Page 91 of Theta

I think I got seriously lucky, though—I test my range of movement and find that while my ribs are painful and probably bruised, they're definitely not broken, which means the round must have hit at an oblique angle, because at these distances, rounds fired from a carbine should have enough kinetic energy to break ribs, assuming a direct hit to the vest.

Stifling a groan of pain as I force myself to move, I notice a distinct pause in the shooting. The silence is sudden and total. Kneeling at the front of a trailer, I listen, scan visually. There—a scuff of a foot.

I hear a distant hiss and a soft curse—Killian. I can't let myself spare a thought for his pain. He’s tough; he can deal. He has no choice.

I creep to the end of the trailer, peek out left and then right—four blobby dark shapes drift across the skyline. I doubt Killian has noticed.

The shapes stop. I hear the faint click of a charge handle. A whisper too faint to make out.

I swallow my nerves and ignore the hammering of my heart and the jangle of nerves and the twinge of pain in my ribs and elsewhere. Tighten the butt against my shoulder, place the red dot of the targeting reticle over the left-most patch of darker shadows. Inhale. Hold. Exhale…

Squeeze the trigger in a three-round burst, and then again in a short, precise, raking strafe to the right, and a third back the other way, all in rapid succession.

I hear grunts and coughs of pain, telling me I’ve hit at least one of them.

Time distorts again, and I see a shape moving in slow-motion, see a muzzle flaring bright yellow, hear a snap-snap-snap of rounds whickering past my ear. I see what I assume must be Killian's pistol firing—spark, spark, spark. The muzzle flare rakes skyward. I fire again at the space a foot to the right, hear a thud as a body hits concrete.

And again, my world detonates in a barrage of noise and pain. I see the muzzle flash in a starburst that leaves afterimages in my eyes. I fire, but it's too late. Fists crash into my chest and stomach—onetwothreefour. The force of the impacts sends me flying backward, and darkness rolls over me as the sudden and crushing lack of oxygen squeezes my consciousness to a dwindling pinpoint. My finger does its own thing, and the rifle bucks, flies out of my hands. My pistol digs into my back; I fight weakness, fight the onrushing nothingness, grasp the hard, skin-warm handle. One-handed, I fire, half-blinded and desperate, hear a curse—or what I assume is a curse in another language, judging by the tone.

CRACK!

Once again, the report comes after the impact, and then there’s a moment of numb nothing.

Fuck.

Something hot and wet spreads over my stomach, low, down near my hip. I don't feel pain, exactly—it's just heat and a weird kind of pressure…

I scream through gritted teeth as a sudden wave of excruciating agony washes over me all at once—it's a mass of pain, not pinpoints, although the worst of it is centered on that point of spreading hot wetness low on my left side.

I hear a crack.

Another, closer.

And then…the weird, ringing silence of tinnitus as the gunfire ceases all at once.

Darkness rises in me, but I fight it. "Killy?” It's a ragged whisper.

"Hey, hey." His voice is tense and tight and harsh with pain, and right above me. "Story?"

"Kill…"

Something hits my foot, and the jostling sends a sharp bolt of agony through what I know, even in my nearly-unconscious state, are multiple broken ribs. My scream is loud and involuntary, and causes yet more pain.

"Fuck, sorry." A hand pats my shin, my knee, my thigh…the wet spot just below the bottom of my vest. "Fuck, fuck! You're hit!”

"You?" I ask. "Hit?"

“Took another one, but it's just a crease through my bicep. I'll be fine." I hear him grunt as he lowers himself next to me. "You hit anywhere else?"

"Vest," I manage. “Bad.”

"Let's get this off," he says, fumbling in the now-silent dark to find the closures of the body armor.

"W-we—we w-won?" I ask, shock hitting me now, making me stammer as my teeth start to chatter.

"Yeah, honey. We did." He finds the Velcro and rips it open, and then gently shifts the vest off—which rips another guttural scream from me. "Fuck, babe. You're in rough shape."

His hands gingerly probe my torso. "Just the one bleeder. Ribs?"