Free The Weapon (The Hourglass Series Book 2) by Casey Donaldson Page A

in her eyes. He looked so different. For half a
second she thought he was angry, and then the corner of his mouth twitched up.
    “All
right, everyone,” said Dylan eventually. “Get back to it. That means you too,
cue ball.”
    Their
laughter doubled them over.
     

Chapter Fourteen
     
    Three
further weeks of intense training followed. Gillie was released from jail. Finn’s
hair started to grow back at an almost alarming pace. Their shooting improved.
Sarah was now hitting the centre of her target nearly every time. Finn managed
to hit the target every time, but where it was changed dramatically. He did,
however, go far better in hand-to-hand combat than Sarah. They were taught
about the different ammunition. Standard bullets were obvious, but stingers
were small darts containing poison that incapacitated a person for two days.
Flashers were light grenades, which would blind a person for up to ten minutes
if they looked at it directly. Stunners were capsules that, upon contact with
the victim, would break and spread an electric current through their body and
immobilise them. Bees were irritants, little rubber bullets coated in a
solution that caused hallucinations and large welts to appear on the body. They
were useful when you wanted to distract and disorientate, rather than kill.
Most of these were, just as Yuki had said, able to be fired out of a standard
gun. Both Hutch and Ian were competing for the position of weapons specialist,
to be taught how to use the other, more specialised weapons, but Sarah knew
they didn’t have a chance. Jaz was going to get it hands down. They had played an
inter-team game of paintball the other day. Their team had lost, but not by
far. Jaz’s strike rate alone had almost tipped them over the winning line.
    Then,
on the Monday of their fourth week, the Sarg arrived at the mess tent while
they ate breakfast. This had never happened before. The hall went quiet.
    “There
has been a development,” he said. “The enemy has pushed through our lines at
Desmark. The city is threatened. Desmark is vital for our water supply. You
will leave today.”  He left the hall. Noise broke like a tidal wave.
    “Are
you kidding?” stormed Bettina, “he can’t do that? We’ve only had three weeks!
Three weeks of training! We’re not ready?” She looked hysterical. To everyone’s
surprise, Ian put an arm over her shoulder to calm her down.
    “It
doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice soft, “we have no choice.”
     

Chapter Fifteen
     
    Two
hours later and they were sitting in the transporter, stunned.
    “How
could they do this to us?” muttered Bettina for the fiftieth time, her head in
her hands. “We’re not trained yet. It’s only been three weeks.”
    Even
Hutch and Jaz, who usually stood up for everything military, had blank looks of
shock on their faces. Ian was the only person who seemed happy about it. Sarah
had heard him mutter something about finally seeing some action. She understood
all of this, even in some weird way Ian’s reaction, but she couldn’t understand
Finn’s. For some reason he kept on glaring at her. After Sarah felt a hole
being burnt into the side of her head for the one hundredth time that morning
she finally snapped.
    “What?”
she hissed. “What is it? Why are you so pissed?”
    “You
shouldn’t be here. They had nothing on you.”
    “Oh
for Christ’s sake, Finn!” she yelled, exasperated, drawing the attention of the
others. “How many times do we have to go through this? What’s done is done. I’m
here whether you like it or not. If you want I can go and sit over near
Boulder.”
    A
weird expression passed across his face and he went to open his mouth to speak
but was interrupted by Dylan.
    “Alright,
Losers,” said Dylan. “I’ve been assigned to lead you dipshits.”
    The
whole team groaned. If anything, this was worse than being sent into a war zone
untrained. Dylan had made their lives hell over the past three weeks,