Too Long a Soldier (Kingdom Key Book 3)

by TylerRose.

  “Shit!” Julian exclaimed, hands up. “Friend.”

  “This is my friend Julian,” Tyler stepped in front of them. “This is the first time he’s been able to come see me since we got here. Please don’t kill him. He’s the only ally we got.”

  Guns put away, Tony and Gable went back inside. Jerome and Landra Ahr stayed.

  “Where do we stand?” Tyler asked, still holding his hand as they sat at the table.

  “Earnol suspects nothing. He’s caught up with the Indigenous very loudly approaching her first Widening. So I am not making waves. I’m putting up the same fuss I did in our timeline and he’s already making the same threats.”

  “Good. Has he said anything about February?” she asked.

  “No. Not to anyone. His plan hinges on no one knowing. Just one person could ruin everything for him.”

  “I very much intend to be that person. How horrible would it be, realistically?” she asked. “If he learned I’m here now?”

  “I could be very bad. If you are exposed too soon, you could be in great jeopardy from his allies. I need more time to get our own allies on board,” he told her. “I have to be very careful and get them to come to me with their doubts.”

  “I trust your judgment. Who are our potential allies?”

  “Baener for certain. He’s already suspicious of Earnol’s activities. I’ll talk to him soon, I’m sure. The Balnaatrus don’t like him but they are too far away to be much immediate help. K’Tran is iffy at this point. The Rosaas like the Congress as it is because they have power.”

  “Voran?” she prompted.

  “I’ve been wary of making inquiries. I think it wise to let that play out first. Give us a more sympathetic position.”

  Only the blinking of her concerned eyes told of anything going on in her head.

  “I don’t have much time,” he said. “Earnol expects me in a few minutes.”

  “Okay. Be cool.”

  “You too. No spectacles,” he pointed at her.

  “So far so good,” she smirked.

  He kissed her on the lips and was gone.

  “Still want to go for ice cream?” Jerome asked her. “They’re finished with clean up.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I’ll get the car out. Tony isn’t coming.”

  “That’s fine with me. He’s not part of the ‘all’ I was concerned about.”

  He got up to go down to the vehicle. She grasped his wrist as he was turning away, halting him for a moment longer.

  “I want you to know I wasn’t like the Tyler you met in March. She’s getting paid a lot of money from an escort service to fuck anything that moves. She’s also streetwalking, picking up any john that trips her trigger. I was never a street corner whore. I didn’t work through the escort agency. I answered phones. I swear it to you. I had a benefactor, a regular of the agency who talked me into meeting him for lunch. His name is Thomas Holmes. He set me up in an apartment with a fake job as his assistant. He encouraged me to explore my sex drive but kept me safe from myself, as it were. He introduced me to men who liked a variety of things. Men he knew he could trust not to go too far with me. He kept my sexual revolution under control so I would not be like she is. He paid me well so I would not do what she’s doing. I’m not her.”

  He bent over to give her a firm and lingering kiss. “I know, babe. Tony’s problem is Tony’s problem. I deal with you, not the blonde, and I really don’t care what you did in a timeline an entire life ago. You have a past. I have a past. I only care what you do right now.”

  He gave her another kiss and headed toward the metal stairs at the rear of the building. She watched him jog down.

  “You have put forth a tremendous effort today,” Landra Ahr said. “I was glad to see it.”

  “Have you talked to Tony yet?” she asked, overlooking his attempt at praise.

  “I will while you are out.”

  The Torino rumbled to life, a sound that vibrated the building. She got up from the table, a bit lost in thought, to poke her head into the kitchen.

  “Let’s go!” she boomed.

  “Where are we going?” Roc asked, coming into the kitchen from the game room.

  “Out. Come on. Jerome’s waiting.”

  Down the back stairs and Gable was more than happy to sit in the back seat between two women. They rode up to Southwyck Mall, to the Dairy Queen on Reynolds. Busy place and Roc held in her anxiety to be around so many people. She stood close to Tyler, her right arm behind Tyler’s left. Tyler let her, knowing her own quiet confidence would be a comfort. Eventually Roc’s nerves would calm.

