by Louisa Lo
The male soldier called Sonny approached his captain, “The signal is still shit, but I managed to get a brief message through, and got a reply. We’re to hold our position for reinforcements, and get ready to move the civilians at a moment’s notice. The other ODA is reporting more Pretties up the road, and they just might head our way on a whim.”
The captain exchanged a grim look with Sonny and Nik, who had just come over for the update. It wasn’t hard for Chelsea to guess their thoughts. Until reinforcements came, they were on their own. If the Obsessed decided to pay another visit in the meantime, they were sitting ducks.
His face hardened, the captain turned toward the civilians, most of them sitting down, bleeding from one wound or another, watching the soldiers in silence. With the windows smashed in and his resonant voice carrying powerfully, there was no doubt the people outside of the building could hear him as well. “Listen up, people. We’ll be moving you to a safe location soon. Where we’re going, no jewelry or brand name items or any other shiny stuff will be allowed. I would not have you endanger everyone else here for your own vanity. If any of you are found with something you shouldn’t be carrying, you will be left behind unprotected. Period. You saw what happened here, where keeping your shit would lead you. Be smart and give them up now so we’re all ready to go.”
The captain went behind the cashier’s counter, found a bunch of plastic bags, and handed them out to the crowd. Under the watchful eyes of him, Nik, and Sonny, people started throwing their valuables in and passed the bags around as if they were collection baskets at a church, except with much more immediate and deadly consequences for being stingy.
Maybe it was the recent turn of events, or the captain’s authoritative voice, or the fact that he had the means to protect them and had threatened to ditch them—people were responding to his suggestions like they had never done for similar suggestions from Chelsea. Necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings, and so on…all came off promptly. Soon the plastic bags were all filled up, prompting Nik to get more from behind the counter, while Sonny went outside with the full ones, presumably to find a good place to bury them.
When it looked like everyone had gotten rid of their shiny valuables, Nik and Sonny went on patrol around the premises. Chelsea noticed that both of them had switched to using their handguns instead of their rifles.
Having distributed all of the available food, including a healthy portion of the diet supplement drinks and potato chips to Emma’s Mom, Chelsea turned to put her empty box down when a wave of dizziness and nausea slammed into her. She stumbled and her legs began to fold underneath her, causing the pouch holding the chopsticks to sway from her hips. Maybe all the shock, fatigue, and fear were finally catching up to her.
A pair of strong arms steadied her. “Easy.”
She blinked. The room was swimming, but she tried to focus on the voice that had spoken to her.
It was the captain. He led her to an empty spot on the floor, which wasn’t easy to find since many people from outside had packed in, hoping to be as close to those few carrying weapons as possible. “Sit down. You’ve probably been on your feet for too long, handing out this and that.”
Was that a reprimand, or a compliment?
She had to admit, sitting down was helping. Already she was feeling a little less inclined to vomit.
“Here, this might help.” The captain put something in her hand. She looked down. It was a yellow Sour Patch Kid gummy.
She put the gummy in her mouth and sucked on it gratefully. The sourness of the gummy surface combated the nauseous feeling. By the time the sweetness of the candy came through, she was almost herself again. Well, as herself as she could be under the circumstances.
“I found it lodged between two of the shelves. Someone must’ve opened a bag and everything went flying,” the captain chuckled as he explained.
The gummy was just stuck in the gap between shelves, where dust had been gathering for heaven knew how long? Chelsea’s inner germaphobe was groaning, but it was shouted down by the other parts of her that were just glad the room wasn’t spinning anymore. Funny. She had had many possessions in her life—some would argue that it was more than any one person deserved—but nothing felt more like a precious gift than that single gummy.
The captain was frowning at the dried blood on her face. “Wait here.”
He looked around for something, couldn’t find it, then walked to the tiny sink behind the cashier’s counter and turned on the tap. To Chelsea’s surprise, it still worked, although barely, and a small stream of water came out. Maybe there was a water reserve tank underground or something.
