Page 78 of Booked for Murder

Bradley strolled into the stall. “What’s going on?”

“She’s giving Pride’s fully automatic mode a go. I will be helping her stabilize the firearm. You will make sure she doesn’t fall off that stool should Pride try to knock her lights out.”

“That gun is terrifying,” Bradley muttered, but he stepped behind me and placed his hands on my shoulders. “I’ve seen him fire it in fully automatic mode before, Janette. It will take out your teeth if you’re not careful.”

I loved when men talked dirty to me about guns. “The more you talk, the more I like this gun. I’m still not sure why anyone would do this to a Beretta, though.”

“You can’t stand Glocks, and even if I modded one to your liking, you’d still bitch at me over it, so I figured I’d pervert a Beretta. It was less likely to induce significant whining. Do not ask what I had to do to get the authorizations to pervert this gun. You owe me for the rest of eternity. I’ll still make you practice with the Glocks, as you never know what sort of firearm you might end up needing to use.”

Right. In a gunfight, I needed to use whatever weapon crossed my path, and being familiar with as many different firearms as possible could mean the difference between life and death. Not understanding a safety system on a weapon might mean I couldn’t fire it, and that might result in a bullet lodged somewhere important, like my brain.

“All right.” I checked the Beretta over, switched the mode to fully automatic, and aimed for the target. “Right foot target, as I’m in a mood.”

“That mood couldn’t possibly have anything to do with your cast,” Bradley muttered, tightening his hold on my shoulders. “You can move well enough with me like this?”

I tested the firearm, moving in the full range I needed to fire the gun without punching myself in the face with it. “Yep.”

Lenard worked around Bradley, covered my hands with his, and secured a grip on the Beretta. “When you fire, she will jump hard in your hand. You will need to compensate for the recoil. You’ll instinctively want to remove pressure from the trigger, so you keep firm when you squeeze. It’ll take her less than a second for her to dump out the magazine. Unlike a bump stock, you’ll find she’s faster and more aggressive on the recoil. While a bump stock could get you nine or so rounds a second with this weapon, she’s tested out at over a thousand rounds a second in the mode we’ll be working with. That was fun to test, as we had to make a cartridge that would hold that many rounds.”

“You turned her into a machine gun?”

“That’s what happens when a bunch of enthusiasts get together with a fully automatic gun and an excuse. We had to make sure she worked, after all.” Lenard grinned and returned my mufflers to my ears, gestured to Bradley, who released me long enough to fix his mufflers, and gave me the all-clear to open fire at my leisure.

I waited for him to help me stabilize the gun, aware I’d have to work out in the gym a lot if I wanted to rebuild the strength to reliably handle the weapon.

I practiced breathing, focused on the right foot of my target, and squeezed the trigger, making sure to keep a firm grip on the weapon. As warned, she bucked like she meant it, which made keeping a hold on her interesting while maintaining pressure on the trigger.

Pride’s fifteen rounds discharged faster than a blink of my eye, reducing the target’s foot to confetti. I blinked a few times, regarded the weapon in my hands with a frown, and stared at the mangled foot on my target.

Lenard released my hands and pulled his mufflers off before taking mine off. “Nice, right?”

“That would not leave much of a foot left if you foolishly pointed in the wrong place,” I replied, doing a check over the gun to make certain she’d completely emptied her magazine and chamber, which she had. “I’m thinking Pride is a very good name for her.”

“How does your chest feel?”

Stupid lungs, which burned from exertion but not enough to worry me. “I’m feeling it, but I can do more.”

“Good. You can go back to practicing, Hampton.”

“Can I watch?”

“No. Back to work. Give us five minutes, as she’s going to put her weapons away and take a break. You have a lot more magazines to empty, and I meant it about your accuracy. I’ll be over to watch you, so wait for me before you start firing.”

Bradley grunted but obeyed, stomping out of the stall.

“You’re going to get cranky with this, but you’re going to take a break and read your papers until your chest feels normal again, then we’ll work Prejudice for a while. Call it thirty minutes. Then the whiner down the way can watch you and indulge in his overprotective tendencies.”

“All right. Too much exercise is just as bad as not enough exercise.”

“Right, and your color is off, so you need to rest to give your lungs a chance to catch up. The lounge will be quiet enough, as they’ve done a lot of work soundproofing the range from the rest of the bunker. Get something to drink and make sure you concentrate on taking deep breaths.”

“My doctors recruited you, didn’t they?” I accused.

“That they did. With your lung capacity as low as it is, you need all the help you can get.”

“With my lung capacity as it is, shouldn’t I be dead?”

“They didn’t fully disrupt your abilities. They just disrupted it enough you have the bare minimum to force your lungs to heal properly, or so they say. You’re still breathing, so I’m assuming they got it right. Let’s keep it that way. I’ll even be nice and offer my arm so you can haul your ass to your wheelchair yourself without suffering through even more indignation, although I’m pushing you to the lounge.”