“Save him, Lara!” Tracy cried in a panic as I bled out.
“Hold him down,” Lara ordered calmly, which Carana did obediently.
“Hold on, Lance. Everything is going to be okay,” Carana said reassuringly.
Lara calmly started casting spells, which spread all over my body into my stab wound, healing it instantly. I struggled to breathe as she propped my head up, and then, after a minute of intense chest pains, I could finally breathe normally again.
“They told me that we have to leave or they’re going to kill you and the baby,” I told Lara, taking another deep breath as she had instructed me to do.
“Okay, it’s okay now,” Lara said. “They didn’t puncture your heart, thankfully. Let’s just forget about this place, and go find somewhere else to live.” She held her stomach, breathing slowly, as the others helped me up.
“Are you all right?” I asked Lara as she rubbed her tummy, flinching uncomfortably.
“Yes, I’m just having cramps from that run. Let’s go home and pack so we can get out of here,” she begged me. I wrapped my arm around her, and we all headed down the street toward our house.
“I’m not leaving,” I told her stubbornly. I glanced over at David, who returned the look in agreement, knowing what I was thinking.
“I got your back, man,” he grunted, and Tracy and Carana nodded their agreement.
When we got to our house, Tracy helped Lara into bed, although Lara was objecting stubbornly that she wanted to fight them with us.
“What do we have for weapons?” I asked. Now that I knew who we were dealing with, we huddled by the door to hatch a plan for revenge.
“Well, my gun was destroyed by someone … not saying any names out loud,” David said pointedly, nodding over to Lara.
“Hey, leave the pregnant girl out of this,” she objected, smiling innocently.
“I’ll just morph into my fiend form,” Carana told us. She wandered over to Lara and sat next to her on the bed, checking her over to make sure that she didn’t push herself into an early labor.
“Here—I have a 9mm that I smuggled from the firing range in case something like this happened. It only has one clip, though,” Tracy told me, handing me her pistol.
“The clip from David’s 9mm is in the drawer,” Lara called over to us. She shooed Carana away from her and got up to retrieve the clip. She loaded the loose bullets into it and tossed the loaded mag over to Carana. Lara winked at me, signaling she would be fine as she lay back down on the bed.
“Thanks,” I told Carana, taking the gun from her. Then I asked her quietly, “Is Lara all right?”
“Yeah, they were just cramps, like she said, from the running. She waddles pretty fast for a nine-month-pregnant chick, though, huh?” Carana joked.
The four of us laughed, looking over at Lara, who gave us the middle finger.
“Okay, so here’s the plan,” I began, shifting their attention back to me. “David, the guy with the blue jacket has a 9mm on his left side. I’ll take him out first, and then you run from behind them on the right side, grab the gun, and shoot at whoever is still standing. Carana, you charge from behind on the left side and maul the others. I’ll stand out front as bait to attract their attention and shoot out the cameras. Leave the blonde girl for me.” Any questions?”
“Yeah, where do I fit into all of this?” Tracy asked.
“You need to stay here with Lara and make sure she doesn’t come after us,” I explained to her.
“Aw, how come I’m the bench warmer?” she complained, glancing over at Lara, who was just as angry with me as Tracy was.
“Keeping her safe is the most important part of this entire plan. Tracy, you don’t know how much this means to me.” I patted her shoulder in gratitude.
“Fine, but you owe me,” she muttered, giving me knuckles before taking a seat next to Lara.
David and I pulled out some clothes and tossed on black hoodies. Carana got naked and transformed into a fiend. “Hey, no looking!” David joked, putting his hand in front of my face.
Lara begged me to let her come with us so that she could save us if something went wrong, but I shook my head. Tracy guided Lara back to the bed, reassuring her that we would be fine.
It was eerily quiet as we walked down the empty street toward the bar. Once we got there, Carana and David both got into their positions, blending in with the shadows of the building. I leaned against the pole, casually lighting a smoke. I put my hood up and kept my head down, away from the surveillance camera. I was spotted by the group of fiends a couple of minutes later. They all glared out the window at me in disbelief.
“You just don’t learn, do you?” the girl asked as the group of six emerged from the bar. They came to a halt a few yards away from me.
“I brought something as a peace offering,” I called to them.
“Oh, how nice. So let me get this straight—you give me this gift, and we forgive and forget, right?” one of them responded. They all laughed, and the girl that hurt Lara sneered at me, showing me her fangs and spitting on the ground.
I smiled darkly. “I guess it’s something like that.”
“So what the hell do you have that’s going to make us not want to kill your dumb ass?” the girl asked aggressively.
“I got this, bitch!” I yelled, pulling out the 9mm. They scrambled for their weapons. I shot the male in the forehead and neck. He fell lifelessly to the ground. I then swiftly turned to the girl, shooting her in the stomach. Carana blindsided them, knocking a male and female fiend to the ground and savagely killing them as they tried to morph into their fiend forms to defend themselves. David sprinted out from the shadows, sliding about twenty feet across the pavement in the snow. He took the handgun out of the dead fiend’s belt and shot the other two as they ran away.
