The Gender War (The Gender Game #4) by Bella Forrest (the beginning after the end read novel .TXT) 📕

voice as she handed out the order. These women had all agreed to kill innocents in cold blood. I exhaled slowly as I heard a muffled thud on the steps, and I used my thumb to click the rifle over from auto fire to single shot. When a brown-capped head came into view, I gazed down the sights, inhaled, then exhaled slowly, pulling the trigger.

My shot caught her right below the ear, appearing as a deceptively small red spot that resulted in a splatter of blood on the wall opposite. Her body dropped with a thud, and I heard a gasp, followed by, “Hostiles on the stairwells!”

Then the shooting began. I flinched when bullets whizzed past me and hit the stairs nearby, sending shards of wood flying, and I ducked down as they fired round after round. When the shots paused, I could hear them scrambling as they exchanged fresh guns and bodies for those with expended magazines. I quickly sighted down the stairs again, pulling the trigger once, twice, three times—gritting my teeth when I caught another one in her shoulder.

She screamed, her cries carrying up the stairwell, and didn’t stop until I put another bullet in her head—just over her temple. Then she slumped down on the steps, her thrashing suddenly dying out. More panicked shouting, and I rolled out of the way just as one of them leapt over the dead to the next landing, the barrel of her gun rising up toward me.

I rolled back to a kneeling position, somehow keeping hold of my rifle, and fired at her. But from this position, the shots were too wild, and she dove back down the stairs, wary but uninjured.

Then the cycle began again. They fired from below, afraid to come farther because of the wide range my fire covered. I ducked back, then aimed and took down as many of them as I could while they reloaded or switched guards. It didn’t take them long to become more cautious. They weren’t advancing, but I hadn’t yet taken out enough of them for them to halt the attack, either.

It didn’t feel like the battle had been going on very long, yet it also felt like it’d been going on forever. Fear pounded through my chest and burst in my veins, mixing with the adrenaline, the rage, the cold-blooded calculations that were telling me I couldn’t hold out for much longer. There were a lot of them. I didn’t know how I hadn’t been hit yet. I’d been using my bullets very sparingly, and I’d brought two guns on purpose, but what about when I had to reload?

Just then, the floor shuddered under my feet. Not hard enough to be an earthquake, but enough that the very walls of my stairway seemed to tremble. I clutched my rifle tighter as I heard thunderous footsteps approach, and then the sounds of panic and anger erupting into mayhem. Women yelled and fired downstairs, the flash of the shots echoing on the walls below. I heard an inhuman snarl, followed by screams, thuds, and the sound of wood and bones breaking, punctuated by screams of panic that turned into begging and then to pain. Then, silence.

I stood frozen at the sound, my palms sweating as I cradled the rifle loosely to my chest. The bannister shuddered, the stairwell creaking, and I took an involuntary step back as a man appeared. He was covered in blood, red splashes cutting across his muscular chest, which was still bare, the tattered remains of his Liberator suit hanging from the torn pants. Two bullet wounds, one in the leg and one in the shoulder, trickled with his own blood, but he didn’t seem to notice.

He lumbered up the stairs, ponderously slowly, coming to a stop on the landing and sniffing the air, much like an animal would. Then his head snapped toward me, and I could see nothing human in his flat, predatory gaze. His lips rose in a silent snarl, and a trickle of a growl escaped his lips.

“Solomon,” I gasped.

Solomon stilled for a moment, his face becoming softer, a flash of recognition kindling in his eyes. I felt a moment of hope that my friend was still in there somewhere—and then it was gone, replaced with the animalistic intensity from moments earlier. He took a slow step up the stairs, his lips curling in a roar of pain and anger.

I turned and fled.

26

Viggo

The rifle was a familiar feeling in my hand, the sights a familiar view. Training to be a Patrian warden most of my adult life had prepared me for this. As much as I hated the idea of taking human life, I was an instrument of destruction, the rifle an extension of myself. And I was good at it.

I knew later, if we survived, I would think back on this moment and reflect on all the decisions that had brought me to this point. But for now, there was no room for doubt or self-reflection. There was only my breathing, the sights, and the sure pull of the trigger.

I had taken a location that was a bit riskier, pressed against the wall several feet behind the top of the stairs, with a clear view of the bottom—but it had kept them back. I was more exposed from this angle, but I was counting on being better than them. And so far it was working.

I didn’t look at the glassy-eyed woman sprawled at the bottom of the stairs, nor did my eyes pause as they drifted over another still pair of legs—the rest of her torso out of my view, but her death confirmed by the large pool of blood forming around her. I sighted down on one woman, hidden behind a small table that didn’t provide her enough cover, using it to steady her gun as she pointed it in my direction.

I exhaled and squeezed the trigger just as she noticed me watching her.