The sound of running water, such a symbol of civilization in a world that had gone crazy, echoed throughout the eerily quiet store like the mockery of a lost dream.
The captain took a couple of paper towels and wet them. Then he went back to Chelsea, lowered himself to her sitting level, and lifted the towels to her face. “Doesn’t look like there’s a med kit around, and we’ve lost ours. So I’m just going to clean the area with a bit of water.”
“Don’t worry about it. It already stopped bleeding and it’s just a surface wou—oww!” Even though it was just water, it still stung like crazy. Granted, the germaphobe in Chelsea understood the necessity of the task, given who knew what bacteria was packed in with the mass of blood-slash-dirt-slash-sweat on her face, but still.
Hoping to distract herself from the pain, she asked him, “So what’s your name?”
“Captain Marcus Day. My team calls me Day, or sometimes Captain. Although, come to think of it,” he frowned, “today, I’m mostly Captain.”
Chelsea could understand that. Maybe in the face of such mass devastation, there was comfort in using the more formal address? Having a leader was better than having none, wasn’t it?
“Nice to meet you, Captain Day.” She liked the name Day. For some reason, he didn’t look like a Marcus to Chelsea. Day suited him a lot better. It was direct and no-nonsense, just like him.
“Nice to meet you too, err…” his voice trailed off.
“Georgia,” Chelsea replied after a beat. She wasn’t really lying. Georgia was technically her middle name. A form of it, anyway. She wasn’t ready to reconcile her old life with this new reality. As long as no one called her by her full name she could convince herself, at a certain level, that none of this was real.
“Nice to meet you, Georgia.”
For all his tough appearance, Day’s hands were exceptionally gentle. He gingerly wiped away the caked-on dirt around Chelsea’s gash, paying heed to not pull at the wound. Her skin rejoiced at being able to breathe again. After everything that had happened, it was almost an alien feeling. It wasn’t exactly spa-quality treatment, but it was nice. Very nice.
The whole time Day went about cleaning her face up, though, his eyes kept dodging in all directions, keeping watch, staying vigilant.
As Day leaned over to edge his paper towels closer to her wound, and his callused fingertips brushed her cheek, there was a tingling in Chelsea’s toes that had nothing to do with the recent fainting spell. It was her body reacting to Day’s closeness, and the scent of him, a mix of soap, gunpowder, and male muskiness. Dazed, Chelsea wondered if she was finding the smell attractive only because of the current circumstances, or because there was something about Day that pulled at her.
Then there were his lips, so full and sensual, in such stark contrast with the harsh planes of his face, making Chelsea long to trace her tongue over them…
What in heaven was the matter with her? They weren’t out of the woods yet, with monsters that might attack at anytime. Why on earth would she be thinking about kissing a complete stranger? Maybe being attacked multiple times and having to stare her own mortality in the eye was having a psychological effect on her, leading to unreasonable flares of desire that had nothing to do with lust, and everything to do with the need to reaffirm life in the face of deep tragedies?
Day got as close to her wound
as he dared, cleaning everything except the scab connected directly to the opening of the cut. When his eyes lifted and he realized Chelsea was staring at him, they briefly lingered at her parted lips. Then he seemed to give himself a mental shake and drew back. “We’re done.”
“Th-thank you,” Chelsea stuttered, her cheeks heated despite the cooling water on them.
“You’re welcome,” he murmured.
Chelsea suppressed the urge to ask him whether or not he thought her face would be scarred. Not only because she wasn’t even sure if he would know, but also because it just seemed so trivial right now.
“That was nice of you to find all that extra food for people,” he said unexpectedly.
“Well, I did feed myself first,” she said. She wasn’t trying to be modest. She really had put the satisfaction of her own tummy before others.
“But that’s what they teach you in those airline survival training videos. Put an oxygen mask on yourself before helping others.”
“Yeah, there’s that,” she conceded. Then something occurred to her. “You said you lost your med kit. What happened?”
Whatever measure of good humor Day might’ve gained in the last ten seconds vanished. “We lost it when we lost our guys.”
Oh.
