TEMPTATION - A Bad Boy Romance

by Gabi Moore

  “You ready to tow this thing off, Boss?” It was Izzy behind the wheel of the tow truck. He was anxious to wrap things up for the day and head home.

  “Just hang tight,” Karanzen told him. “I need an excuse to call the cops. Little punk comes out here and gives me some lip; I’ll have all I need to have him arrested.”

  “I still say you should just call them anyway and worry about a reason later,” one of the other security officers said to him. “I’m sure we could find something to plant in this van. Don’t you have all kinds of fun things in that safe in the office?’

  “Shut up!” Karanzen snapped at him. The safe was common knowledge among the guards, but he didn’t like them talking about it. “We’re going to do this my way and avoid any problems down the road. The cops will make the arrest and he’ll be banned from the mall forever.”

  “This is another one I need to handle on my own,” Dion told his crew. “Everyone stay put and I’ll go out there and find out what they are up to. I don’t need any of you getting into trouble on my account. Just watch from the window in case I need some kind of a witness later.”

  “You should let us go with you,” Cynae said.

  “Just stay here,” he told them. “I can handle this one myself. I have three of the four full elemental powers. I don’t expect there is anything they can do to me now I can’t stop.”

  “I think he’s too sure of himself,” Captain Gabriel said to Salacia as he watched Dion walk down the corridor to the parking lot. “Too many things out there that can go wrong. I think he’s really walking into a trap this time.”

  “Probably,” she agreed. “But we’ll have to let him find a way out of it himself. If he’s truly going to be the one to gain the fifth elemental mastery, he’ll need to be able to do it by himself.”

  The Naiad sisters were pushing up to the window to get a good look at the action in the parking lot. Their chess club boyfriends were doing the same, but neither of them had any clue as to what the security guards planned outside in the parking lot. All they could see was the uniformed men around Dion’s van in the distance.

  Lilly was worried and at the window with the rest of them. There was still a quick exit to the parking lot on their side of the building, but it wasn’t supposed to be used unless for emergencies. How Dion had opened it to allow the air elemental sylph out without setting off the alarm still puzzled her. Usually the alarm would howl the moment anyone pushed down on the handle.

  Sean and Emily were behind the rest of them. They wanted to see how this all ended too. Sean had watched Dion perform some biblical miracles and had no doubt he could handle it all himself. Still, no one knew what might happen out there.

  “You’ve done very well for yourself,” the captain said to his ex-wife as they watched Dion leave to meet the uniformed committee at his van. “People tell me you own all kinds of businesses in this town. Does your skill come from being an Elemental Grandmaster?”

  “No, it comes from knowing how to get the best deal. And how to take care of the customer.”

  “So, did you have the elementals scheduled to sell pools for your today or was that a coincidence?” She stood very close to him.

  “A little of both. I’d planned to have some models come out and told the sales staff about my idea. When the sisters appeared they assumed it was who I was talking about.”

  “Worked out pretty good for you.”

  “All you have to do is set up the right conditions, the rest follows.”

  “Let’s hope Dion is walking into the right condition.”

  Karanzen watched the doors to the mall. He had to be out here soon. He knew the kid was inside with his little gang observing everything. How could he miss it? The van was in plain view of the mall. He kept a watch on the doors right until the moment they opened and Dion appeared.

  It wasn’t very dramatic. One moment shoppers were going in and out of the mall, the next Dion was slowly walking down the concrete toward him. He didn’t have anger in his face, or so it seemed from the distance, just puzzlement. Karanzen was certain it would change when they told him the van contained ‘controlled substances’. If he were like any other Midwestern kid, even a transplant such as Dion would lose control, which would give them all the authority they needed to impound him as well. His aunt and uncle would be forced to pick him up after they paid the bail bondsmen, since he was now a legal adult. And he would never have to worry about that punk being in his mall again. The mall owner would be forced to admit Karanzen was right all along and would no longer bother him about security.

  Dion stopped two car lengths away from the security chief and his men. He’d left the map inside with Lilly just to be safe. There was one more section of the mall he needed to visit tomorrow and then the clock tower in the center. This was simply an attempt to keep him out tomorrow and ban him from the mall. Of course, Karanzen didn’t need a reason to keep him out, but it looked bad if he didn’t attempt to justify what he did.

  “Why do you have a tow truck around my van?” Dion asked him. “I don’t recall I did anything wrong inside the mall today.” He stood his ground and made sure Karanzen was a safe distance away.

  “Shoplifting is a crime, Dion,” Karanzen called out to him. “We had a report someone was using a van to haul merchandise they hadn’t paid for and we decided to investigate. We found all kinds of goods in the back of it you hadn’t paid for. Now we’re going to haul the van off and impound it. I’m afraid you won’t be allowed to come back here again.”

  “Is that the best you can do, Officer Karanzen?” Dion called back to him. “Plant fake evidence in my van? I would expect you’d be much more creative. Perhaps my uncle has misjudged your abilities.”

