While we were out looking for a new bed we also went to dinner and did some clothes shopping for me. This meant we didn’t get back until well after eight pm.
Of course Lancer was waiting for us both in my room when we got back.
“Lancer!” I said a little bit too loudly when I walked into my room. I stopped abruptly and Ash ran into my back and dropped the shopping bags. “What are you doing here?”
“I was waiting for you to get back so we could train. I told you we were to train every day.” The anger was clear in his voice. He looked at Ash and I swear steam was coming up from his head.
“I looked for you this morning but you were gone. So I worked out with Ash on hand to hand combat. Then he took me shopping and out to dinner. I needed a few things. I was going to ask you, but since you left without telling me when you would return, I asked Ash.
“You are not allowed out of the warehouse until we can get you trained. What if the rippers found you tonight? I doubt you would be so lucky as to get away again.” Now he turned his glare to me, but his eyes softened a little bit as he took in my pained expression.
“What’s wrong, you look to be in pain.” Now Lancer seemed to be more worried about me than he was mad as he walked closer to me and took my hands in his. He walked me over to my cot and sat me down next to him.
“I couldn’t take another night on this awful cot! I woke up with back pain and a migraine. Cots are not meant to be slept in every night. I needed a new bed. As well as some more work out gear. And don’t forget, my only uniform was destroyed. I picked up several sets of pants and two more pairs of boots.”
Ash took that moment to say that I could take his bed and he would sleep on my cot until the new one arrived. He planned to go pick it up tomorrow since we shopped so late today.
Lancer looked up to Ash and asked him to give us a few moments, alone.
As Ash turned to walk away I said, “Ash, thank you for a great day today. It felt almost normal. It was fun shopping and pretending that we were normal people, even if only for a few hours.” I got up and went to him and kissed his cheek.
As I turned around, I saw the hurt look cross Lancer’s face only for a moment before his usual stern look took over.
After Ash closed the door, Lancer took a moment to collect himself and I heard a deep sigh before he turned to me. “B’Lana I’m sorry I didn’t think about your needs. I wish you would have told me sooner about the bed situation. You’re right. We have these rooms with cots only for soldiers who stay for a few nights, a week at most. Please let me know right away if you want or need anything else. We aren’t used to having females here with us for more than a few days. You really should start making your room yours. Whatever you need, just ask.”
Lancer started to move his hand towards my face but stopped and stood up abruptly. “But I need you stop spending so much time with Ash. He is a womanizer and once he gets what he wants from you he will move on. I don’t want to see him break your heart.”
I got up at that point and slapped his face so hard he stumbled back. The startled look on his face brought me up short. I realized I just hit my superior.
“Lancer, I am not falling for his tactics. He isn’t going to break my heart. And what do you care anyway? Once I am trained you plan to send me to a different location, right? So what’s the harm if I have a little fun with Ash? I know he can’t be serious with me and he is a total flirt.
“But that’s not what today was about. You weren’t here so I went to the second in command of our squad to help me. Isn’t that what I was supposed to do? Yeah, he flirts and sometimes it can be distracting, but I am not going to lose my heart to him. I know the deal with him. So please stop acting like my big brother and stay out of it!” I had started to get quite angry and my voice got louder with the last few sentences.
I stood there with my hands on my hips and once I said my peace, I let out a big breath. Lancer came over to me and grabbed the back of my neck and brought his face down to mine and said in a steely voice, “I am not your brother, nor do I want to be.” Then his lips crashed into mine.
I only hesitated a moment before I kissed him back. The kiss was much more passionate that I thought him capable of. I brought my hands around to the back of his head and ran my fingers through his long hair. When he deepened the kiss I thought I might have moaned just a bit. Then he pushed away from me and strode out the door without a backward glance.
What the heck was that? I couldn’t breathe. That had to be the best kiss I have ever had. I bent over and put my hands on my knees to try and catch my breath. My whole body tingled and it took me quite some time to calm down and think clearly.
◊◊◊
The next day was a big op and both squads were preparing to go out that night to search for the rippers. I tried to avoid Lancer as much as possible and was so happy when I saw my name next to Toren’s for training that day. Toren was one of the new warriors assigned to Squad 2. His specialty was fighting with knives.
We spent two hours going over the different types of knives I could carry on my belt and throw at the enemy. It turned out I had a knack for throwing knives. I asked him about throwing stars and he just laughed at me. “B’Lana, those things would barely even nick a ripper. Why would you care to use any of them?”
I thought about it and realized that they would only be good on humans. Rippers were too tough to care about some metal hitting their skin and barely grazing it or sticking in less than an inch. Most likely, the stars would just bounce off them.
After our two hours on the range, I was consistently hitting the inner three rings on the targets and could hit the eyes at least seventy percent of the time. While a knife to the chest of a ripper wouldn’t kill them, it would slow them down. Maybe even enough to decapitate them. But a knife through the eye was a kill shot.
