by Brandon Hale
Thinking of her own father’s death, Lily said, “Thank you, Captain. Talking to you has helped me in more ways than you know.”
“Wallace is a smart man, recruit,” Meade said. “He doesn’t give this assignment lightly.”
“Yeah,” Lily said. “I don’t think my commanding officer will be disappointed if he asks me any questions about your dad.”
“Just out of curiosity,” Meade said, “what team are you going to?”
“Covert Ops,” Lily said with a smile. “I’m a sneaker, sir.”
Meade smiled. “Well, first of all, your CO is a she, not a he. Sister Abbie is going to like you.”
“Sister Abbie?”
“Sister Abigail Reid. She was a nun in Ireland before the Legion took it,” Mead explained. “Her escape from Ireland as the city fell was...” He paused for a moment. “Well, that’s not my story to tell. I think you’ll like Abbie.”
“So my commanding officer is a nun?”
Meade nodded. “Yeah. And trust me, getting her as a trainer was the best thing that ever happened to the sneakers.”
***
Lily stepped into the tavern, feeling good about the assignment. She had decided it wasn’t safe to leave Leo alone in a bar, considering all he’d been through recently, mixed with the fact that he’d never been drunk before.
The place was crowded, so it took Lily a few seconds to spot him. He was sitting at the bar, talking to a very handsome young man. She walked up to the bar and slapped Leo on the shoulder.
“How’s it going, soldier!” Lily yelled just loud enough for him to hear her over the music.
Leo turned around and laughed. “Lily-bug!” He turned back to the handsome soldier and said, “That’s my little pet name for her.”
“That’s the first time he’s ever called me that,” Lily added quickly.
The soldier just gave Lily an exhausted look and said, “Leonard here is a real talker.”
“It’s not that he’s a talker, really,” Lily said, trying her very best to sound witty. “It’s that he’s not a drinker.”
The soldier laughed. “I think you’re right. I’m Scott, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Scott,” Lily said with a smile she’d thought was lost.
“So can I call you Lily-bug?” Scott asked.
“No,” Lily said.
“Only I can call her that!” Leo slurred.
“Nobody can call me that,” Lily said, “him included.”
“So where you headed?” Scott asked.
“Home, after I get Drunky Drunkerson out of here,” Lily answered.
“I’m not drunk!” Leo yelled. “I was just explaining to Scottie that vamps can’t go into houses because they’re crazy.”
“Yeah,” Scott said. “It was all very interesting when I learned it in high school.”
Lily laughed.
Leo didn’t. He staggered back a few steps and pointed a finger at Scott. “Are you making fun of me, friend?”
“Leo!” Lily said. “What’s gotten in to you?”
“About two beers,” Scott said.
Despite her attempts to prevent it, Lily laughed again.
“Listen friend,” Scott said to Leo, “you’ve had a little too much to drink. I can see now that I wasn’t being respectful to you by flirting with your friend here, so let’s just have another drink and make a toast to the new journey we’re all about to take.”
“You were flirting with me?” Lily asked.
Scott smiled. “You weren’t? Because if you weren’t, I really need to recalibrate my flirt radar.”
“No need,” Lily said, “for recalibration.”
Without another word, Leo punched Scott in the face.
Scott’s head jerked back a bit, but he seemed unhurt overall. “What the hell, man?”
“Don’t think,” Leo said, “that just because I’m a dotter I can’t hold my own without a gun.” He raised both fists. “I’ll dot you in the frickin eye.”
“Leo!” Lily said, horrified at Leo’s behavior.
Scott looked around the bar, then turned back to Leo. “Nobody noticed your little outburst here, so let’s just forget this happened and go home. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t come this far just to get sent home over a damn bar fight.”
Leo looked at Scott, then Lily, then back at Scott. “You two have a good night.” He spun around and walked out of the tavern.
“I’m sorry,” Lily said. “I don’t know what’s come over him.”
