Beginnings

by Sandra R Neeley

  “What about me?” Lethal demanded, his voice still snarly. “I’m here, too. I’m free, too!”

  Nina kept her hold on Acker’s hand, but stopped walking to turn and look back at Lethal. “You should have left me the hell alone from the beginning. All you did was make my existence worse than it ever had been when you left me behind.” She paused for only a second to glare right back at his outraged expression. “You should have died, or at the very least killed me. Either would have been kinder than the way you left me,” she said just before she spun and walked away with Acker leading her from the building.

  Lethal roared from frustration and anger.

  Nina didn’t look back, she just kept walking.

  “Female!” Lethal shouted.

  Nina kept walking, but she did raise a hand and hold it out behind herself as she flipped him off without another glance.

  Lethal took two steps to go after her, but found himself chested by Brutal, with Two, Feral and the rest of his team making a male wall to keep him inside Nina’s office. “I didn’t leave you!” he bellowed.

  “She doesn’t care,” Brutal said, doing his best to contain Lethal in the office with the other males.

  “Move!” Lethal growled.

  “No. Leave her alone. She’s made a life here. She doesn’t deserve you fucking it all up,” Brutal snapped.

  Lethal’s chest heaved as his eyes remained glued to the last place he’d seen her before she’d left the building. He turned his eyes to Two, then to Brutal. But they weren’t angry, they were filled with pain. “I didn’t leave her behind,” he rasped out. “I would never have left her behind.”

  “It doesn’t matter now, leave her alone,” Brutal said.

  “Does matter,” Lethal said. “Of everything I did do, I never deserted her. Never!” he shouted the last word.

  “She’s hurting, Lethal,” Two said. “Wait a while, maybe then she’ll listen. Wouldn’t change anything, though. She’s with Acker.”

  Lethal stopped pushing against Brutal and Two, just standing in Nina’s office, still watching the front door of the admin building where he’d last seen her. He realized there was no other sound in the building — everyone in the cafeteria across the way having gone completely silent to watch the show.

  “The fuck are you all looking at?” he shouted.

  Scorn spun around to face the people in the cafeteria. “Is this your business? No, it’s not. Turn around before we can’t hold him back,” he snapped.

  Most of those that were watching looked away.

  Chef banged his ladle on a cooking pot and spoke loudly. “Who’s next? Come on! I don’t have all day to stand here!”

  The line started moving again, and Scorn turned back to Lethal, who was still just standing there, looking totally lost.

  “Why are you here, Lethal? Please tell me you had a reason for causing this shit show today?” Roscoe said.

  Lethal shrugged his shoulders sullenly.

  “If you wanted to speak with Nina, we could have actually spoken to her first. Allowed her to become comfortable with the idea that you’re here first. Not just thrown everything at her at once,” Roscoe said, irritatedly. “This could have been handled a hell of a lot differently.”

  Everyone was silent while waiting for Lethal to speak. Then when they’d just about decided he wasn’t going to speak to them again, he finally opened his mouth. “I can’t be here anymore. Watching them together. Hearing them when…” he didn’t finish the sentence, but the implication was there. He’d been stalking Nina and Acker. “Just needed to be close enough to her to catch her scent. Never meant to hurt her. Or him,” Lethal said.

  “Then why today?” Roscoe asked indignantly.

  Lethal just barely shook his head. “Lost everything. Every fucking thing. I don’t even know all that I lost. But I had her. She was all I had left. Needed to see her, to talk to her…”

  “Lethal…”

  Lethal shook his head more vigorously. “Save it!” he barked out. “Just get me the fuck out of here. I can’t be here. Don’t care where I go. Just put me somewhere else that I don’t have access to her. Anybody wants to come with me is fine. Anybody wants to stay behind is fine, too. But I’m out!”