I was feeling pretty good about at least one skill. Now if I could just do better with hand to hand. Toren told me that another guy, Cash, in his squad was really good with hand to hand combat and I should ask him to work with me. I set up some training with him for the next day. He said he would be happy to demonstrate some moves.
I spent the rest of the day in my room. Not to avoid Lancer, or so I told myself; but to set up my new bed and arrange all of my new clothes. Ash had gone out and picked up my bed while I was working with Toren.
We all had dinner together that night before the big op. I was still trying to avoid Lancer, as I wasn’t sure what to make of the kiss the previous night, so I sat between Toren and Cash and chatted easily with them about some of the ops they had been on in the past.
I did catch Lancer looking at me a few times during dinner. He was on the opposite side of the table but at the other end next to Ash. Who kept looking between Lancer and me. I knew he had picked up on the fact that Lancer and I were avoiding each other. I tried to keep my attention on the guys in squad two.
After dinner I went to the surveillance room and took up my spot as both squads geared up. They each had their own vehicle. The general had agreed to buy two black Hummers in hopes that we would blend in better when out on missions. They both came with four wheel drive and the following week were scheduled to get outfitted with bulletproof armor and camera’s that covered all angles of the vehicle. After my abduction from the van, it was decided that all vehicles would have cameras and we would start requiring passwords when opening blind doors out in the field.
The new Hummers also had compartments already installed in the floorboards as well as under the seats to hold our weapons. I was convinced they had taken these from some drug kingpin who used them to transport their drugs.
The Commander said that he bought them from a used car auction. It must have been a government car auction. I hoped those drug dealers were all in jail and wouldn’t be coming back looking for their Hummers.
The time came and both squads had split up the search area on their maps. When they left I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach that this wasn’t g
oing to end well. I just hoped I was wrong.
The search started out fine, squad one started a grid pattern search along the east side of Joe’s Taco shop and went past the 101 freeway. And then south.
Squad two went west of Joe’s Taco Shop past Staples Center and then south. We overlaid a diagram of the sewer system with the streets of LA and only checked the streets and alleys that had access points down to the sewer.
We knew that the area directly around Joe’s was a hot zone, but since we discovered that area none of our patrols had seen any signs that the rippers continued to use the tunnels there. The humans from the dress shop, who worked with the rippers, were being monitored. Early in the mornings after sunrise, but before the stores opened, a few of our warriors had gone out and set up CCTV cameras to watch the dress shop from all angles. We hadn’t noted anything out of the ordinary coming from there.
After about three hours, squad two found a group of six rippers dragging humans out of a night club. They called it in and squad one immediately left their location to provide back up. I was watching our Hummer feeds as well as Toren’s pocket cam. Squad two was holding position and waiting for backup to arrive before they engaged with the rippers.
That really ticked me off. They weren’t concerned with the humans at all. They only cared about getting the rippers. I was yelling at Coven, the squad two leader, to get in there and do something to help those humans, but he wouldn’t listen.
I had to watch as one of the rippers decided he was hungry and pulled a girl to the nearest alley and drained her of her life blood. I couldn’t hear anything but I could see the girl trying to get away from the ripper and watched her hit him and scratch him until she was too weak to move. Squad two just sat there watching.
Not long after, two of the other rippers were arguing about something. We didn’t have audio but it looked like one of them was hungry as well. The other ripper must have been telling the rest to not drink any more. I begged squad two to intervene. But they ignored me.
Thankfully, before the rippers could kill any more humans, squad one showed up. They drove right up to the rippers, jumped out, and started attacking them. With the element of surprise, two rippers were killed immediately. One ripper corralled the women into the alley while the other two were fighting the warriors.
Two from squad two went after the ripper who was trying to get the women back to the sewers. I switched to watch their pocket cameras. They followed the ripper and the women down into the alley and discovered there was another group of rippers who were watching the entrance. It was now two fae warriors to seven rippers. They never stood a chance.
I called to Lancer to tell him about the other guys, so he sent all of squad two down the alley and had Maliki and Bender go with them. Lancer and Ash easily finished off the last of the original rippers. Then they took off down the alley to engage in the battle there.
While I was watching the fight from the different pocket cams, I saw Toren battle with one ripper while he threw a knife, just like the ones we had trained with earlier, right at another ripper. He went down. After Toren had killed the one he was battling with he ran to the one who went down from the knife he threw, and swiftly cut off the ripper’s head.
I switched over to Lancer’s pocket cam and saw him fighting with another ripper. He was holding his own but couldn’t seem to get the upper hand. The ripper carried two swords similar to the ones I used to get away from the master the other day. Lancer only had his sword that looked like a Katana. It wasn’t a Katana as the warriors told me earlier that all of their weapons came from home. They never used any of our swords or knifes. They believed their master craftsmen to be much more talented than those on Earth. They did however, appreciate our guns.
From Lancer’s camera I could see that one of the rippers was ushering some of the women down into the sewer. Two of them had run off somewhere so he only had two women to force down the manhole. Lancer ran after that ripper and went down into the sewer after them. Ash followed.