He marched over to them, cold-heartedly executing them with one shot each to the head, as they begged him for mercy. I walked over to the girl and put a foot on her stomach. As I shifted my weight, it caused blood to gush out. “Look at me! No one’s coming to save your pathetic life,” I spat into her face.
She yelled out in agony, screaming for help. She was in tears, crying as blood seeped out of her chest. “Look, I didn’t kill your kid. Please let me go. I won’t tell anyone you did this.”
I continued to stare down, a blank expression in my eyes.
“What are you doing?” she cried as I bent down beside her. “No, no, please, no!”
I shoved the gun into her mouth. “Bang,” I whispered into her ear.
She let out a muffled scream, and I squeezed the trigger, blasting her brains all over the sidewalk, peppering myself with purplish fiend blood. The three of us nodded to each other, satisfied by the completed mission. I glanced up at the security camera and shot it out. Then I took off my hood.
“You didn’t shoot it out before we started?” David asked, shocked.
I shrugged, not really caring. “I wanted them to see this,” I told him coldly, tucking the gun into the back of my pants.
David and Carana nodded in agreement, and then we split up, jogging in different directions to our homes. It only took a couple minutes for me to reach my house. I entered swiftly, closing the door behind me. Tracy glanced up at me, and I nodded to her with a faint smile. “Everyone’s fine,” I informed her.
She smiled and gave me a pat on my shoulder as she left to go to her place.
“Are you okay?” Lara asked, getting up awkwardly and waddling over to me.
I nodded, and she took my hand, leading me into the bathroom. “Take off your clothes,” she ordered me. After I did, she burned them in the bathtub and washed away the remnants with steaming hot water. “You got them?” she asked softly.
“Yes, I got them.”
“So it’s done with?” she asked.
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“Yes,” I assured her, feeling relief wash over me. The realization of what I had just done hit me, along with powerful feelings of revenge. “You and Rashellia are safe now.”
She slid her hand across my face, giving me a kiss. We went back into our room, where she flicked on the television to watch the news. Sure enough, a clip came on about ten minutes into the show, with the breaking news.
“Six fiends have been shot down at the Cavern Bar on Main Street. We have video footage of the incident, but we are also asking that anyone with information relating to this case please contact this station. It is believed that the perpetrators were two male humans and one fiend, whose gender is unknown. Again, if you have any information, you can call this station anonymously.” The reporter then played the clip of our ambush.
“You didn’t shoot out the camera?” Lara asked me, surprised.
“I wanted the public to see what happens when you fuck with me,” I muttered darkly.
She patted my arm consolingly, giving me a gentle kiss on the cheek. “Don’t worry; they won’t ever find out it was you.”
I smiled at her doubtfully. Sure enough, early the next morning there was a rough knock at the door. Lara opened it, and two police officers walked in, uninvited. I went to Lara’s side, wrapping my arm around her waist nervously.
“We have reason to believe that your husband was part of the massacre last night,” one said to Lara. “We’ve reviewed video footage over the past few months and saw your husband get in a scuffle yesterday with one of the dead girls at the scene, who had threatened to kill your baby.”
“Well, it couldn’t have been him because I picked him up from a basketball game the night before, and he was too tired to go to work the next day,” Lara insisted. “I was feeling a bit crampy, so Lance stayed with me all night, and we watched some TV. We even saw the news broadcast. It truly is a shame what happened to those guys.”
I had to admit, she was a pretty good liar. Even I would have believed that she was telling the truth.
“So you’re okay with us searching your home for weapons?” the cop asked. She nodded confidently, and one searched me, while the other went through the small room, opening up drawers and looking under the bed and any other possible places to store a weapon. “Okay, you’re clear. Sorry to bother you, ma’am, and good luck with the baby.” Then, without another word, they left just as fast as they had come.
Lara smiled at me once they were gone. “See? Told you they wouldn’t catch you,” she said, pulling the 9mm from the back of her pants and handing it over to me.
I laughed and kissed her gratefully. “How did you know they wouldn’t search you?”
“It’s against the laws of Dracona for male fiends to touch a pregnant female fiend,” she said with a devilish smile.
“I never thought I’d say this,” I admitted, “but thank God for Lord Dracona.”
Chapter 16
The next few weeks passed by uneventfully. Lara and I decided to redecorate our room before the arrival of Rashellia. “Sweet! Mission accomplished,” Lara said happily.
I put down my roller, sharing her excitement at the completion of the freshly painted baby-blue walls. “Awesome job!” I agreed.
We gave each other a high-five and again admired our work. “Now we just need to put together her crib and playpen. Then we’ll be golden,” Lara told me, indicating the two items lying on the ground still in boxes.
“Sounds good. Is tomorrow after work all right?” I asked her with an affectionate kiss.
“Any time is fine with me.” She wiped the paint from her hands onto her shirt. When I laughed, she said, “What? It’s going to be garbage in less than a month anyway.”
I laughed and wiped my hands on her shirt too. “You don’t plan on having another one anytime soon?” I asked, nodding at her plump belly, which the shirt only half-covered now.
“Only if you want to,” she said lovingly.