  <<<<<<<>>>>>>>

  Lethal sat in Nina’s chair, at Nina’s desk, and waited for General Ferriday and Law to make an appearance. They were with the building inspector signing off on the apartment complexes that had been completed. He’d insisted on leaving Alliance, and Roscoe had been on the phone since trying to determine a place for him to be. He wasn’t stupid. It wasn’t that Roscoe cared a whole hell of a lot about where Lethal ended up, but he did care about Nina, and making sure that Lethal no longer had access to her. And that worked just fine for Lethal, because he knew he couldn’t live this close to her without touching her any longer. His stalking of her and her male had reached epic proportions, and it wasn’t good for her happiness or his self-control.

  Lethal ran his fingers over all the things that were Nina’s. He even caressed her coffee cup reverently, knowing that the rim of it touched her precious lips. He looked up when the door to Nina’s office opened and came face to face with General Ferriday and then Law.

  Ferriday glanced from Lethal to Roscoe and immediately saw the tension in Roscoe’s face.

  Law had noticed immediately on entering the building that something was off. What was usually a happy, loud place to visit and take your meals, was quiet and subdued.

  Both their observances were supported by the fact that Lethal’s team, and Brutal and two of his enforcement officers were loitering about just outside Nina and Roscoe’s offices.

  General Ferriday focused on Lethal again. “What’s happened, son?” he asked, not able to keep from seeing the man that was once Maddox sitting there, looking lost.

  Law wasn’t quite so empathetic. “What did you do, now?”

  Chapter 35

  Nina sat on her couch running over and over in her mind the confrontation she’d just had with One and Roscoe.

  “Here, love. Sip on some tea,” Acker said, handing her a cup that he’d been blowing on as he brought it to her from their kitchen.

  “Yeah, because that’s what I need, caffeine,” she snarked, though she reached out and took it from him.

  Acker just grinned. He even loved this side of her, though it was new to him. “It’s chamomile tea. Maybe it will calm your nerves,” he said chuckling.

  “Worth a shot,” she mumbled before sipping the tea.

  “I know nothing is going to fix this any time soon, but is there anything I can do to make today even a little easier?” he asked.

  Nina sipped her tea and felt for the thousandth time since she and Acker had become a couple, just how much he loved her. She shook her head. “I wish you could, but it’s just so much at once. And so many emotions. I don’t know where to start.”

  “Then don’t. Just sit here and know that all you have to do is put up with me wandering around trying to make you feel at least a bit better. If you want to talk, I’m here. If you don’t want to talk, I’m here. If you want to throw that teacup across the room, I’m here,” he said, with a smile.

  “I wouldn’t know what to say, Glenn,” she admitted.

  “You say anything you want to say — if you want to talk, that is. Just wherever your mind is at the moment. Eventually it’ll all be connected and then I’ll understand. But for now, all I need to understand is that you are mine. I’m not walking away. I don’t care who claims you belong to them. I don’t care what it is that you haven’t told me. I’m here. Period. So, take your time and do nothing at all if that serves you better, because…”

  “You’re here,” she finished for him.

  “Exactly,” he said, sitting back on the couch beside her and resting his head on the pillow top behind him.

  Nina was silent for a good five minutes while she sipped her tea. Then surprising herself just as much as she surprised Acker, she began to sp
eak. “I’m really very happy that Two is alive, and that he’s happy. I’m even happy he’s here,” she confided.

  “Seems like a good male,” Acker said.

  “He is. When they’d give the males in our squad their reward after they’d performed as expected, he never fought the others for a turn with the female. He knew that could end up with her being injured. So, he’d wait until the others were done, making sure that no one fought over her, then he’d take her to the end of the cell block where the water pipes leaked constantly. It was cold water, so sometimes she’d shriek when he washed her off, but Two would gently rinse her off the best he could, then he’d take her back to his cell and wrap her in his blanket and hold her close to him to protect her for the rest of the night until the guards came to take her back to her cell with the other rewards.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Acker said quietly.

  Nina smiled sadly. “When One first claimed me and negotiated with Dr. Waller to have me given to him exclusively, to have me live with him and his squad, Two watched over me closely for the first few days, making sure that One wasn’t hurting me in anyway.”

