runaway horse at the thought of pointing a gun at Mr. Jensen; a willowy, twelve year-old child facing down a grown man. In the movies, that scene rarely worked out in a boy’s favor.

Candice would see it too—the foolishness of a boy bringing justice down upon a man respected in the community. She’d see him for the unsteady child he really was. Candice was no thirteen year-old girl. Not really. She’d been through stuff. He could see the question in her eyes—like when he would tell his mom that he was going into the backyard to practice sword fighting. Candice knew the embarrassing truth: he was just a kid.

The pistol was almost as long as William’s forearm, and he could barely get his hands around the grips. Candice’s eyes tracked from the gun, up his arms, to his face.

He clamped down hard on the slide release and it clacked shut with authority. William slid the magazine into the mag well and ran it home with a loud click. The metal-on-metal action sent a shot of adrenaline up his spine.

“If no one else will do it, I will,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“William, stop. Don’t do this,” she cried.

He stood and struggled to maintain balance with the handgun in both hands.

“You stay here. I’ll be back later.”

Without waiting for her to answer, William turned and walked out of the house. The screen door slammed shut behind him.

The town tornado siren began to howl as William passed in front of Casey’s Takeout. For a moment, he imagined Candice had called the police, and the town was coming to arrest him. He imagined, for a moment, that the tornado siren was for him.

A knot of people ran past him in the middle of the street, but nobody spared him a second glance. He tried to hide the gun, but it took both of his hands to carry it without pointing it at his own leg. Mat had taught him never to point a gun at himself.

“William!” Candice called to him as she ran down the sidewalk after him. “Wait.”

He stopped and turned. “It’s not murder if he’s a bad man.”

“Yes, but he’s not... I mean, he is. But the town needs him. The town needs him to make chemical weapons.”

“That’s just some B.S. he told you so you wouldn’t tell on him.” William shook his head. “He’s a liar and a peedo-file.”

Confusion blew across the smooth silk of her pretty face. William turned and continued down the sidewalk.

“He protects me,” she said, but this time without conviction.

William kept walking and she hurried to catch up.

“When you use someone in a bad way, you’re not protecting them,” William said. “You’re hurting them. Only a bad man hurts young girls, and you know it.”

“Yes, but things changed. The world’s different now.”

“Not that thing. That didn’t change,” William said, and he was pretty sure he was right on that score. He’d found an absolute truth in a world of uncertainty. He clung to it as his lodestone—that and the heavy handgun.

They turned onto Forrest Avenue. The tornado siren grew louder as they faced downtown. Two more groups of townsfolk ran past them. They carried guns, and the smell of smoke swirled down the avenue.

Something had happened in town, but if he didn’t keep marching toward Mr. Jensen’s house, he’d lose his nerve. What he was about to do was right. He was sure of it.

Candice trotted beside William, struggling to keep up. She offered no further argument. Jim Jensen was in the front yard, running back and forth between the garage and a van—big and white like a FedEx truck. Mr. Jensen held a milk crate in his hands. The radio on his belt chattered with panicked voices.

“Stop!” William shouted and pointed the hulking gun at Jim Jensen. The teacher’s eyes darted between William and Candice and comprehension dawned on his face.

“William. Candice,” Mr. Jensen said. He carefully set the milk crate on the cement. “Hold on...” he stammered.

Gunsights wavered in front of William’s eyes and he willed his arms to be stronger. He realized too late that he’d yelled at Mr. Jensen too early. The distance was much farther than Mat had taught him to shoot—all the way across the grass. Still, Mr. Jensen seemed to take the gun seriously. He held up a hand and stepped toward them.

William pressed the trigger.

Clack!

The handgun’s hammer came down like a lightning bolt, but