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Fair warning, this is a gruesome chapter. If you don't like blood, might want to skip this one. In this chapter David is forced to bond with Lucas as his packmate takes him to a gun store to get a service pistol.

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Sleeping in the single King sized bed in the pack's hotel suite felt uncomfortably comfortable to David. A king sized bed by itself was an already large bed for a couple people, but with needing to bed all five of the pack who went to Vegas, it all forced them to sleep piled up with each other on the bed. Even when in their smaller Urhan forms.

David glared at Kaiden enviously, who was spread out on the only free spot at the foot of the bed while he was buried under the others. He hated how well he slept buried underneath the others with only his head sticking out..

His lips twitched in a silent snarl at the golden jackal in front of him. He blinked slowly. He'd force the jackal to switch places with him. He should have been the one by himself at the foot of the bed. His silent snarl was interrupted with a yawn. But first he just needed to rest his eyes for a moment.

He woke up with a start. He quickly looked around the hotel bedroom. He was the only one on the bed and there were voices in the living room. Colin's was the clearest and he was speaking to someone on the phone.

“This morning? Anyone injured?"

“What's going on?" asked Jesse, his voice muffled by a mouthful of food.

“The Pure launched their counterattack this morning," said Colin.

That got David out of bed. He launched off the bed and shifted mid-jump to Hishu. Used to the uncarpeted floor of the Den he tried to slide out the bedroom door but stumbled out instead when his feet caught the carpet of the suite's floor.

“What happened?!" David asked.

“The Pure attacked Pioche," Jesse said like David was an idiot. “Weren't you listening?"

“Was anyone hurt?" asked Lucas, concerned.

“That's what I'm trying to find out," snapped Colin, his hand over his phone's receiver.

Colin then put the phone back to his ear and listened to whoever was on the other side.

David tried to listen in on the call but Colin pulled off a shoe off his foot and threw it at David. He threatened Lucas with the other.

He listened for a moment longer and told the others, “No, no one was hurt. The Blood Talons that came to help evened the odds. They-"

He suddenly stopped as he listened to the caller in shock.

“Almost the whole pack attacked?!" he asked.

“All of them?" asked Kaiden from the dining table at the far end of the room with Jesse where both were having breakfast.

“What the hell did Matt's pack do to their church to warrant all of them to attack?" asked Jesse.

“I think it's more a combination of you guys getting me and whoever this Matt dude is attacking their church than just the church," said Kaiden.

Colin nodded and pointed at Kaiden. He then asked the caller, “How was the Herd kept unawares?"

He listened to the caller and then said in disbelief, “Mountain lions? Really? They're not that stupid."

He rolled his eyes, “Okay then. Were any of the Pure taken out?"

He nodded a few times before saying, “Okay, thanks, Tsu'mara."

He hung up and said to Jesse, “The sniper we fought got messed up."

“Dead?" asked Jesse.

Colin shook his head, “Unfortunately, no."

“Nothing else happened?" asked David.

Colin shrugged, “Probably, but they're not telling us. It was mainly Rahu defending Pioche, and Blood Talons at that. So their definition of most everyone being unharmed still involves an awful lot of mauling on both ends. Even by Uratha standards."

“But is the territory unharmed?" asked Lucas.

“Yes, it's unharmed," confirmed Colin.

“So, Kaiden," said Jesse going back to his food, “What were you doing before you got committed?"

“I was getting my Master's in History and Archeology," said Kaiden.

“What culture?" asked David.

Kaiden did a small double take at David's question, surprised that he was showing interest in him. He answered, “Arabic. Not that it matters. This First Change wrecked everything. I was in the rehab centre for weeks, and now I have another couple of weeks to learn how to be a werewolf."

“What college?" asked Colin, “UNLV?"

Kaiden nodded and Colin waved him off with his hand before saying, “Oh, you'll be fine then. That's under the protectorate's control. You won't get in trouble, and should still be able to get your Master's."

Lucas laughed and said, “Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if you find that you've won a scholarship that you don't remember applying for."

“I'd worry first about the studying you'll be getting about Uratha over the next couple weeks," said Colin.

“Speaking of which," said Kaiden. “When's J-?"

He stopped when Colin suddenly gave him a venomous glare.

“Uhhh, when's the Bone Shadow's representative gonna get here?" he tentatively asked.

Colin checked the time on his phone and said with distaste, “In around half an hour."

He then curtly asked Lucas, “Aren't you gonna be taking David to a range today?"

“Right! Thanks for reminding me," said Lucas. He then tried to usher David out of the suite who shoved him away.

“I want to see the Moon Shadow Riders again," growled David.

