Mason_ Inked Reapers MC(1)(77)

“No, no. I'm not worried about that. I was just thinking, since we have plenty of time to kill...you want to show me how to shoot?”



If I could have framed her face at that moment, I would have. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes nearly crossed. “What? You want to learn how to shoot a gun? Now? Here?”



“Sure. Why not? No time like the present, right? Besides, if something does happen, I'm not gonna feel all that great hiding behind a pregnant woman.”



She seemed to think about it for a minute, then mentally talked herself right out of it. “No. Tick would have my ass, Mason, too.”



“Mason would want me to be safe, and learning how to take care of myself is how I’ll be safe,” I pointed out. “What would be the harm? You show me, I shoot a few trees, we come back in for your afternoon nap.”



She chewed on her lower lip for another minute, then the determination sprung into her eyes. “Look what that man has done to me, making me sit here thinking about what he’s gonna think about it. Fuck that. Let’s go. You have pants? You can’t be walking around the woods in that dress.”



I looked down at my summer dress. Mason preferred them, so I wore them. Odd how quickly his preferences became second nature to me. “Yeah. I’m sure I have a pair of jeans in my bag.”



Thirty minutes later we stood shoulder to shoulder, staring down a pine tree. “Don’t go stiff, if you go stiff your shoulder’s gonna hurt from the recoil.”

“This little thing has a recoil?” I held up the gun. It looked too small to offer much of a bite, but she nodded.



“Hell yeah, and if you don’t hold it right you’ll mess up your elbow, too. Don’t hold it sideways like those idiots in the movies. You have to hold it straight, like this.” She moved to stand behind me, wrapping her arms around my body and getting my positioning straight. “Now, don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to pull it, understand? If you put it there right away, you’ll end up pulling it on accident. So just keep it here, on the outside. Line up your sight, when you’re ready, just pull the trigger.”



She let go and stepped back. “Go ahead.” She covered her ears and nodded again. My arms tensed and took a long breath, trying to relax my body.



I lined up my shot with a large knot in the tree. Seemed a big enough target. A snap of a twig crackled in the air just as I pulled the trigger back. The gun fired, a hot pain shot up my arm and through my shoulder, and a scream echoed through the woods.



But I hadn’t screamed. I looked over at Massy, panicked that I managed to hit her behind me. She stared back at me with as much confusion as me. We both took a few steps toward the tree I had been aiming out and found where the noise came from.



Sting lay on the ground, holding his stomach, blood oozed from between his fingers. I must have looked pale, because Massy grabbed my arm and told me to breathe. “I’m fine.” I pushed her hands off me. It may have been the first time I’d seen a man dying before, and it sure as hell was the first time I’d shot someone, but I could handle anything. I didn’t need my hand held every step of the way.



“What the fuck is he doing here?” she whispered, even though his pained expression was fixed right on us as we made our way over to him. I looked around, making sure there wasn’t anyone else hiding behind the trees. I didn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean shit. I hadn’t seen Sting there until he screamed like a little bitch.



“You bitch! You fucking shot me!” He tried to yell at me, but it all came out garbled and strained. More blood poured out from between his fingers, joining the large pool already collecting on the forest bed.



“I didn’t see you.” I knelt down next to him, pulling off my sweatshirt. “Here. We need to put pressure on it, try to get the bleeding to stop.”



“How’d you get here? How’d you know where we were?” Massy demanded, pointing the gun at him again. I’d dropped it when I heard the pained scream, she must have picked it back up.



“Jayson had me tail you.” He coughed, spraying blood over himself.

“We’ve been here almost two days, you’ve been sitting out here for hat long?” She cocked the gun.



“No...Shit. Okay…okay.” He put a bloodied hand up. It didn’t matter if she shot him again or not, I couldn’t get the bleeding to stop. And abdominal gunshot wound needed medical care I couldn't provide in the middle of the woods, or in the middle of a hospital. He needed a doctor, a team of nurses, and an OR. I shot him. I shot a person. I pulled the trigger and the bullet went inside another human being. If he died, that made me a murderer.