Warmth surged through her. Adrenaline pumped its way through her body, causing the blood to rise beneath the skin of her cheeks and her breathing to speed. She clenched and unclenched her fists, tensed her jaw, furrowed her brows and stared blankly ahead of her. Her stomach tied itself into hundreds of knots. A wave of nausea washed over her quickly, before she clamped her eyes shut and willed her body to calm itself.
The emotions she was undergoing, she wasn't unfamiliar with them by any means. From the yelling and the slamming door, to the rapid fire, distinct scent of residue in the air, and the bullet-ridden target; she was quite acquainted with all of the above. She had her ritual in response to the rising temperatures in her body and rapidly increasing pulse, a ritual to keep them under control and to channel them into something that would do no harm.
But as the last of her bullets pierced the flimsy paper thirty feet before her, she stopped and lowered her gun. She set it down and whipped off her protective eye and ear wear, letting it fall to the floor beside her. She didn't know whether to smile, laugh, cry, or beat the crap out of something at the realizations that flooded her mind.
She liked it, she liked feeling this way. It excited her, it allowed her to think more clearly than she ever did. The adrenaline gave her power. The anger fueled her.
She gazed down at the empty shells by her feet and clenched her jaw.
The villains in the stories, the movies, the books. They were empowered by their anger and so often much stronger than the pathetic protagonists of these fantasies, driven weak by their compassion and so-called humane and moralistic views. And they all shared one thing in common, one thing she had just come to realize she shared as well. All of these antagonists, these villains and masters of evil, they were angry and they liked it. And so did she.
Maybe she was the villain in this story.
She picked up her firearm once again and twirled it around her index finger before shoving it into her belt buckle. Satisfied, pleased, and feeling more powerful than ever in her realization, one question still plagued her.
If she was the villain, who was the hero?