33. Chapter 33

33

O f course it was Rowan. He’d just pulled one of the biggest, most dangerous weapons from one of the crates—an old M2 Browning heavy artillery machine gun.

While Rebecca and Maxwell hadn’t specifically prohibited anyone from training with this weapon, the caution had been implied. At least for anyone with inherent common sense, which, in most cases, Rowan Blackmoon acted like he just didn’t have.

When she reached him, the elf had hauled the entire weapon system out of the crate, his hazel eyes gleaming above a mad grin.

Every other operative within spitting distance had backed cautiously away. Several of them shot Rebecca dubious looks, like none of them wanted to get in the Blackmoon Elf’s way, but all of them privately wished the Thon-Da’al would do it for them instead.

Rebecca almost winced at Rowan’s careless handling of the enormously powerful weapon. He just always had to be a show-off like this, didn’t he? Humility and caution never had been in his wheelhouse.

As Rowan fiddled with the dials on the side of the weapon and turned toward the closest target, Rebecca stepped up beside him to take him down a notch.

“Hold on a second,” she said. “Are you sure you’re ready for something like this?”

He shot her a quick dismissive glance before returning his hungry grin to the weapon. “What makes you think I’m not?”

“You couldn’t even clean a weapon properly the other day, and that was an older, simpler model. There are some great rifles over there. Maybe start with one of those.”

He scoffed. “Very funny. You sure know how to play up a guy’s confidence.”

The low whine of the machine gun filled the air when he activated it. A dark, nauseating yellow-green glow emanated from the weapon’s augmented internal mechanisms as it powered up to full capacity in three seconds.

“I think you’ve got that one covered,” Rebecca added. “Seriously, though, this isn’t a competition. Have you fired any of these other weapons yet?”

“Nope.” Rowan kept grinning at the firearm.

“These things tend to have a serious kickback, Blackmoon,” she said, wondering if she should attempt to snatch the weapon out of his hands before he did something seriously stupid. “I’m not sure this is the best system to start on for someone with very little prior experience.”

“You have to say that, don’t you? Relax. I know what I’m doing. Watch this.”

Before she could try again to talk him off the ledge, Rowan surged forward away from her, hauling the machine gun upright to aim it at the closest target, which was only six yards in front of him.

“Blackmoon!” Maxwell shouted from the other side of the gym. His voice cracked through the air like another violent gunshot, bringing all the other concurrent conversations to a standstill. The fun and excitement froze with them. “Back the hell up! Nothing gets fired in here from closer than ten yards!”

“Oh really?” Rowan spun around to face the shifter, the weapon spinning with him in his arms as a pulsing flare of its magitek rounds flashed and sputtered beneath the treatment.

Those closest to him shouted an alarm, ducking out of range or skittering toward safety on the other side of the gym, hauling their neighbors along with them and out of the elf’s line of fire.

Rowan raised an eyebrow at Maxwell and sniggered. “You’re an expert on this thing too, are ya?”

Maxwell replied with a warning snarl, his eyes flashing dangerously at the elf wielding the most dangerous weapon in the vicinity.

With a scoff, Rowan rolled his eyes, but he took a few steps forward anyway, relenting that small bit.

Rebecca kept her gaze acutely focused on him, just as Rowan focused on Maxwell, because she knew how obnoxiously stubborn he could be. She wasn’t wrong in her suspicions of him now, either.

As soon as another operative training with a different, much smaller, much less explosive weapon system pulled Maxwell’s attention away, Rowan spun around again to face his original target. He slammed a hand against the machine gun, his eyes growing wide with a crazed excitement.

The weapon’s low whine kicked up several notches, its sickening greenish-yellow light pulsing dangerously from inside. Its blazing power now made the entire weapon shudder and jolt in his two-handed grip.

By the Blood, had he just cranked the power all the way up to full capacity?

This was a fucking disaster. She should have come down harder on him.

“Hey, Blackmoon!” she shouted over the weapon’s rising whine, now sounding like a warning siren. “Blackmoon!”

Grinning like a lunatic, Rowan took another step toward the target.

Rebecca’s stomach clenched, and she leapt toward him. “Hold on! Wait a second—Rowan!”

He fired.

An enormous burst of magical energy billowed from the barrel of the machine gun in a stuttering stream, moving at first like a growing bubble before it erupted and careened across the dangerously short distance between its operator and his intended target.