“Really?” Scott said. “Because if you don’t, you’re not nearly as perceptive as I thought.”
“It was good meeting you, Scott,” Lily said. “I better go get him.”
***
Leo was sitting on the sidewalk, leaning against the wall of the closed coffee shop across the street. Lily crossed the street and sat beside her friend.
“You okay, hero?”
“Not really,” Leo said, “no.”
“What happened in there?”
“I don’t know, Lil,” he answered. “I guess it just occurred to me that I really am alone.”
“You’ll never be alone,” Lily said. “I promise.”
Leo smiled. “Thanks. And please don’t think that was some jealousy thing.”
Lily raised an eyebrow. “Really.”
“Okay,” Leo conceded. “Maybe a little. We’re about to be separated for the first time since second grade, so I don’t guess there’s any point in pretending I don’t love you.”
“I love you, too,” Lily said. “You know that.”
“I know,” Leo said. “And when I say it wasn’t a jealousy thing, I just mean it wasn’t what you think. I wasn’t jealous because you guys were talking. I’m perfectly happy being your best friend. It was… I don’t know.”
“What is it Leo?”
“Scott is going to be a sneaker,” Leo said. “He told me before you came in. I was sitting there, enjoying my buzz, and you two started talking. And it just hit me. That was the beginning of your new life. You were beginning a new life, and you seemed to love it.”
“That’s a good thing, Leo,” Lily said.
Leo nodded. “I know. It’s a very good thing. In my mind, I could see you and Scott becoming good friends. Which is also good thing, considering you’ll be counting on each other in Legion territory. But then I saw myself and it wasn’t nearly as glamorous.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Lily said. “You’ll be fine. You’re just drunk.”
“I am drunk,” Leo admitted, “but I’m not being stupid. Every person we’ve ever known is dead. Hell, before everybody died, you were pretty much the only friend I had. Afterward, you’re literally the only person in the world who knows I exist. And when I saw that look on your face when you were talking to Scott, everything just became… I don’t know… real. I realized you were leaving me and I didn’t like it.”
“That’s dumb,” Lily said.
“Stop saying that!”
“Well, it is. Leo, we’re training on the same damn base. You’re about to gain friends, not lose them.”
“I guess,” Leo said. He smiled. “I’m feeling a little embarrassed now.”
“The only thing you have to be embarrassed about,” Lily said, “is the fact that you can’t handle your alcohol.”
Leo laughed and nodded toward the tavern. “Company’s coming.”
Scott strolled across the street and stopped in front of them. He looked at Leo. “I shouldn’t have made the beer comment. I was just flaunting my peacock feathers. It was disrespectful to you and I’m sorry.”
Leo climbed to his feet and said, “We both know I was the ass in there. But instead of us arguing over who’s sorrier, how about we just blame alcohol and move on.”
Scott smiled. “Sounds like a plan.” He rubbed his cheek. “You pack a punch
, there, amigo. I’m sure I’ll have a black eye tomorrow. I’ll have to come up with a good lie to explain it to the other recruits.”
“You’re actually the first person I’ve ever hit.”
Scott laughed. “Sure didn’t feel like it. The only way I was able to keep standing was because I knew Lily-bug was watching.”
“Enough with the Lily-bug crap,” Lily said. “And count yourself lucky that’s all Leo did. I personally saw him kill about five hundred vampires in one night.”
“Impressive,” Scott said.
“He doesn’t believe you,” Leo said with a smile.
“Of course not,” Lily said.
Leo turned around and looked at the coffee shop. “Every day,” he said.
“Huh?”
“Let’s meet here every day during training.”
Lily took his hand and looked at the coffee shop. “Every day,” she said.
“Every day,” Scott said.
They both turned and looked at him.
Lily pointed at him and said, “This conversation doesn’t concern you, handsome.”
Scott just smiled and said, “Snobs.”