  “How do I choose what to get? There is so much and I know nothing about it,” she whispered.

  “”Want me to pick for you? I know what you’ll like.”

  “Okay.”

  The group in front of them had their items and had paid and walked away. Tyler stepped up and ordered a pineapple caramel sundae and a small chocolate cone. Jerome ordered a chocolate cone as well, and Gable got a banana split with two spoons. Jerome paid as items started to come out two at a time. Tyler walked Roc back toward the car, all the tables currently filled and she was not in the mood to make people leave.

  “This has got to be food for gods,” Roc said, scooping up pineapple and caramel together. “And I don’t believe in gods.”

  “Told ya you’d like it,” Tyler said, and licked a melting drip.

  Jerome came over, eyes going smoky when she opened her mouth and slid the whole cone in.

  “But you’re not a cock tease or anything,” he smirked.

  “Of course not,” she smiled sweetly and slowly licked her lips.

  Gable and Star came over with theirs, a spoon line drawn down the horizontal center to mark the territorial boundary.

  “Stay on your own side, Spacegirl.”

  “Make me, Earthman.”

  “Alright, don’t make me separate you two,” Jerome said.

  Gable glared over at him. “She’s not touching me.”

  Star put up a forefinger, swirling it around an inch from his nose. “I’m not touching you.”

  “Watch it. I’ll put you in the front seat,” Jerome said to Gable. “Three ice cream covered chicks in the back and you stuck in the front.”

  “Man, that is just cold,” Gable said. Then looked at the women. “Can I watch? Who does the spanking?”

  Roc blushed crimson and went mute and turned away.

  “You got the gumption, Earthman?” Star shot back. “If not, then you gonna have the hot seat, aren’t you?”

  “Oh geez, pick a room and bump uglies already,” Tyler rolled her eyes and went to the nearest trash can to toss the dry cone end into.

  “May we speak?” Landra Ahr said when Tony opened his bedroom door.

  “What about?”

  “You are having difficulty with Tyler’s presence in the apartment. I would like to understand.”

  “What’s to understand? She’s a manipulative little whore. She’ll take Jerome for everything she can and disappear. I don’t like her. I don’t want her around. I don’t trust her. My opinion has been discounted as irrelevant and the million dollar man brought the runaway minor whore of a prostitute into our home, jeopardizing everyone.”

  “I do appreciate your position, Anthony. But there is something you overlook.”

  “What?”

  “She’s a virgin.”

  “The body may be. Not the soul. The soul was a whore before in her own timeline and she’ll be one here too. She’ll be selling herself to Jerome to keep her bed.”

  “Is that what your mother does? Sells herself to your stepfather for her bed every night?”

  Tony swung in his fury. Landra Ahr caught his forearm and held him in place.

  “Tyler does not deserve your anger when it is your mother you see in her. She’s done nothing wrong to you or to anyone in this household. I suggest you suck it up and act like an adult instead of a sullen child. Or leave for good. T
yler is not leaving regardless how badly you treat her.”

  He let go with a shove that sent Tony backwards a couple steps, and left the door open as he went down to the Command Center to monitor the building. A moment to collect himself and Tony went downstairs to another workout.

  “I’m tired,”Tyler said quietly to Jerome at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m going to shower and go to bed.”

  “Come here first,” he said, taking her by the wrist into the telephone nook.

  Two steps in and his arm slid around her back.

  “Dinner was fantastic, babe. Thank you.”

  A lovely kiss, those bristling hairs poking her lip. She liked that sensation a lot.

  “You’re welcome,” she replied, and ported up to her room.

  “Guess it’s you an’ me tonight, Roc. What’cha wanna watch?” he said, having found her in the kitchen.

  “Um…I’m tired too. I’m going to read and go to bed.”

