Page 109 of Double Shot

“Nice throw, man,”Grant said.

“Thank you,” I said. It was time to hurry now.

“I’ve got her, I’ve fucking got her!” Sadie crackled over the line, and then faded out in a peel of gunfire.

“What’s going on inside?” I asked as I moved to double time toward the front doors.

“Unsure, I don’t have eyes inside the building, but Red Queen and Black King are both still engaged.”Grant said.“But I think we have eyes on Black Queen.”

“Good, I’m almost to the door,” I said.

“Pawns coming your way,”Grant said.“Lach has them retreating toward the main entrance.”

“Copy that,” I said, racking the bolt of the automatic shotgun. It was an entirely too heavy of a weapon, but I wanted absolute showstopping power without worrying about overpenetration. It wouldn’t do for bollocks to bring a light machine gun, shoot these wankers up, and then find out I had shot my own, and then sent a few hundred rounds flying into a desolate and depressing Texas town.

Now an automatic 10 gauge? That was a different story.

They kicked open the door and staggered out into the fresh air. I could see wisps of tear gas chasing them out, and the second man who came out gulped down a lungful of fresh air, and then doubled over, violently sick.

Boom boom boom boom!

The shotgun spoke with authority, and their escape turned into a massacre. A few tried to take shelter behind wooden doors, but two or three rounds turned their cover into matchsticks. Then it turned men into spaghetti sauce.

A few managed to raise their weapons, but rifles required accuracy, and their eyes were still burning from the teargas. My gun didn’t need to be accurate, I just had to get close.

Boom boom boom boom!

They fell and then there was more silence.

I kicked the ruined doors open and stepped into the main foyer of the building; the air still thick with teargas. Sadie had really let them have it. The upper staircase was smashed as well, the walls reduced to shattered slat board and two by.

And in the nearly completely destroyed center of the common area, Lach was in, of all things, a fistfight with a huge black man.

And not doing well.

I shouldered the automatic shotgun and advanced, keeping the barrel up and waiting for the two of them to get far enough apart that I could drop his opponent without filling Kyle full of buckshot.

Between an upset with an AR turned into Louisville Slugger and some of his almost-signature high heel strikes, Lach put the giant back against the wall, and then dropped him. I lowered the gun and walked up. I gave him a little bit of back-handed banter, had to keep him up and running, but he looked rough. The other man tried to get up, so I put two between his shoulders and he decided to go back to lying on the ground.

“C’mon, Sadie is upstairs,” he said, racking an AK he had taken from one of the dead men.

“Who the fuck is this Goliath?” I asked as Lach walked up and stepped over his corpse.

“That was Ajahi, and now he’s worm food. Let’s go,” he said. I knew that he was super focused now, blood and bruises. He paused over the dead man who almost beat his arse down and grabbed the gold-hilted knife stuffed through his belt. He was already taking the stairs two at a time. I grabbed the gold filigreed pistol, slipped it inside my bandolier and followed Lach.

The stairs were a ruin and shuddered as we climbed them. Half of the boards were cracked or missing, broken, just shattered. We stuck to the sides, where the framing had survived the best. Part of the rail I grabbed for stability buckled and I had to draw back or risk falling. The shotgun felt as heavy as a mini-fridge slung over my shoulder, and that was with more than half of the ammo gone.

I would need to add cardio back into my workout regimen, if this was going to become more routine.

I pulled myself up, and Kyle grabbed my hand for the last step up.

We both approached the door, and it felt like Schrodinger’s Box. There was a fight inside, and either Sadie was winning, or Kaijin was winning, and for a moment, both were equally valid.

Last time they met, not that many days before, Gwendolyn Kaijin had definitely come out on top, almost taking a chunk out of her shoulder, and escaping with stab wounds, but apparently nothing terribly serious as she’d not been treated that I could tell.

“Why don’t you two just stop right there?” Worthington said.

“You didn’t stopher,” Lach said, hands on his AK. Kurt had his hand above the butt of his pistol, ignoring the carnage behind him.

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