  “Your uncle seems to have some trouble reeling you in. It’s up to me to show him how to do it right. Now go away before we have to call the police.”

  “I wouldn’t touch that van,” Dion called across the lot to him. “I advise you to just leave it alone and go back inside the mall.”

  “What are you going to do? Send some of your girlfriends on the swim team out here to interfere. Just get out of here and get a ride home, Dion. You are banned from the mall.”

  Dion looked at the sky. It would take too long to get the elementals to bring the clouds over the parking lot. Even if he could find ones who wouldn’t have to be bound to help him. He needed another way to bring this to an end without causing too much damage. As far as he could see, it left one thing he could do.

  The creek, which ran near the mall, had never been very large. It fed into the local river, which wound its way down to the larger Ohio River, to the Mississippi River and from there into the sea. It was underground in a metal culvert most of the time and flowed under the highway. However, it still ran open next to the parking lot at the mall. The local water control board insisted it be maintained to control run-off and not flood the streets when the mall was constructed. It was hidden by a strategically planted grove of trees, which boarded the parking lot. It still provided plenty of water when it rained. After the recent spring showers, the creek water reached up to the banks.

  It provided a nice home for the water elementals, which was all Dion needed.

  Dion closed his eyes and felt them swimming in the water, invisible to most people, but now so easy for him to see and control with his new powers. Still, he needed to persuade them to come and help. They didn’t care much for the men who’d dumped sand and gravel in their creek. Dion only needed to make a few promises to get their help.

  The sound came from the edge of the parking lot and caused Karanzen and his men to turn their heads in its direction. They couldn’t see what caused it because it came from the other side of the tree line. It was a bubbling noise, similar to a sink overflowing. The sound increased in pitch and the tow truck driver shut the engine down to hear it better. Now they could see what the cause was.

  Water overflowed from the creek banks. They could see it rising as it flowed across from
the tree line and in their direction across the field. The water bubbled up and poured at them as it pushed loose dirt and soil toward in front of it. The security guards stopped what they were doing with the van and walked to Karanzen with a look of fear in their eyes.

  Now the water flowed into the parking lot and across the asphalt. It came as a stream, which had changed directions. Although the parking lot had drains to take care of sudden downpours, it was impossible for them to manage this intense lake which had materialized in the outer edge of the lot. The security guards looked down and saw the water cover their boots. This was no longer something they could sit back and survey. The shoppers who entered and left the mall stood and watched the pool form in the midst where their cars were parked.

  And it was even worse because there was not a cloud in the sky. Dion had sent the few away to make it clear to Karanzen and his men why the water flowed into the parking lot.

  “You can stop the lot and mall from flooding,” Dion told him. “All you have to do is unhook your tow truck from my van and get away from it.”

  Before Karanzen could issue a command, the security guards scampered over the van to detach the truck from it. The driver of the tow truck jumped into it and dropped the wench slowly so there would be no damage to the van. Once the front wheels of the van rested on the ground, he waded through the water and helped two more guards unlatch the hook from the front bumper of the van. Still up to their ankles in water, they reattached the spare tire compartment in back, which, in their zeal, they’d taken off as a trophy.

  Finally, the tow truck driver gunned the engine and drove it as far away from the van as he could get. Water sprayed into the air as the wheels of the truck sent it into the sky.

  Dion closed his eyes again and had a brief conversation with the elementals that lived in the creek. They were disappointed over what he wanted them to do right now, but they’d had their fun for the day.

  The water began to flow back to the creek. It reversed its direction and swept back across the lot. In a few minutes, the lake, which was in formation in the parking lot, was gone. The look of relief on the faces at the windows of the mall was evident.

  Karanzen glared at Dion. “You still need one more power,” he snarled at him. “Just try and get in here tomorrow.” He stomped off through the parking lot, his wet boots making noise as they slapped on the damp parking lot.

  Dion looked at the entrance of the mall and watched his friends emerge. Lilly was right out in front, followed by Sean and Emily. Behind them came Dennis and the chess club, with the Naiad sisters. Captain Gabriel and Salacia were still inside looking out from the windows.

  I suppose you will try to keep me out tomorrow, Dion thought. I need to master the fire element before I can tackle the fifth one. We’ll see what happens then.

  THOU SHALT KILL

  A Military Bad Boy Romance

  By Gabi Moore

  Chapter 1 - Tyler

  The human body can descend from five stories into the water in just under one second. I worked the math out well after the fall had taken place, in an effort to reconstruct exactly what had happened.

  When you go through your basic training, there is a lot that you don't think about.

  You don’t think about what it’s actually going to feel like when you’re stranded from the other members of your team. You don't think about whether or not what you are doing will have long-term ethical consequences beyond the security of the nation. You don’t even imagine what it might be like to have a family, or a person that you would commit yourself to, beyond the desire to become a soldier.