  “Oh. Okay then. Good night,” he said.

  “Good night. Thank you for getting Tyler out of her bedroom.”

  With nothing much to do, he changed into workout clothes and went on down to the gym to get in a late evening workout. Tony was there and he went to the machine next over.

  “You ever gonna get past this?” Jerome asked, pulling 200 pounds down on the shoulder bar.

  “Don’t know. You coulda given me more time before you moved her in here.”

  “No, I couldn’t. She was at risk of being found out and abducted. She’s a terrific woman, bro. I wish you could see that.”

  “More terrific than Monica?” Tony dug the sore spot.

  “As a matter of fact, she is. I’m over Monica. It could not be with her. I am not at fault for her death.”

  “I remember when you were about ready to kill yourself over it.”

  “I had more important things to do,” Jerome replied.

  “Yeah, I know that too. Everything is for and about what will or won’t happen six and a half months from now based on information from a runaway liar,” Tony sniped.

  “You’d lie to protect yourself too, Tone, so don’t give me that. She didn’t run because she wanted to. She ran because someone up on a space station made her. You need to cut her some slack and see what a valuable member of the team she is.”

  Tony stood to get a drink of water. “Yeah, we can all three take turns fuckin’ her. Save tons of money instead of having girlfriends.”

  Jerome was a blur and Tony’s jaw was broken. On the floor against the wall five feet away, unconscious for several seconds before coming to.

  “Judge your mama by that criteria,” Jerome snapped, and saw a shadow in the doorway.

  He saw her eyes first. Wide as saucers and frozen staring. She ran.

  “Fuck! Get the fuck out of my house, Tony!” he growled, running after her. “Tyler!”

  He ran up the stairs to the apartment. “Tyler!” he shouted, rushing through the kitchen. Into the corridor and to the bottom of the stairs. “Tyler Rose!”

  “She is not in the warehouse,” Landra Ahr said from the Command Center door. “She teleported from the center room downstairs. I tried to call and warn you she was coming down. Your phone is in your room and the gym intercom had been turned off.”

  “God damn!” Jerome roared, slamming his fist through the wall and leaving a six inch hole. “Where’d she go?”

  “You cannot go there.”

  “No, not me. Get me coordinates and Roc will go.”

  “She cannot. She is not capable of handling Tyler in crisis. I will go,” Landra Ahr said, heading for the back door.

  “You need to fix Tony’s jaw,” Jerome said.

  “When I get back.”

  Landra Ahr launched into the sky and flew across the street to the woods behind the Masonic Auditorium. Only then did he call her with his internal phone system.

  “Come and talk to me,” he said when she answered. “Tell me what happened.”

  She appeared five feet from him.

  “Solomon killed your husband and your baby. You saw that when you saw Jerome hit Tony,” he guessed.

  “I saw three deaths. Mankell killed Osan. Solomon killed Alen. Then he killed Shestna. I was not prepared for Jerome and Tony to fight. That never happened before. Not once. Things keep repeating themselves. The people are a bit different but the same things keep happening.”

  “I understand. It is difficult to come back, knowing what you know, and have so much still be out of your control and unexpected.”

  She paced in the moonlight. “I want February to get here already so I can be done with it and go.”

  “Go where?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Probably where I was the first eighteen years since coming to this timeline. It’s quiet there. I can live in peace.”

  “You are in emotional turmoil. Jerome did as he will always do. He defended your honor. Against whom is irrelevant to him. He did not mean for you to be hurt by his actions; but you need to let him deal with these things as he sees necessary.”

  “I know you’re there,” she said suddenly.

  “Of course you do,” Jerome said, coming into the small clearing to lean on a tree but staying a good five feet back. “Come here.”

  She held firm, staring at him.

  He reached out a hand, voice softer. “Come here.”

  Two steps closer but she wouldn’t take his hand. He moved closer to her, hand still out.

  “I’m not gonna bite you, little girl.”

  “You would if I wanted you to.”