I hugged her close, wrapping my arm around her. We stood there, still celebrating the successful completion of the room. She was ten months and a couple days pregnant now and looking pretty huge. To this day, I can’t figure out why she was so intent on having a baby so early in our lives, but I had two theories. The first one was that she thought that having a baby would seal the bond between us; the second one was that she was afraid one of us would be killed before we agreed to have a baby. Both of them seemed to make sense to me, but knowing Lara, she probably had a secret agenda in wanting a hybrid child.
“So would you like to fool around a bit tonight?” Lara asked me sincerely as we got undressed for bed.
“Huh?” I responded. We hadn’t even had sex for probably close to a month now. To be honest, the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. I knew how tired she was as her pregnancy was coming to an end.
“Why not?” she said. “I got a little bit of energy, and besides, tonight might be our last chance for a while.”
I knew she was right. Any day now, she would be in labor, and once Rashellia was born, we probably wouldn’t have any free time to fool around anymore. “Sweet,” I said excitedly. I quickly tore off my clothes and began to make out with her. I quickly realized, though, that her new size made it to awkward for me on top.
“I’ll do it,” she panted affectionately as I rolled over, letting her get on top of me. She only lasted about three or four minutes before becoming sluggish and lying down beside me, exhausted. “Sorry,” she panted, trying to catch her breath.
“Don’t worry about it; we tried,” I told her affectionately.
I could tell she was unhappy with her performance. She slipped her underwear back on and gave me another kiss. I rested my head against her breasts, and she ran her hand down my chest, trying to please me in other ways.
When I awoke the next morning, Lara was not by my side. I sleepily got up, and stumbled to the bathroom. I knocked on the door and peered in, relieved that she was in there. “Hey, buddy, what’s up? How did you sleep?” I asked, sitting on the tub.
She was sitting on the toilet, rubbing her stomach. “I didn’t sleep. I think Rashellia was having a party all last night or something, because she wouldn’t stop bumping into my bladder.” She reached over to the sink where she had a glass of blood and sipped on it contentedly.
“Well, you’re almost done,” I reassured her, patting her plump belly. I felt Rashellia’s kick in response to my touch.
“We are,” she corrected me lovingly, giving me my good-morning kiss. She got up, finishing up her business and letting me do mine.
I couldn’t help noticing that the baby had dropped in her belly in preparation for labor. “I don’t think you going to be able to walk for much longer,” I teased, washing off my hands.
“Shut up. I’m fine.” She slid along the counter, using it as a crutch to keep her balance.
In our birthing class, we had learned that fiends usually had to crawl for the last bit of their pregnancy because they were too unbalanced to walk. At the time, Lara had said, “Yeah, right,” but her words had come back to haunt her as she grew bigger and bigger. It was obvious she was going to have to stop being stubborn sooner or later.
“You have any big plans for the day?” I asked her when we’d finished in the bathroom.
“Nope. I’m going to try to catch a nap. Then I might hang out with Carana a bit while you’re away.” Following me into our room, she swayed back and forth as she struggled to keep her balance.
“I’m going to laugh when you fall,” I told her playfully.
“Shut up,” she giggled. Then she glanced down at her leg. “Damn it,” she said. Her underwear was darkening as a liquid ran down her leg.
“Did your water just break?” I asked, surprise filling my face.
She laughed, shaking her head. “No. I just peed myself.”
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br /> “Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Who’s going to know, aside from me and you?” I quickly helped her to the bathroom—I was running late for work now—and then gave her a kiss good-bye and jogged out the door.
“Cutting it close today, hey?” my boss said as I ran through the door.
Out of breath, I checked in with about a minute to spare. “Sorry, Mr. Brodare. It won’t happen again.”
“Let’s hope not,” he said grumpily, disappearing into his office overlooking the workers below.
Tracy was waiting patiently for me at our lockers. “Hey, Lance? What’s up?” Tracy said as I reached my locker beside hers.
“Not much. What’s on the go for today?” I asked.
“Just got to go down to Thirty-Fourth and Seventy-Fourth streets to lay some salt down.” She nodded toward the four bags of salt beside her.
“All right. Cool. I … um … got a kind of embarrassing question I need to ask you,” I told her, as I felt an emotion from Lara run through me, reminding me of something.
“What’s that?”
“Do you use pads for your periods?” I asked.
She laughed. “Yeah, why do you ask?”
“Would you mind hooking me up with a few?” I asked her awkwardly.
She laughed again, rummaging around in her locker and retrieving five of them. A playful smile was plastered to her face. I knew she’d never let me live this one down. “You on your period, Lance?” she teased.
“Shut up. It’s for Lara,” I shot back with a laugh. She nodded understandingly, offering me some more. “Thanks,” I muttered, embarrassed as I took a handful.
“No problem. That’s what friends are for. Maybe next time you should ask me for a condom,” she joked.
“Oh, my God, I hate you, Tracy,” I muttered, unable to hold back from laughing at her joke.
When I arrived home that night, Lara was on the floor, trying to figure out how to assemble Rashellia’s crib. “I thought you were going to wait for me to do that,” I said.
The Unexpected War Page 18