The Winged [HIATUS]

Chapter Fifteen

"One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!” -Winston Churchill

[ C H A P T E R   F I F T E E N ]

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Tempest and I recoil at the sight of the gun. I have been trained for all kinds of combat situations, but I’ve never been comfortable around firearms. Tempest obviously feels the same way.

“What are you so afraid of?” Logan asks, lowering her weapon. “A gun is just a tool.”

“A tool that kills people,” I remark, still feeling a little repulsed.

Logan sighs and rolls her wings, working out the kinks. She holds out the gun again. “This baby is called a Tropy,” she says. Its physical appearance reminds me of a Glock. "It’s perfect for the runaway-bird-kid lifestyle: small enough to carry with you and powerful enough to do its job. My dad modified it to be quiet without a silencer, so that’s cool too.”

Tempest looks perplexed. “Isn’t that kind of impossible…?”

“What?”

“For it to be silent.”

“How would you know?” I query, slightly surprised that Tempest knows anything about handguns.

She shrugs her shoulders. “Dunno. I read a lot, I guess.”

“In response to your question,” Logan cuts in, “it’s not impossible with Winged technology. We’re just awesome like that.”

Tempest looks intrigued. “Explain it to me, please.”

“Hm… A silencer works by giving the pressurized gas behind the bullet more room to expand.” She demonstrates this concept with hand gestures. “My dad installed a device inside the gun that simultaneously muffles the sound and sort of… sucks out the pressure of the hot gas, if that makes any sense.”

Tempest nods like a good little student.

“He also built a device that charges human-made bullets, so they can still seriously damage hen– uh, Blackwings,” Logan continues. “You know they self-regenerate, right?”

I grimace, remembering the eyeball incident.

“If used correctly, a Tropy can kill ‘em faster than they can heal.” Logan unlocks the safety and hands the gun over to me. Before I have time to blink, a series of wooden figures appears at the far end of the yard. They are painted black and shaped like Blackwings, with white targets drawn all over their sloppily-constructed bodies. “Show me how you shoot,” she instructs, stepping out of the line of fire.

Aside from the time I killed Demyan, I’ve never held a gun, let alone fired one. Its weight feels foreign in my hands. But from what I’ve seen in movies, I’m guessing that you mainly just aim and shoot. I steady myself, raising the Tropy in front of me and resting a finger on the trigger. I align the center of the target’s chest with the front and rear sights, take a deep breath, and squeeze.

POP! Though it hardly makes a sound, the shot still startles me. The bullet strikes the wooden man in the shoulder, quite a few inches from where his heart would be.

“That’s okay for your first try,” Logan says, “but you’d be screwed in a real fight. Do you know your dominant eye?”

“Um, I’m right handed, so–”