Chapter 8
Sister Abigail
The alley was empty except for four people. Lily and Scott stood beside each other on one side of the secluded alleyway. Across the alley stood a small girl who looked to be no older than thirteen. Beside the girl stood a very large and muscular black man.
Scott leaned over to Lily and said, “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Shut it,” Lily said, looking around the alley.
“How’s your friend?” Scott asked.
“Fine,” Lily said. “He slept most of the day yesterday. Today, we said our goodbyes and good-lucks, and went to training.”
“Good,” Scott said. “I felt bad for the kid.”
“Stop condescending to him,” Lily snapped. “What are you, twenty-three? Twenty-four?”
“Sorry,” Scott said. “Didn’t mean anything by it. He seemed like a nice but troubled guy. He’s in love with you, ya know.”
“Would you shut up and focus on our training,” Lily said.
“What training?” Scott said. “It’s our first day. Which reminds me… does anybody else feel like a random alley is a weird ass place to begin training?”
“Introductions?” the little girl offered.
“Sure,” said the man beside her. “The first thing I’d like to know… how old are you, kid?”
The girl looked up at him. “I’m twenty-two, asshole.”
“Okay,” he said. “Sorry.”
She smiled. “It’s okay. I’m just an extra-small order of awesome.”
Lily laughed. “I bet you are.”
“My name’s Ellie,” the girl said, “but people often call me Rat. And before you say that’s mean, I’m cool with it. I’m small, mean, and can get into a lot of places other people can’t. I’m okay with Rat.”
The man beside her smiled. “Fair enough. I’m John Grung. Most folks just call me Grung.”
Scott walked across the alley and shook both their hands. “Scott Vellin.”
“Guess that leaves you,” Grung said to Lily.
“Lily Baxter,” she answered. “I don’t have any cool nicknames.”
“It should be Slayer,” Scott said.
Lily glared at him. “Shut up.”
Smiling, Scott said, “I looked you and your buddy up on the database yesterday.” He turned to the others. “Lily and her friend were stuck in a town full of vampires. By dawn, they’d personally killed them all. Around a thousand.”
“Damn,” Grung said.
Lily could feel her face growing more flushed. This wasn’t how she wanted to start her training. “It wasn’t like that,” she said. “It was mostly luck.”
“That doesn’t make it less impressive,” Ellie said. “It kind of makes it more impressive.”
“So back to the original question,” Scott said, apparently picking up on the fact that Lily didn’t appreciate his decision to share her past. “Why are we in an alley?”
Grung looked up toward the tops of the buildings. “I bet our trainer is somewhere up there, watching us.”
“Let’s find out!” Ellie said. She grabbed a downspout on the side of the building and began to climb up. “I’ll be right back!”
Watching her climb, Scott shook his head. “You know, I can only think of one word to describe what she’s doing right now.”
“Yeah,” Grung said. “She’s scurrying.”
“She shouldn’t be doing that,” Lily said. “Our orders were to stay in this alley and wait for our trainer.”
“Technically,” Grung said, “as long as she doesn’t climb onto the actual roof, she’s not disobeying that order.”
“Fair point,” Lily conceded.
A strange creaking sound came from another point in the alley. They all looked in the direction of the sound and saw that a door to one of the buildings was now open.
“What the hell,” Scott whispered as he slowly walked toward the door.
“Probably should tell Ellie to get down here,” Lily said.
“I would,” Grung said, “but she’s gone.”
Lily looked up. Ellie was nowhere to be seen. “Dammit,” she mumbled.
“I think our training has started,” Grung said.
“Yeah,” Lily said. “We’d better stick to—”
Scott was gone and the door he was standing by was closed.
“So,” Grung said. “She’s picking us off one at a time, just to demonstrate what a sneaker is.”
“Looks like it,” Lily said with a mischievous grin. “I gotta admit. This is fun already.”
Grung returned the smile. “I agree.”
“I say we stand against that wall, shoulder to shoulder,” Lily offered. “And we hold hands.”
“I’m touched,” Grung said.