An angry intake of breath from Colin made David snap his head over to the redhead to see him shooting daggers at David.

Lucas ushered David out of the suite with no resistance.

***

The pair stood in front of one of the gun store's counters. The clear topped counter had a range of handguns, clearly different to Lucas but looked exactly the same to David.

“What do you know about guns?" asked Lucas as he gestured to the pistols in the counter's display.

“They shoot bullets," David said sarcastically.

Lucas sighed, “Okay. A complete noob then. You don't have any experience with guns?"

David shook his head, “My dad had a rifle but he said he wasn't gonna teach me how to use it until I was in high school."

Lucas nodded with understanding. “Okay, I would prefer to recommend a bigger caliber, but since you don't really know anything about them at all I'll have to recommend you stick to something simpler with less recoil."

He pointed to a specific group of handguns, ones with particularly blocky slides, “Glocks are pretty good for beginners and are one of the brands you see Metro using for their choice of sidearm."

He pointed to a specific Glock, one with a red dot reflex sight, “I'd recommend the G17 gen4 MOS. This one lets you quickly mount different optical sights that the base G17 doesn't let you. The quality control for the Gen5 went downhill in my opinion."

David nodded along as Lucas continued to spout off the features of the handgun he was choosing for David's service pistol. He didn't understand a single thing his packmate was saying.

Lucas said, “These versions are also for law enforcement only as well, but since you're a Deputy now that part doesn't matter."

David asked in a whisper, “Didn't you mention when we moved in that the Protectorate has access to guns people don't typically have because of some gun show? Why does it matter if cops can only have them?"

“Cause, as a Deputy, you'll be in the public eye. So you need to keep up appearances," explained Lucas.

He then playfully slapped David's shoulder, which made David scowl at him.

“And you don't need to whisper about that stuff here," said Lucas. “This store and range is under Protectorate control. All of Vegas is."

David looked over to the clerk who was leering at a swimsuit magazine. David said, “But he smells human."

“That's cause he is," said Lucas.

“How much does he know?" asked David.

“Enough to know to look the other way and not ask questions," answered Lucas.

He then pointed to the Glock he was talking about and called out the clerk, “We'll take one of these G17's to the range out back."

The clerk gave an annoyed sigh and tore himself away from his magazine. He got the Glock, a magazine, and a box of ammo out from under the counter. He unlocked a door at the very back of the store, and returned to his chair and magazine.

The indoor range was rather small, and only had five partitioned booths. Lucas put the gun and the ammo on the centre partition's connected bench.

He held out the magazine to David and said, “This is a standard seventeen round nine millimetre magazine. You can get larger capacity ones. But honestly? Seventeen is fine enough for a handgun, and a spare loaded mag isn't that heavy."

David took the magazine from Lucas and looked the empty magazine over. He looked into it and saw a block at top. He poked it and felt a spring underneath it compress.

“That's the follower. It pushes the ammo up the mag and into the gun," Lucas said as he handed David the box of ammo. “Now load a few rounds into it."

David took the ammo and opened it, pulling out the plastic tray. He looked at the empty magazine and looked at the gun on the bench. He compared it to how the magazine would look when put in the magazine and then started taking cartridges out of the tray and loading them into the magazine one by one.

“You showed more sense than I expected by doing that," noted Lucas.

David paused his loading of the magazine and growled, “The fuck is that supposed to mean."

“I see a lot of people that know nothing about guns do some stupid shit. Like loading the ammo backwards," said Lucas.

David growled to himself as he finished loading the magazine, he hated how so many thought he was stupid. He went to load the magazine into the gun but Lucas stopped him.

Lucas grabbed the gun off the bench and pointed at different parts of the gun. He pointed at a small switch in between the slide and the grip and said, “This is the slide stop. It makes the slide get stuck back when the mag's empty. Just flick it with your thumb after you load a fresh mag and it'll rack it back forward and load a round in the chamber."

He then pointed to a square switch on the upper part of the grip, “This is the mag release, just flick it with your thumb when you need to drop the mag and reload."

“Don't guns usually have a safety switch or something?" asked David as he looked over the gun in Lucas' hand but couldn't find anything that looked like one.

“Yes, but this doesn't have one," said Lucas.

“What?" snapped David.

Lucas nodded, “Yeah, Glocks have this patented system called Safe Action. It's some three part safety mechanism that they all have."

He then pointed to a small lever sticking out of the middle of the trigger, “See this? It's the trigger safety. It keeps the trigger from being pulled if the lever isn't fully depressed."

