Page 87 of Theta

Dumbass.

I'm frozen. I can't breathe. Can’t move from my spot next to Killian, who is the only one of us doing any shooting. I never thought I'd be the one to panic and freeze in a gunfight, but here I am, eyes squeezed shut, lungs frozen solid inside my ribcage, weapon clutched in both shaking hands, trying not to do the dumbest thing possible and just get up and run away.

Beside me, Killian trades a spent mag for a fresh one, takes a deep breath, holds it, and then forces it out in a sharp, bracing exhale before swinging around the side of the tire and squeezing off a burst, a second, and a third before duck out of the way, just in time for a flurry of rounds to clink-clink-clink off the side of the trailer.

Sirens howl—a fucking lot of them.

"I wonder what happens when law enforcement gets here," Killian says. He frowns at me as if just now realizing my mental status. "Hey, you good?"

I bark a panicked laugh. "No!" The laugh turns into a half-sob. "I'm—I'm f-f-fr…." I can't even finish the thought.

"Shit," Killian mutters; then he leans into me, forehead to forehead, cupping my nape and squeezing hard. "Hey. You're good. It's okay."

This statement, meant to be reassuring, seems so idiotically, patently untrue that it's what actually breaks me out of my frozen state. "Oh? It is? Which fucking part?"

I hear something worrisome over the staggered volleys coming from the parking lot—voices from a different direction: our flank.

I spin away from Killy and drop forward to one knee, peering under the bottoms of the line of trailers behind us—and I see boots shuffling our way. "They're behind us!" I shout.

"Fuck! Motherfucking fucking fuck!” He glances my way, and then pops up and fires two quick three-round bursts toward the parking lot.

I wait, watching four sets of boots creep our way, counting the seconds until they round the end of the trailer and can pull bead on us.

I shoot a quick look at Killian, who in turn is watching me. "I'm good, now."

"Sure?"

"I'm good," I repeat, pretending I'm not lying to both of us.

The barrel of an assault rifle pokes around the corner of the trailer, and I put the sights a few inches above that, waiting, breath trapped in my chest.

A beat.

I hear Killy fire.

Rounds tinkle and clank off the trailer. They chew up the concrete and stitch their way past him, whizzing and buzzing and humming like a murderous swarm of those giant killer hornets you hear about.

A bearded face appears, but I wait. A second face, this one brown-skinned and smooth-shaven, appears next to the first, and they fire in unison—their rounds spit concrete shards into my face and zip overhead, but none comes particularly close.

And now it's my turn.

I picture the trailer I'm using for cover as being packed full of terrified teenage and pre-teen girls, and the rage that boils through me blooms hot, and then incandescent, and then it goes icy cold.

The world narrows, my perspective foreshortening to dial in on the faces less than fifty feet away; I see the wavering heat distortion from their muzzles, a black gap in the bearded white man's teeth, a fly or some other flying insect buzzing around the roof of the trailer beside mine. The sounds of the battle fade to a muffled barrage of distant sounds, only faintly and fuzzily noticed. My panicked, hot, gasping breath slows and steadies.

My finger tightens and my weapon bucks into my shoulder in bizarrely-taffied slow-motion: one…two…three, one…two…three—ONETWOTHREE suddenly loud and violent in my ears, ringing and warbling and humming in and out of focus. The black gap of a missing tooth explodes crimson as my first and second rounds crater the majority of his face by way of his mouth. The second burst misses. The third trio of bullets severs a finger off the second mercenary's stock-gripping hand, eliciting a pained roar.

Time snaps back to normal flow and the cacophony of the firefight returns in a deafening roar.

Rounds ricochet in searing whines, snap overhead and buzz past my ears. Something hot and sharp creases the tip of my left breast and I jerk, cupping myself. "That was my tit, you fucker!" A quick glance assures me that my girl is intact, although it was a near thing—my shirt and bra are sliced open a few millimeters beneath my nipple, and a red line scores the skin there—any higher and I’d be missing a nipple.

Which is my reminder that I never put my vest back on; I shrug into it in record time and then fire back, more to keep their heads down than to hit anyone—I'm too pissed off to be rational. "Shoot me in the boob? I don't fucking think so, assholes."

I swap magazines, noting that I only have one more full spare for the MP-5. As I'm doing so, the mercenary whose finger I shot off swivels out from behind the trailer-end and snaps off a quick burst, drops to his knee and fires again. Only by virtue of a niggle in my gut am I saved—of the many lessons Anselm See has taught me, there are a few he repeats to the point of being a litany. One of them applies now: always trust your instincts. If you're in a life-or-death situation and your gut tells you to hit the dirt, don't ask questions; just hit the dirt. Our senses detect a vast amount of information on a second-by-second basis, and we're only really cognizant of an infinitesimal fraction of it. Your instincts or your gut impressions are merely your subconscious feeding you information you aren't aware you know.

Such as now. My gut, as I'm in the process of swapping mags, suddenly screams at me to lay down—NOW.

I do so without hesitation, and that's what saves my life—the second set of shots crack and snap through the air where I'd been an instant before. I hear a short, strangled cry of pain behind me but can't spare a thought for it. I return fire, and I don't miss. My rounds go through the mercenary's chest.