  Heavy breath out through his nose as she brought a smile to his lips. “Probably. Come here,” he repeated, voice soft as velvet.

  She took his hand. Rather than an abrupt jerk to him, he stepped the rest of the way to her.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.

  “You didn’t.”

  “I didn’t?”

  “I don’t feel fear,” she said. “You triggered memories I didn’t want to relive. Very painful and deep memories, and every one of them led to a period of captivity during which I was repeatedly beaten and raped.”

  Their energy stopped sparking as that got through to him.

  “By whom?” he asked, eyes and aura darkening fast.

  “His name was Solomon. I met him on Crecorday when I was sent away for the battle against Adamantine to happen. He started to come after me months later.”

  “So he exists here, and the Indigenous is going to find him,” Jerome guessed.

  She nodded.

  “All that stuff is going to happen to her too,” he continued the line of thought.

  “Probably. I cannot do a thing about it. I have to let her go to her doom. Let myself, basically.”

  “How many captivities?” he asked.

  “Four including the one that was just one night.”

  “How many times did he beat or rape you?”

  She looked at him dully. “You think I counted? Every day. More than once a day. Whenever he wanted. Dozens of times. Maybe a couple hundred, for all I know. My mother had it easy, okay?”

  “Jesus Christ, Tyler. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “All things in their time…and when I’m ready to tell,” she said.

  “Are you afraid he’ll find you here?”

  “I do not feel fear, Jerome. Take that word out of your vocabulary as it relates to me.”

  “How can you not feel fear?”

  “I keep having the same conversations,” she complained. “It’s starting to piss me off.”

  “I understand that concept,” Landra Ahr said.

  “Never mind. You can tell me another time. We have got to figure out something to stop you from running like this, Tyler. Fleeing saved your ass sometimes. Okay, I get it. Staying put will save you this time. What do I gotta do? What do I gotta say to get you to stop running?”

  “I have a suggestion,” Landra Ahr said. “The Torino. When she feels the need to
flee, she can teleport into the Torino. Her own safe room. No one can get in but you or Star. You have a blanket in the back seat already, in case it is cold out. I will already be there, through the comm system.”

  “That’s the plan,” Jerome decided. He lifted Tyler’s chin to get her to look him in the eye. “You feel you gotta run, you port to the Torino and you wait for me. Nowhere else. Agreed?”

  “Okay.”

  “Not okay. Not this time. Agreed?” he repeated firmly.

  “Okay, agreed.”

  “Let’s go home,” he decided, arm over her shoulder to walk together.

  Landra Ahr flew over the Masonic Temple’s land to the warehouse while they walked.

  “I know you see a really big picture,” Jerome said. “Maybe too big. How can I get you to see a smaller one now and then?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe that’s part of your job,” she replied. “To help me see the smaller bits.”

  “I can live with that.”

  Hand in hand, they crossed the street. He continued to hold her hand through the parking lot and up the back stairs, through the hallway to the stairs.

  “No,” he said when she tried to pull away and go upstairs. “You’ll sleep in my bed tonight.”

  “But—“

  “Yes, you have a lovely butt. It will look good in one of my tank tops. I’m not going to push one bit. I want you where I can feel you’re there.”

  She went with him, and saw his room for the first time. It was the same as the room in the other timeline, minor things aside. The sheets were different.

  The room was horizontal across the front end of the warehouse, with his bathroom under the upstairs laundry nook. Computer desk directly opposite the door, bed next over, headboard against the wall adjacent to the door. Dresser opposite it under the windows. Open area with Wing Chun dummy and a wall full of weaponry. Closet in the far wall. Book shelves with some very old volumes, some written in Chinese.

  “You read Chinese?” she asked, eyes stopping on a white journal with a band of duct tape in the middle of the spine.

  “Read and speak. I also read and speak Spanish.”

  “Well aren’t you the multilingual dude.”

  “What languages do you know? You have to have learned something in outer space,” he said, handing over a black tank top from his top dresser drawer.