He then pulled the trigger without depressing the lever, showing how the lever kept the trigger from being fully pulled back. He then said, “The other two parts of Glock's Safe Action system, the Firing Pin Safety and the Drop Safety, are inside the gun so I can't show you without disassembling it. But they all sequentially disengage when you pull the trigger, so you don't have to worry about pulling out your gun and not firing cause you forgot to switch the safety off. A good thing to have if you ever get into a sudden shootout."

“But then what's gonna keep it from going off on its own?" asked David.

“It's not a SIG Sauer. That won't ever happen," said Lucas. “You have to pull the trigger fully for it to fire. One of the reasons it's so good for beginners."

“What about revolvers?" asked David. “You use one, what's supposed to keep it from going off randomly?."

“Revolvers don't randomly discharge," said Lucas with a shake of his head. “Because of how they're built, it's just simply not possible."

“But didn't Alec-" David started to ask before Lucas cleared his throat and did a cut it out gesture with his hand.

Lucas handed the gun to David and stepped away from the booth. He grabbed a couple pairs of earmuffs and offered one to David.

David looked at the offered hearing protection and said, “I'll heal from any hearing damage though."

“Still hurts though," said Lucas, and he forced the hearing protection onto David's head who snarled at him for doing so.

David turned away from his packmate and faced the booth. He inserted the now partially loaded magazine into the gun.

Lucas butted in before David could do anything else, “Make sure you keep your finger off-oh."

Lucas cut himself off in surprise as he noticed David's index finger was off the trigger. He gave an approving nod, “You have natural trigger discipline."

“You said it won't go off unless I pull the trigger," said David. “I don't want it to go off yet."

Lucas mouthed a surprised and approving 'Wow' and then gestured for David to continue. David pointed the gun at the paper target at the far end of the range and pulled the trigger. But nothing happened, just a single click of the internal hammer.

He looked at the gun in confusion.

“You need to rack the slide first," Lucas said with a smirk. “Won't fire if there isn't a round in the chamber."

David growled at Lucas, who was snickering at him, and racked the slide, loading a round into the chamber.

He aimed it at the target as Lucas called out, “Keep a firmer-!"

David fired and the gun kicked back in his hand. He panicked and tried grip the gun harder, but did so just as the gun kicked back and pointed the barrel directly at his face,

***

The next thing David knew there was an ear piercing ringing and he was face down on the ground with one of the worst headaches he'd ever had.. Worse than the one he had when he woke up after his First Change. The headache was made worse by a constant, loud wheezing sound.

Laughter.

Lucas was doubled over on the floor, tears running down his face as he struggled to catch his breath, coughing, from laughing so hard.

He reached up for one of the booth's benches and picked himself up, wheezing. But he quickly fell back to the floor as another bout of laughter struck him.

David tried to pick himself up, but his arms and legs felt weak and heavy. Feeling as if made of lead. He rolled his head, the ground was slick and wet, and slurred, “W-wuh happun?"

Lucas managed to say, through gasping wheezes as he continued to laugh at his packmate, “You shot yourself in the head, you fucking idiot!"

He finally managed to pick himself up from the floor, but still found himself falling into small giggling fits. He helped his injured packmate sit up, who was still struggling to pick himself up from the floor.

As he was sat up against the wall he noticed the large puddle of blood on the floor. He also noticed small ivory shards in the blood.

“Ith that?" asked David, struggling to speak.

Lucas looked at the pool of blood and noticed what David was looking at, he answered, “That's parts of your skull."

Lucas stood up and said, “You'll be fine. It'll take more than a regular nine millimeter to the head to kill an Uratha. It'll just take a couple weeks for you to fully heal. Takes a while for a skull to knit itself back together."

He left David in the range and called out to the clerk, “Close the shop for a bit, and get a mop. There's a mess you need to clean up."

Lucas returned soon after with a first aid kit. He cleaned up David's head, ignoring David's snarls of pain and slapping away David's weak attempts to claw him.

The pair quickly left the gun store and range after David was patched up, getting a private ride back to their suite from one of Lucas' tribemates that owed him a favour.

Colin was helping Kaiden with some of the things he was taught by the Bone Shadows representatives. When he saw the state David was in, head wrapped in bandages and being guided in by Lucas, he groaned, “Oh, what the hell happened?"

Jesse was lounging on the grey couch, he looked up from his phone, saw David and laughed, “He clearly didn't keep a proper grip on the gun."

“He needs to wash the blood off. But he's still a bit out of it, so he needs help with that," said Lucas.

“Not it," said Lucas and Jesse in unison, followed quickly by Kaiden.

Colin looked at the trio and shook his head, “Fine, I'll do it."

He took David off Lucas and led him, keeping him stumbling, to the bathroom to get him cleaned up.