That entire far side of the gym exploded in blazing yellow-green light bright enough to momentarily blind anyone who looked directly at it. The blast didn’t so much crash into the wooden target as it enveloped the thing, swarming around it like a blanket of searing heat and magical energy.

Then the full-powered shot warped back in on itself around the target like an imploding star. The gym filled with an electrifying scream of overpowered energy.

Rebecca skidded to a halt just before the burst erupted with an explosion of nauseating yellow-green light and a deafening boom.

Both the weapon’s recoil and the force of the blast knocked Rowan off his feet and sent him hurtling backward across the gym like a complete idiot. He hadn’t even landed before the rest of the explosion obliterated the target.

It looked more like it had detonated from the inside out before the thick wooden board shattered into thousands of splintery fragments flying like shrapnel across the gym.

Huge, jagged wooden splinters caromed off the walls and against the ceiling. The overhead lights flickered beneath the onslaught when several pieces clanged against the bulbs. Two lights shattered to add the sound of tinkling glass raining down on the wooden floor while operatives everywhere shouted in surprise, or ducked, or dove behind the stack of half-emptied weapons crates around the room.

Thick gray-brown smoke clouded Rebecca’s vision when she finally opened her eyes again. She blinked furiously against the acrid sting of it in her eyes and nose and throat, vaguely aware even before the smoke cleared that something was different. Something was wrong.

Nothing looked the same as it had before Rowan’s first blast had detonated.

Her ears were ringing, which made it even harder in all the ensuing chaos to pinpoint what that wrongness was while smoke still billowed through the room, and wayward shards of wood toppled to the floor all around her, and the overhead lights continued to flicker.

Then she heard startled shouts and pounding footsteps amidst the chaos, but she couldn’t see clearly enough to find out who was running or where they were headed or why.

She tried to turn her head for a better look but couldn’t.

Then she felt the cold smoothness of the wooden floor against her cheek and realized she was lying on the ground.

Dammit, why was she on the ground ?

More muffled shouts through the ringing in her ears, like the owners of those voices were very far away, muted through water or thick cement walls.

Why couldn’t she move? What the hell?

“Oh shit, it’s Knox!”

“The Thon-Da’al! She’s hit!”

“Someone get the healer!”

“Oh fuck, look at that!”

Then the pounding footsteps grew louder, heading toward her.

Rebecca tried to move again, but the pounding in her head made the whole world spin.

She should have been able to move. She’d taken plenty of knockouts like this in her day. Being thrown across the room was hardly a viable means of immobilizing her. What the hell was going on?

“Knox! Dammit, Knox, can you hear me?”

It took a second to recognize Maxwell’s voice. Then a heavy weight dropped to the floor beside her where she lay on her side.

“Knox! Hey, stay with me. Can you hear me? Hey!”

Her head wobbled, mashing her cheek even harer against the floor before she felt the hands tightly gripping her shoulders. She meant to say she was fine, to just give her a second, but the words wouldn’t come out.

Then she realized with a detached sort of awareness that she was panting and practically on the verge of hyperventilating.

“Hey, stay with me!” Maxwell shouted again.

A slap filled her ears, joined by a pressure on her cheek as her head wobbled again, though she didn’t quite feel it.

Had the shifter just slapped her to keep her awake?

Her eyelids fluttered, and she looked up to see several magicals hovering over her, their faces all darkened with concern and horrified awe, but none of them holding still long enough for her to recognize.

Something was definitely wrong. Something hurt…some pain in her belly that hadn’t been there a moment before but was now screaming for attention.

Trying to catch her breath and unsure whether she succeeded in slowing it down, she tried to pick herself off the floor, failed, and dipped her head instead. It rocked against the floor where she lay on her side so she could look down at her stomach now pulsing with a dull ache blooming into a sharpened pain that didn’t make any sense.

When her gaze finally focused on her belly and the horrific sight there, it still didn’t quite make sense.

Because where she expected to see her black t-shirt resting over her abdomen, she now saw a growing pool of crimson around a ripped hole in the fabric…

And a huge shard of splintered wood emerging from the center of that hole, its sharp end buried in her flesh where it had impaled her and protruding now by only a few blood-splattered inches.

Her eyes widened when she saw the cause of everything that felt so wrong. With a grunt, Rebecca stared at the broken spear in her belly, then reached toward it with trembling hands and a groan. “Oh shit …”