It was too dark for me to see what was happening down in the sewer but I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of his screen. Finally someone was going after the girls! I was going to kiss Lancer and Ash both when they came back! I couldn’t believe they were doing that.
On another screen was Toren’s pocket cam. He looked around and I could see that most of the rippers were lying dead on the ground. There were two that were already beheaded. And three that still had their heads intact. Toren went around and was taking care of those three.
But I noticed that there were only a few fae left once all of the rippers were dead or had run away. Toren sent the rest of the warriors down in the tunnels after Lancer called and requested backup.
I kept going back to Lancer’s pocket cam but couldn’t see anything as it was too dark. So I looked for Coven’s pocket cam and noticed it was giving a view of the ground. I tried looking at some more of the cameras to see if I could see Coven. I regretted looking for him as I found another camera on the ground with a view of Coven’s face. I could tell he was dead from the vacant stare in his eyes.
Coven had a total of six warriors on his squad. And with the absence of Mason, Lancer had only four. It looked like we lost almost half of our warriors out there tonight. I really hoped that Lancer would find those girls quick and get back here safely with Ash and the rest of the guys.
I realized I was chewing on my fingernails as I switched between all of the pocket cam views we had. I confirmed that Toren and Cash were still alive. And one more guy on their team. I couldn’t remember his name. I decided right then that if he made it back I was going to learn his name and get to know him. In fact, I was going to spend more time with all of the warriors, getting to know them before they went out in the field again. The guilty feelings I had of not remembering the names of our fallen was going to eat me up for a long time to come. I just knew it.
Right at that point, I heard an explosion come over the radio. And the only video feeds we had were those of Toren and Cash. I frantically kept going back and forth between the rest of the pocket cam feeds looking to see if I could find anything. The Commander was calling Lancer and Ash on the radio. None of them were answering.
I was frozen in front of the screens with tears running down my face. It was as if time was on a loop and I could not get it to restart. I kept reliving the sounds of the explosion in my head and watched as all of the video feeds continued to go to static.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there silently crying and reliving the experience over and over in my head. But finally I heard Lancer coughing on the radio asking for extraction.
The entrance to the sewer in that alley was destroyed. Toren and Cash tried to go down and see if they could find out what was happening, but there was no way to go down. The manhole was filled with debris from the sewer.
Lancer and Ash had made it out of another manhole a couple blocks down and were trying to get back to the Hummers but they were both injured and could barely move. Once they saw a street sign the Commander directed Toren and Cash to take both Hummers and grab Lancer and Ash.
Once Toren got Lancer in his Hummer he started asking him about the others who followed him into the sewer. Lancer said they had died during the explosion. He kept having coughing fits while trying to explain.
Cash reported that Ash passed out once he was in the vehicle. The Commander ordered both of them to come back right away. Then he sent a message to the council requesting a medical team to come through the portal right away. As well as a cleanup team.
When they got back to the warehouse Netty, their best healer, was already there waiting for them. Netty had been called in the last time my squad fought the rippers, when Nishni died. She tended to Lancer and put him on oxygen while she cleaned his wounds and bandaged them. She determined he had a mild concussion and his lungs had filled with debris from whatever the sewer was constructed of. I told them it was most likely cement. She ordered bed rest but to keep him awake for t
he next few hours.
Ash was not in as good of shape as Lancer. He was still unconscious when they brought him in. He had a punctured lung and multiple broken bones as well as a concussion. They went to work cleaning his multiple lacerations and setting his bones before he started his accelerated healing. His lung would heal on its own. Probably within a few hours. But they kept him on oxygen.
The other doctor believed that Ash would be up and around and fully healed in seven to ten days as long as he rested. Since he was still out of it, I decided to go back to Lancer’s room to help keep him awake.
When I got there, the General was in there debriefing him. It turned out that the sewer was booby trapped. While Ash and Lancer did not set it off, the other guys must have done something, or it was remote activated. Lancer wasn’t sure. But he knew the guys were dead because he and Ash had turned the only corner right before the explosion. The rest of the guys were in the direct path of the blast.
“The sewer tunnels where cylindrical… and made from what looks to be… concrete. When Ash and…I turned back around the corner and looked back… for our guys, we saw that the concrete had all come… down around the tunnel. Even parts of the tunnel were caved in. I called… out but could not see or hear anyone. We need to get a clean-up crew in there… right away to get their bodies before the humans do. It is going to take some heavy… equipment to dig them out. I hope they find them… alive, but I don’t see how they could be.” Lancer stated between coughing fits.
Netty told the General he would have to leave and could come back tomorrow for more questioning. Lancer needed to relax and focus on healing. She did say I could stay as long as I agreed not to upset him and make sure he stays awake for the next few hours. Of course I agreed.
I sat there just looking at him, not sure what to say. We both started to talk at the same time…
“B’Lana I …”
“Lancer thank…go ahead, what did you want to say?”
He took my hand in his and looked at me with such longing in his eyes, I almost reached over and kissed him right there.
Eclipse of the Soul: The Interdimensional Saga, Book 2 Page 5