  “He sounds like a very kind male.”

  “He was — is,” Nina answered.

  “And this One… he’s now Lethal?” Acker asked.

  Nina nodded. “Apparently.”

  “You’ve not seen him before? Here, I mean,” he asked.

  Nina shook her head. “I thought I couldn’t remember what he looked like. Even Two I couldn’t recall clearly, but the instant I saw One, I knew exactly who he was. I guess my mind didn't protect me quite as well as I thought it did, huh?” she asked.

  “Maybe it was just time for you to remember,” Acker said, turning on the couch to face her, with his head still resting on the back of the couch.

  “General Ferriday is convinced that Lethal’s real name is Maddox Larsen. He is the son of a friend of his that went missing a few years ago. He was a Lieutenant in Special Forces — Black Ops actually. Apparently he was a very good man as well. Extremely high character,” Acker said.

  Nina watched Acker as he spoke before answering. “I don’t know. If he was, I don’t think he remembers. I do know that he was the male that all the rest emulated. Even those on other squads.” She sat there for a moment, staring straight ahead, not really seeing anything. “There was a time that I prayed for his return every single day. His existence kept mine tolerable,” she said.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Nina turned her eyes to Acker. “I stopped praying,” she answered. “He left me behind, and I stopped praying. Haven’t spent a single moment since in any kind of prayer.”

  “Nina,” Acker said empathetically.

  Nina looked at him with tears in her eyes, then she set her cup down on the coffee table and crawled across the couch and into his arms. She sat there in his lap, with his arms holding her tightly and told him everything. She started way back in high school with Bryant. She told him about trying to leave Bryant and him beating her into unconsciousness. She spoke about waking up imprisoned by Dr. Waller and his guards to serve as a reward for whichever males they deemed worthy. She spoke until her throat was dry and raw. She spoke until he knew everything about her. Every single thing about how she came to be where she was. And through it all, he held her, kissed her head when she curled up and cried against his chest, and made a silent promise to himself that if it was the last thing he did, he’d kill the motherfucker she used to be married to and every other bastard that had ever hurt her.

  <<<<<<<>>>>>>>

  Brutal sat at his desk in lockup completing the daily reports by hand. He hated computers so refused to use one. Everything his officers communicated to him was turned in via hand written reports. Even if their day was uneventful and they had nothing to report, they had to state just that along with the area they patrolled and turn it in at the end of their shift. He personally read over each one and signed off on them before filing them away.

  Law and Roscoe both had been after him to automate everything by putting it all on the computer system, but he resisted no matter how much they pushed. He’d just finished reading over the last report and was signing it when the door opened. He paused with his pen just above the page and looked up to find Lethal standing in the doorway.

  Brutal just sat where he was, offering no welcome.

  Lethal stepped inside the building used as a small security headquarters and holding facility and closed the door behind him.

  “Can I help you?” Brutal said with attitude.

  Lethal shook his head. “Didn’t really know where else to go. So, I ended up here.”

  “Want me to lock you up?” Brutal said hopefully. “Hal’s back there in the back. I could lock you up with him.”

  “No, I do not want to be locked up with Hal. He give you any more information?” Lethal asked.

  “The problem as I see it is that Hal doesn’t know what he happens to know that could be helpful. So, the best thing is just to let him ramble and in so doing pick out the pieces that may be helpful. He’s given us a few names, though. Roscoe’s checking them out.”

  When Lethal didn’t respond, Brutal teased him again. “I can lock you up. He’s got a T.V., a toilet, a cot and three squares a day. He’s actually pretty comfortable. Keeps saying he’ll stay here as long as we want and then he wants to apply for a job here.”

  Lethal scowled at Brutal. “No, I don’t want to be locked up with him,” he said as though the idea was ridiculous, which it was. “I’m sorry about before. I didn’t mean for it to get so out of hand. Didn’t expect her to respond like she did.”