“Sorry about that.” And speaking of soldiers, Chelsea added, “I think you should check on Ruiz.”
“Ruiz?” he asked.
She jerked a thumb to the storage room. “The guy who was attacked back there. He’s an ex-sergeant of some sort. I’m not sure which branch, though.”
Day straightened, and with a hand gesture to Nik, who was just patrolling by the front of the store, he got up. “I will see to him.”
Looked like Nik got whatever message she was supposed to get from Day, and was now staying by the storefront, keeping an eye on the surrounding area in all directions.
Chelsea shook off the cobwebs in her head and went to wet a few paper towels of her own. Afterwards, she went to find Emma and her mom.
Thank heavens her dad had made her take that first aid course the summer before the start of prep school. Granted, when he had signed Chelsea up, he had had her healing scraped knees that resulted from running from the press in mind, but what she ended up learning there could apply here, too.
Chelsea cleaned Emma’s Mom’s ankle, though the injury she’d suffered hadn’t turned her into a more pleasant person by any measure. Quite the opposite. Emma’s Mom complained about everything—her pain, Chelsea’s nursing technique, and the fact that Chelsea hadn’t saved more food for her.
In a few minutes, Day came back with an arm supporting Ruiz, and helped the former soldier settle beside Chelsea. Somehow, Day had managed to convince Ruiz to return with him, and was now checking the old soldier over for possible broken bones.
“I told you, boy, nothing’s broken,” Ruiz barked. “Back in my day we didn’t act like pussies about these things.”
“Yeah, and in those good old days, we weren’t chased by slavering freaks,” Day retorted.
Day’s expression, while warm during the friendly banter with Ruiz, turned cold and distance when he looked at Chelsea, as if he was seeing her in a whole new light. Instead of the easy comradeship from earlier, his eyes were now guarded, even a bit disdainful. Chelsea had seen that look before, from people who didn’t like her because of her tabloid image, or simply because of the very class that she had been born into.
Then it hit her. The box of magazines at the back. Her now-clean face. He might’ve made the connection and recognized her. Or Ruiz had told him—though she doubted it. Anyway, the important thing was, Day now knew who she was.
After she’d just given him a half-fake name.
Before she could dwell on that, Sonny ran up to Day, “Captain, I got through to them on audio, but it might not last for long.”
Day tapped on his own microphone. “Day here.”
He listened for a while. “Got it… we’ll continue to hold… yes, the shinies are all buried.”
Then Day glanced at Chelsea, “One minor note. Lady Spence is with us. Yeah, no shit, that Lady Spence.”
The civilians stirred upon hearing Chelsea’s identity revealed, and quiet whispers swept through the crowd. Even though her face was cleaned, not many people had realized who she was until now. Why would they? They were all busy being shell-shocked and fighting for their own survival. But at Day’s words, they all gaped at Chelsea, and started talking behind their hands to each other while they continued staring at her. Emma’s Mom simply glared at her. If she had disliked Chelsea as a no-name before, then she practically hated Chelsea as a reluctant celebrity. Only Emma’s face remained friendly. But she, too, seemed very confused by this turn of event.
Chelsea was anonymous no more.
A wave of anger and resentment hit her. How dare Day unmask her like that? Now she had to deal with being hawked at all over again. Didn’t she have enough to deal with?
She turned to Day to give him a piece of her mind, and found him still listening in on his headpiece, with a deep frown on his face now. Nik had joined them.
Sonny mouthed to Day, What is it?
Day mouthed back, They told me to stand-by.
Sonny and Nik’s eyebrows shot up. Chelsea assumed it meant that whatever was happening wasn’t normal protocol.
Then someone must’ve gotten on the other line, because suddenly Day brought himself to his full height, almost as if he was conditioned to salute that person, whether or not he or she could see him. Whoever it was, it must have been someone important, and not at all who Day was expecting.
“Yes, General. It’s really her. I’m positive.” A long pause. “But sir, there are over two hundred civilians here.” Day sounded concerned, almost defiantly so, which Chelsea would bet her entire shoe collection didn’t happen very often. If ever.
