Midnight Flock

Chapter 2: Bullseye

A/N: Thanks to everyone who has voted and commented on chapter 1!! I really appreciate the feedback. Everyone hold onto your hats, Chapter 3 is when we find out about the betrayal! So next week a bomb is dropped. LOL. As always, thank-you to my Beta, ibewaiting, you rock and your encouragement and comments are worth your weight in gold. 

I grabbed the hair tie from around my wrist. Gabriel would hate this right now, but it wasn't about fashion as much as being able to see through my hair. I needed it out of the way, so I pulled my hair back into a high ponytail. I slip the ear protection over my head and let them rest around my neck. I step up next to Raven to watch him. He has another gun in front of him and what I'm assuming is the magazine for that gun because, it looks different. I watch him put the bullets in the magazine, it looks like it holds two rows of bullets, staggered up the magazine.

"Why does your magazine have two rows of bullets?" I asked him as I watch.

"My gun, which I will use to demonstrate for you, is a Glock, Forty Smith and Wesson. The magazine is a double stack, so it holds two rows of bullets." He showed me how to fill my magazine with bullets after he loaded the magazine into his bronze and black colored gun and set it down on the table in front of us. I was much slower at it, but I got my single row of bullets in the magazine and I was able to load the magazine into the gun. I was feeling pretty good about myself. Raven had only shown me once how to do it and I managed to repeat his actions without issue. I set the gun down like Raven had and looked up at him questioningly.

"Now, you put on your ear protectors and I will demonstrate the stance I want you to take and I will fire five bullets into the target. I will establish a grouping so you can see what your goal is, which is to fire your bullets in roughly the same area of the target every time." He placed his own protectors over his ears and waited for me to follow suit before picking up his gun.

"Why is your gun a different color than mine? I thought all guns were black or silver or wood?" I wanted to know why he got a pretty colored gun, while I had to shoot the boring, plain, black gun.

"Little bird," Raven spoke up in Russian, "With this particular type of gun, you can customize it almost anyway you could imagine. I like brown so I got a mostly brown gun. This color is called Burnt Bronze. Your gun is an extension of you. A person's gun says a lot about that person. How they shoot, how good their aim is, how experienced they are. I wanted my gun to make a statement about me. You don't have a gun. So you use a basic model. That one," he gestured toward the gun I would be using, "is good for beginners because there isn't much kick-back. It's easy to use for people who have never fired a gun before."

"So, if I wanted my own gun, I could get one in any color? Or any combination of colors?" I realized we were still talking in Russian when I noticed Owen reaching out to put a hand on North, essentially keeping him against the fence where they were standing. Owen's face was a mask, betraying nothing of his emotions, while North continued to be tightly wound, like a snake ready to pounce. I needed to talk to him and find out what was going on. North could be overbearing and protective, but he wasn't normally this cave-manish.

"If you want, when you get to that point, then yes." I could already picture myself with a pink gun. I was really excited about the idea. Maybe I could get a pattern on it, or even animal print. Do they make animal print guns? I wonder if Gabriel would help me customize it and if Victor would help me buy it. I got the impression that guns were not cheap things to purchase.

"Ok, let's shoot things!" I said excitedly in English as I put on my ear protectors. Raven laughed a full belly laugh at my enthusiasm and it was a beautiful sound. I vowed that I would try to hear that sound as often as I could whenever I saw Raven.