  “Did you honestly think she’d jump up and run to your side like some long lost lover or something?” Brutal asked, setting his pen down beside the completed report.

  “No,” Lethal said, then glanced at the pen on Brutal’s desk. “Why are you writing those damn things out? Just have the males type them into the computer. All you have to do is read ‘em and save ‘em to a completed file.”

  “I don’t like computers!” Brutal insisted.

  Lethal looked around shrugging. “Fine. Take three times as long to complete them, and your officers, too.”

  “My office, my way,” Brutal answered.

  Lethal just nodded.

  “Why are you really here?” Brutal asked.

  “Told you.”

  “And I’m sure that’s not all of it.”

  “Ferriday says I can’t be housed off premise because no one knows about us yet. Thinks it would be too easy to spot my squad and me since there’s nowhere to house us and a helicopter and our pilot without drawing suspicion.”

  “Makes sense,” Brutal said.

  “Said maybe after everything is made public we could start another location somewhere else, maybe another country. But for now, this is it,” Lethal said.

  “And you’re okay with that? I can’t believe you just said ‘Yes, sir’ like a good little soldier,” Brutal commented.

  “Not at first. But when he reminded me of the other squads out there not yet freed that I’d be jeopardizing just by making my existence questioned, it seemed a lot less important. So I acquiesced,” Lethal said with a grin.

  “Acquiesced? My, my, what big words you have,” Brutal teased. “And how nice of you to consider someone other than yourself for a change.”

  Lethal shook his head. “I’m not a monster, Brutal. I do consider others in every fucking thing I do. I have a squad depending on me, relying on me. And every decision I make could possibly get one of them killed.”

  “And the shit with Nina earlier today? Was that for anyone other than you?” Brutal asked.

  Lethal was quiet for a few minutes. “She wasn’t just a reward. She isn’t just a woman.” Lethal met Brutal’s gaze. “I was obsessed with finding her. Making sure she was free and no longer being hurt in any way. Then I find out she’s here, and she’s with a man. The same fucking man that freed me so I can’t even fuc
king kill him.”

  “Can’t be easy,” Brutal encouraged.

  “It’s not! It’s hard as fucking hell! I saw them together. I chose to not make myself known. She looked happy, and she deserves to be so fucking happy,” Lethal said.

  “Then what was today?” Brutal asked.

  Lethal sat back in the chair and raised his eyes toward the ceiling, not willing to meet Brutal’s gaze. He had no doubt it would be condemning. “I heard them last night. It drove me fucking insane. I wandered the property all night long, trying to get the sounds of them having sex out of my fucking head. You want to know about any area of this property? Ask me, I’ll probably be able to describe it to you. The frustration of hearing her enjoying his touch… no, that’s wrong. The… heartache!” he said, “of her enjoying another male’s touch. The need to be near her, the constant straining to catch her scent or a glimpse of her and the fatigue of not sleeping in fucking years, got to me and I snapped.”

  “So you went to her office thinking she’d jump into your arms,” Brutal said.

  Lethal shook his head. “No. I don’t know what I expected, but I just had to be there, with her, see what she’d say when she saw me. If she’d even recognize me. Then she accused me of leaving her behind. She’s been the one thing, the one single focus that kept me moving forward since the last time I saw her. And she thinks I left her behind intentionally.”

  “You need to let her go, Lethal. Whatever it was to you, it wasn’t to her. The women — they weren’t there by choice,” Brutal said emphatically.

  “I know. I didn’t then, didn’t care then, none of us did we were so fucked out of our minds. But she’s mine. Always will be. I protected her with all I had, I took care of her.”

  “Until you weren’t there anymore, and that’s when things went even further down hill. She was probably told you deserted her, and she believed it. But, the point is, that it doesn’t matter anymore. You have to stop stalking her. You’re driving yourself over the edge and it’s apparent now that she wants no part of you. Look on your time with her as a good thing you did. You managed to protect one of the females caught up in hell beside us for just a little while. It’s more than some of us were able to manage. But you have to move on.”