  For the most part, being a soldier means that you tend to be on one of a few different varieties of ego trips.

  Either you think you know what is righteous and good, and therefore, you should be free to go about and become an enforcing member of society. Or, you believe that you know what a man is, and therefore must take action to become that man. Or perhaps still, you think you know what it is to seize power — independent of ethical constructs or gender identity, and as a result, you move toward the most powerful group of fighters in the free world.

  I couldn’t tell you which one of the three I was when all of this started, but now that I look back, I can tell you that I saw a little bit of each one inside of myself, and still do.

  The difference between training and being on a mission is that the premise of your work being a drill no longer has the total absence of emotional content that is built up during months of training.

  When you kill someone, regardless of whether or not they deserved it, you now take the responsibility for that life with you throughout the remainder of your own. As for the defensive component of all of this, the lives that you fail to protect will haunt you as well. The latter happens to be one of the strongest forces in perpetuating either side of a given conflict. When you’re in the heofit, politicians and morality tend to go out the window for most people. All you really want to do is get yourself, and your friends, home safely — though that doesn’t always work out as planned.

  No amount of brotherhood mentality can offer the protection necessary to fail-safe a doomed mission.

  We trained to be aware of eventualities and to prepare the foundational skills necessary to engage the unknown. As Navy SEALs, we were called to do things that most will only watch in the movies.

  While all the world passively watched Hollywood’s fiction, it was our job to live the ugly truth, so the civilians could remain blissfully ignorant.

  In the movies, you can’t feel the terror, or isolation. You don’t reach that edge of existence where you aren’t sure if you will ever return to ‘normalcy’. Most of my life I took that for granted. The ability to live life on the edge like that is what makes a good soldier, and an anxiety-ridden civilian.

  In the moment, we are taught to keep calm in difficult situations. We are taught to anticipate, adapt and achieve. When the lull after the action comes in, and there is enough time for reflection, that’s when things get hard.

  I didn’t have any time to think until after the fall, so that’s probably the best place to start our story.

  The human body can descend from five stories into the water in just under one second. Problem was that my fall wasn’t graceful, and it wasn’t without molestation. I was snagged in the back of the head by a round on my way down to the water. I was lucky as hell, as the bullet only gave me a concussion, but head trauma is no way to start a five-story dive.

  When you’re facing an absence of consciousness, you are spared the terror of impact, as well as the shock of the cold water. These things do not disappear completely. Instead, they tend to take form as echoes, or impressions more than concrete facts.

  When semi-automatic weapons are firing overhead, and you’re outgunned, it’s a good idea to take the plunge regardless if you can see the water.

  The positive thing about not being able to see the water at night is that anyone who shot after me wasn’t able to see very well either. They also clipped me in the shoulder, though I only remember that shot because of the scar.

  I’m positive that if they had been able to see me, I would be a dead man.

  When my body hit the water, the impact and the cold brought me back to my senses. The fact that I had just been hit didn’t mean much. My SEAL training provided an automatic baseline survival set.

  Truthfully, there was little else going on, cognitively.

  Can you move your limbs? was an automatic question I heard within myself.

  Some folks have out of body experiences. They get to watch themselves go through traumatic events and hope that they make it out on the other side.

  There is an element of detachment and unreality in these scenarios. People often report a lack of immediate awareness of the fact that they are in fact dead. They think they might wake up soon, and they think about noticing things that are happening around them.

  I’m no psychic, but I can tell you that if you have trained something int
o your mind for long enough, that information is there in the sub-conscious state, just waiting to be utilized. Sub-conscious internalization of procedure is the mecca for recruitment officers and cult leaders alike.

  I had retained enough of my motor skills to swim, though I didn’t have anywhere to go. The longer I swam, the more confused I became. My movements were like I was operating my body from within the confines of a dream. The connection between my physical body and the mind which commanded the muscles was at a hopeless gap. I totally lost my sense of direction, as well as my environmental context. Keeping up the movements was exhausting, and eventually, my will failed to be enough to save myself. Sooner than later, my ability to move slowed, and eventually stopped altogether.

  Your best bet in that sort of situation is called the ‘Dead Man’s Float’. A bit ironic, that name, though completely understandable.

  Had I been in that position for any longer, I’m not sure I would have made it. The water was cold, dark, and I should have died. In fact, I’m certain that the only reason I’m alive is because of my training, sheer stubbornness, and probably more than a few neglectful moments from whatever fallen angels should have come up to claim my life.

  While I was floating, I had lost consciousness. When I woke up, I didn’t have any memory of the night before, and I didn’t know where I was.

  All around me were the simple accommodations of a house by the sea. We’re not talking one of those fancy playboy mansions. I mean an honest to goodness, wooden shack. I knew I was at the sea, because when I woke up, I could smell the saltwater in the air. I could hear the wave lapping up against some type of structure just outside of the building. The smell of the sea was the only familiar element in my entire worldview. Thank God that one ocean is just as good as another.