Another pause.
“Yes, sir,” Day said tersely. “Right away.”
He tapped onto his headpiece, his face becoming unreadable. He turned to Nik and Sonny. “Come with me.”
Then he spoke to Chelsea. “You, too, m’lady.”
The way he addressed her made Chelsea felt like a slimy creature crawling under a rock. If Ruiz’s earlier use of the term held a mix of mistrust and cynicism, then Day’s was borderline on hatred. What could Chelsea have possibly done to merit that kind of reaction?
When she didn’t move, Day grabbed a hold of her arm and started nudging her toward the back storage. He knew how to apply enough pressure to get the job done, but not so much that Chelsea could make a nasty scene out of it. So she followed him, nodding at Emma with an assurance she didn’t feel.
The crowd watched them go in confusion, but no one followed or protested. She supposed people were less inclined to argue with the ones carrying weapons if there was no obvious reason to do so.
Ruiz trailed the group with narrowed eyes. He had to be still hurting, but he didn’t show it. When Day led them to the storage area and tried to close the door behind him, Ruiz made sure he slipped in before that happened, planting his own weight on the door itself.
“Hey, you’re not on active duty,” Day protested.
“What the hell is going on?” Ruiz demanded.
Day considered him for a while. “I got my orders.”
“To move the team out with her?” Ruiz guessed. “And abandon the civilians to their deaths?”
Chelsea gasped.
“Is that true?” Nik asked.
“Affirmative.” Day tightened his jaw.
“Why would we all leave?” Sonny wondered, his round face turned into a scowl. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“More importantly,” Nik pointed a finger into Chelsea’s face, “why are we taking her and not anyone else?”
“I don’t know,” Day admitted.
He turned to Chelsea, his tone icy. She couldn’t believe not so long ago she actually thought he was being kind to her. “When I say go, follow us out. Don’t move too sl
owly. Our truck is parked a bit on the side, and it’s a perfect place for an ambush. I will not have my guys killed protecting you.”
Yeah, Chelsea could almost hear what he had left unspoken, because the death of all those civilians would be on his conscience as it was, thanks to her.
As if she had asked for that order herself. As if she would ever ask for that. How dare he? How dare he think she would save her own skin at the expense of Emma’s?
“You’re really going to sneak out like thieves in the night and leave these people undefended? When they’re counting on you?” Chelsea demanded.
“That’s my order.” Day gritted his teeth. “We’re to retreat and escort you to the base ASAP.”
“Cap, really?” Nik cursed, and ran her hand over the back of her neck in frustration. “All for some skinny chick who’s a waste of taxpayer’s money?”
That same argument had long been a staple of the pro-independence movement. Looked like Nik shared at least some of those sentiments. The worst thing was, Chelsea couldn’t blame her.
“It’s not our job to question orders,” Day snapped, “but to carry them out.”
Nik and Sonny took a deep breath simultaneously, their bodies straightening. “Yes, sir!”
“I’m not going,” Chelsea informed Day.
“Yes, you are,” he bit back. “I’ll haul you out like a sack of potatoes if I have to.”
Despite his harsh words his eyes softened, revealing his own despair.
Don’t make this harder than it already is, he seemed to be pleading with her silently. Chelsea steeled herself against it.
“No.” She raised herself up on tiptoes, until they were almost nose-to-nose. “You know what’s going to happen to those people out there.”
“They told me reinforcements will come soon,” Day said.
“When?”
“Two hours.”
“Then we’ll wait for them. Together.” People never talked about how nobility had come to be. They hadn’t started out fat and sat on their asses all day. That happened after generations of indulgence and privileges. But in the beginning, they earned their title by being good leaders in their own rights. Flowing in her veins was the blood of commanders and generals who had impressed kings and shaped British history. She might be fifty kilograms soaking wet, and knew more about handbags than grenades, but one thing she was certain—she wasn’t leaving two hundred people to fend for themselves when there were three perfectly good soldiers with weapons to protect them.