“Shut your face,” Lily said. “If the plan is to separate us and pick us off, we just stay together and wait as long as it takes.”
“You’re kind of a little tyrant, aren’t you.”
“Get against the wall, big guy.”
They leaned against a wall and just watched the alley.
After a few minutes, Lily whispered, “So what kind of name is Grung? It sounds Russian or something.”
“Not sure, to be honest,” Grung said. “I’ve never really cared enough to look into it. I’m not really a study-the-past kind of guy.”
“That’s a shame,” Lily said. “You can learn a lot from—”
The alley filled with smoke.
“It’s the Batman!” Grung yelled.
Despite knowing she needed to stay quiet, Lily laughed.
A dark figure sprinted through the smoke in front of them.
“What the hell was that?” Lily said.
Grung fell to the ground, unconscious.
Lily looked in all directions, but could only see smoke. She knew the trainer – a nun from Ireland – was somewhere in that smoke. She also knew this was a fantastic opportunity to make a strong first impression. All she had to do was figure out a way to avoid being—”
Lily felt a tiny sting in the side of her neck and everything went black.
***
The alley was wet and cold on Lily’s face. She slowly sat up and looked around the alley. The other three recruits were standing around her.
“Good morning,” Scott said.
“Stop screaming,” Lily said.
Scott laughed. “Yeah, we all have the same damn headache.”
“So,” Lily said as she got to her feet, “we’re back in the alley.”
“Yeah,” Ellie said. “I’d say we definitely failed our first test.”
“It wasn’t a test,” someone said with an Irish accent.
They a
ll looked over to see a woman step from the door that had opened earlier. To Lily, she looked to be in her late thirties. She had black hair pulled back into a tight ponytail and wore the standard black Day Soldier’s uniform. “It was more a demonstration than a test.”
“Sister Abigail?” Lily said.
The woman smiled. “Either my reputation precedes me, or someone did a little research before starting her training.”
Slightly embarrassed by the compliment, Lily added, “It was purely accidental, ma’am.”
The woman shook her head and said. “Girl, if you’re going to be on my team, you’re gonna have to get over this deflection thing you have with compliments. You killed hundreds of vampires, but when your teammates mention it you just say it was luck. I credit you for doing your homework and you say it was accidental. You need to learn that false modesty is every bit as bad as false confidence.”
“I thought humility was a virtue.” The retort was instinctual, and Lily immediately regretted it.
“It is,” the woman answered. “But false modesty isn’t humility. It’s lying.”
Lily just nodded, accepting the criticism.
“And I’m Abbie,” the woman said. “You don’t have to be formal with me. I think respect comes from one’s actions, not from one’s rank, whether military or religious.”
“So,” Scott said, “was your attack on us a lesson in humility?”
“Not at all,” Abbie said. “It was a lesson in reality. The four of you will often go into Legion territory. It’s what the sneakers do. While there, if a single vampire discovers your presence, you’ll see a repeat of today. Only you won’t be tranquilized. You’ll be dead.”
The recruits were silent.
“But if I’m being completely honest,” Abbie continued, “I just like showing off for the new recruits.”
“Speaking of,” Grung said, “where are the others?”
“There are no others,” Abbie answered. “You are sneakers. Every new team is small. Has to be. My teams have a scout, a combat specialist, an intelligence specialist, and a leader.”
Lily looked at the group. Ellie was clearly the scout, but the others weren’t so obvious. She suspected Scott was the leader. He just seemed to fit the part. That left her and Grung. One of them was an information expert and the other was combat expert.
Lily didn’t consider herself an expert on the Legion. She had no training beyond high school. That left combat specialist, which made her very nervous. Sure, her dad had taught her how to use most weapons, but she was no combat expert. Maybe Wallace had assumed the incident in Iveyton meant she was either an expert on the Legion or she was an expert on combat. Either way, he was mistaken. For the first time since arriving at the base, Lily felt unqualified to be there.
