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I’d believed that.
Still did. Mostly.
But tonight had cracked something open. Because if that shot hadn’t come—if that man, wherever he was, hadn’t taken that breath, steadied that trigger, pulled it with perfect aim?—
I might be lying on this ground right beside the body.
Or worse, it might have been one of the kids.
The thought made me sick.
I’d heard my daddy say it before—usually in quietconversations with deacons or church elders, late at night after Sunday services when they thought I wasn’t listening: “There’s evil in this world, and thank God for the men who are called to hold it back.”
Cops. Soldiers. First responders.
The “good guys with guns.”
I’d always nodded politely when those men visited our church in uniform. Shaken their hands. Said “thank you for your service” like I was supposed to.
But I’d kept a careful distance, too. Something about all that power made me uncomfortable. The way they could flip a switch and go from smiling to deadly in a heartbeat.
It scared me.
Because that kind of strength? That kind of decision-making? It was too close to God’s domain.
But tonight ...
Tonight, someone had stepped into the gap where God felt far away.
And because of him, I was still breathing.
I didn’t know how to feel about that.
Grateful, yes.
But also ... shaken.
What kind of man could do something like that?
What kind of heart did it take to aim through rain and shadows and kill, just like that?
Was he angry? Cold? Had he done it a hundred times before? Did it even touch his soul anymore?
Did he regret it?
Or would he go home after, toss his weapon in a case, and make himself a cup of coffee like nothing happened?
I didn't know.
And that—more than the violence, more than theblood—was what frightened me. Because even if his bullet saved us, it had also ended someone.
A man.
A father.
A soul.
Yes, he was abusive. Yes, he was dangerous. But I’d looked him in the eyes. I’d seen something broken in him. Something that had once been good and had long since rotted away.