Which was why Layla had spent almost as much time on the way out here worrying about their future in the DCO as she had wondering how they could possibly make it through this rescue mission alive and unhurt.
Would Dick and everyone else at the DCO really let them stay together as partners? Once Dick realized he wasn’t going to get what he wanted out of Jayson anymore, the deputy director would probably break them up just for the fun of it. Heck, once everyone figured out that Jayson hadn’t picked up any obvious hybrid abilities, she wasn’t sure anyone at the DCO would let him go back into the field with or without her for a partner. She loved Jayson more than she could put into words and the thought of him losing something so important to him—again—was more than she was willing to accept.
She was still thinking about that when a curious voice suddenly jarred her out of her scheming thoughts.
“How do you even shoot this gun?”
Layla turned her head to see Olek staring down at the Makarov in his hand, a confused look on his face. It was hard to believe that one simple question could carry so much weight, but with those few words, Olek reminded her once again how young these three guys were, and how much she and Jayson were asking of them.
Crap.
Layla was about to tell Jayson this was never going to work and that they needed to come up with a new plan, but before she could open her mouth, Jayson stepped forward and gently took the battered Russian pistol out of the kid’s hand. Then he dropped to one knee and motioned for them to join him.
“Have any of you guys ever fired a weapon before?” he asked softly.
Layla couldn’t help but notice that there wasn’t a trace of concern in Jayson’s voice. How the hell did he do that? It was like he was asking them if they’d driven a car or kissed a girl.
Dylan shook his head, but Mikhail nodded. “Yes, but not one like this. It was an old AK-47 that my father had. I’ve never fired anything but that.”
Jayson shook his head in the dark. “No problem. You may not have known it, but you picked a good weapon for you three to use right out of the box.”
“I did?” Mikhail asked, surprise clear in his voice.
“Yeah,” Jayson told him. “The Makarov is a simple, rugged, fixed-barrel, blowback-operated automatic. It’s never going to win any marksmanship awards, but at short distances—which is the only distance I want you three shooting at—it’s as accurate as you need it to be.”
“Is it hard to shoot?” Dylan asked.
“Not once you get the hang of it.” Jayson held up the weapon so the glow coming from the lights outside the house shone on it a little. “Nothing fancy, though. I’ll just cover the stuff you have to know right now, okay?”
They all nodded.
“First thing’s first. This is the safety.” He pointed at the flip switch on the rear of the slide. “Push it down to fire. Remember—down is dead. Say it.”
“Down is dead,” the three teens said in unison.
“Good.”
Layla stood there and watched as Jayson showed them how to unload the weapon, slip bullets in the ammo clip, then reload the weapon and chamber a round. He talked slowly, letting them see what he was doing. Then he had them do it. Maybe it was the Special Forces training in him coming out, but in five minutes, he had them handling the 9mm pistols like they’d been doing it for years.
“Nothing fancy with the shooting, either,” he added as they each chambered a round and put their weapons on safe. “If you have to do it, square up on your target, wrap both hands around the gun like I showed you, and shoot for the center of the chest, then get the hell out of there.”
Dylan said something in reply, but Layla completely missed it as a very distracting scent suddenly wafted past her. Even as her head started shuffling through memories to identify it, she found herself instinctively spinning around, reaching behind her back to pull out her 9mm as she did.
Jayson was at her side in a flash, his assault rifle on his shoulder and aimed into the deeper forest behind them. The teens were right there with him, chambering rounds in their weapons as they moved.
Half a second later, her nose finally figured what the heck she was smelling—or whom to be more precise. She opened her mouth to tell Jayson and the kids that everything was fine when a gruff voice drifted to them through the forest. If she hadn’t known who it was, the disembodied growl coming out of the rain-misted forest would have been kind of freaky. Okay, even knowing who it was, it was still a little disconcerting.
“Good to see they finally let you off the range, Jayson. Although I gotta say, the DCO must be getting desperate for field agents if they’re sending out kids now.”
Just then, a pair of glowing, yellow eyes appeared from behind a tree and started moving toward them.
“What the hell?” Mikhail said, his voice filled with alarm as he lifted his pistol higher and took a step forward.
Jayson lowered his weapon and put a hand on the Russian kid’s shoulder. “Relax, Mikhail. It’s our backup.”
“Yeah, relax, Mikhail.” The words were more of a growl than anything. “I know Jayson just got finished teaching you how to use that weapon, but I can promise you it won’t work nearly as well after I shove it sideways up your ass.”
“That’s enough, Clayne,” Danica said as she slipped out from behind his very large shadow and moved up to stand beside him.
