“I would clean up.” Annika sent an imploring look around the table. “I don’t like the sound the guns make. I would stay here, clean up.”
“That’s okay.” Sawyer gave her hand a squeeze under the table.
“We dive tomorrow.” Wanting to make Annika smile again, Riley changed the subject to something her friend liked. “We should be ready to drive out by eight thirty, so we can pick up the boat, the equipment. Or a couple of us go to get the boat, pilot it back here, and Sawyer travels the rest of you down to it. We’ll keep the boat here for the duration, just have to deal with getting the tanks refilled as we need them.”
“More efficient.” Sawyer circled a finger as he ate. “Riley and Doyle—best at piloting—go for the boat. When we spot you coming back, I’ll get the rest of us on board.”
“Can do. Eight thirty,” Riley said to Doyle, who just nodded.
• • •
They went up, leaving Annika to deal with the debris, and outside to look over the crenelated wall into the coming twilight.
“Days are longer—calendar and geography,” Riley said. “She likes the dark, but she may hit more often in daylight. It’s the last round, and she lost the first two.”
“Day or night, we’ll knock them back.” Ready, Sawyer loaded a rifle. “Give me a target, at least fifty yards out.”
“Where would you like it?” Bran asked.
“Surprise me.”
Obliging, Bran sent a globe into the air, out above the sea. Sawyer shifted his stance, fired, struck it dead center.
“Figures.” Riley lifted the second rifle. “Give me one.”
This one Bran sent high into the north. Riley took it down.
“Okay, let’s make it a hundred yards, multiple targets. You game?” Sawyer asked Riley.
“I invented the game. Go.”
After the barrage of fire, Riley lowered her weapon. “You don’t miss, cowboy.”
“You didn’t either.”
“I only nicked a couple of them. You hit dead-on, every one. More practice for me. You need to try it.” Riley offered the gun to Sasha.
“I don’t know how I can shoot what I can barely see.”
“Bran’s going to bring it in for you. Start at twenty yards, Bran, straight ahead over the water.”
Doyle stepped behind Sasha. “It’ll recoil, so you need to go with that.” He adjusted her stance, put his hands over hers. “Use the sight, hold it steady. Do you have it?”
“Well, I can see it, in the cross—the crosshairs.”
“Steady,” he said again. “Don’t jerk when you pull the trigger. You want it smooth, building the pressure, like drawing a line. Keep drawing it even after you fire. A slow pull, all the way. Take a breath, hold it, fire.”
She did as
he told her, let out an embarrassing squeal when the kick shoved her back against him. “Sorry. And I completely missed.”
“You pulled up and to the right,” Riley told her.
“Steady,” Doyle repeated. “Try again.”
She didn’t squeal this time, but hissed. And by the third time she just dinged the bottom of the globe.
“It won’t be your primary weapon,” Doyle began.