A Royal Apocalypse (Lady Slayalot Book 1)

by Louisa Lo

  Finally Chelsea couldn’t stand it anymore and pulled Nik aside for a chat. She supposed she could have asked Sonny, as his nature was far more easy-going, not to mention he had never expressed any opinion about her that might have suggested he was pro-independence, like Nik had. But Chelsea wanted to ask some tough questions, and she knew she could count on Nik to give it to her straight.

  Nik didn’t disappoint. “What do you want?” she asked bluntly.

  Chelsea took a deep breath and wondered how to start the conversation. Should she make small talk? But about what? Asking Nik the name of her tattoo artist? If her red hair was dyed?

  Chelsea decided to cut to the chase. “What’s going on with Day?”

  Nik’s eyes narrowed. “Are you asking me why he’s acting like he’s got a bee up his arse around you?”

  “Yeah, that.” Except she probably wouldn’t use such coarse language to describe him.

  Nik glanced at Day’s direction. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know, or you can’t tell me?”

  “Both.”

  “Well, that’s very precise of you,” Chelsea said, exasperated. “I just want to know why all of a sudden he’s acting like I’m the most despicable person in the world.”

  She tried not to sound hurt, but wasn’t sure if she had succeeded.

  Nik stared at Chelsea, and whatever she saw on Chelsea’s face had made her own expression soften. “Look, he’s been in a mood. I’m not denying that. But it’s not my place to tell, alright?”

  “Is it about his little sister?” It had been Chelsea’s fear, that something had happened to Day’s beloved sibling. “At least tell me if she’s okay.”

  “She is.” Nik confirmed. For the nature of the news she was delivering, her voice was strangely subdued.

  Part of Chelsea was relieved, the other part of her was quite certain that Nik was not telling her the whole story. But she knew she had pushed as far as she could with Nik. At least whatever it was that had been bugging Day, it wasn’t because he was grieving the loss of his sibling, which was more than what a lot of people could say. And at least Nik was willing to tell Chelsea what she had. It might not seem like much, but for someone like Nik, a likely royal skeptic, she was already warming up to Chelsea quite quickly. People tended to do that when they got to know Chelsea beyond her reputation.

  Too bad none of the people on the receiving end of her broadcasts would ever get a real feel of her in that sense.

  Fearing that communications around the world would break down further as days went by, General Roland had her do a daily speech. Always encouraging people to fight, to stay united, and to connect with the general’s people. As always, the GPS coordinates were included. What was different from the first speech, though, was that she was now also calling on all able-bodied men and women to join the Army, with assigned rendezvous points in each city for aerial pick up.

  Her words were designed to hint at some kind of major offensives being planned against the Obsessed, though whether it was true, or just to boost morale, no one bothered to tell her.

  Chelsea dutifully did the broadcasts, not straying a word from the transcripts she was given to read.

  Her days were comprised of speech memorization, dolling up, and speech delivery, as well as choosing her next round of outfits, along with being measured for the ones they’d started custom-tailoring for her. Clothing that would allow her to walk the fine line between classiness and sensuality. At least that was what Benner told her.

  The first quiet moment Chelsea got, she headed out to visit Ruiz. Benner grumped about it being a waste of time, but Chelsea ignored her. She had been meaning to visit the old warrior ever since she had been told about his broken ribs.

  It felt like a bit of overkill to have three bodyguards when she was just walking around inside the base, but given how suddenly a person could turn into an Obsessed, Chelsea figured she shouldn’t be complaining too much. Besides, while Day had become Mr. Broody, Nik and Sonny remained friendly to her.

  Chelsea went to the infirmary with Emma, Day, Nik and Sonny. The little girl was as eager as Chelsea to see Ruiz. They entered a large hospital room with six beds, but only one was occupied. She supposed it was a good day when it was under-crowded here.

  “Ruiz!” Emma shouted and ran ahead of the group when she saw him.

  “Hey, kiddo!” Ruiz ruffled her hair. He appeared to be in good spirits, in spite of being bandaged up in quite a few areas. The pale blue hospital gown looked strange on the old warrior, though. Chelsea supposed her mind would always associate him with how he had looked when he faced down the Obsessed in defense of her.

  “How are you?” Chelsea asked when she reached his bedside.

  “I’m pretty good, Your Majesty.” He winked at her, his lips curved in a smile.

  She rolled her eyes. “Please.”

  “Couldn’t help it.”

  For the first time in days, she laughed. Ruiz had figured out who and what she was before anyone else had—and now he was teasing her about it. Just being with the “original gang” from the grocery store was making her feel more relaxed than she could say.

  They couldn’t stay for long, but before they left Ruiz asked to speak to her privately.

  Chelsea thought she might know what he wanted to chat with her about. She remembered the wedding ring Ruiz was forced to leave behind when her car broke down.

  “What’s your wife’s name?” Chelsea asked after the others left the room. She had no idea how to find out what had happened to Ruiz’s wife given the current state of communications, but she was going to try.

  Ruiz blinked. “Is that what you think this is about?

  “Ye…yeah. Isn’t it?”

  He shook his head, “My Beth already passed on two years ago. Ovarian cancer. Might be just as well that she didn’t get to see the world go crazy like this. She was too sweet for this. No, I wanted to see how you’re holding up.”

  Chelsea took a shaky breath. She was still having nightmares about the night of the Obsessed’s attack, along with losing Judith and her father. “As good as one could imagine, I suppose.”

  “You suppose?”

  “Well, it’s not like I’m really doing the Commander-in-Chief job.”

  Ruiz paused. “No, you weren’t trained for that.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But it doesn’t hurt to keep your hand on the pulse of things, so to speak.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not telling you to try to gain expert weaponry knowledge overnight, but it’ll help if you at least try to talk to a few people you’re supposedly leading. Get to know them a little, you know?”

  “I’ve tried.” The few times that she had been able to interact with soldiers who weren’t in her own security detail their reactions had been lukewarm. From the look in their eyes, it was clear they thought she was a joke, and in a way she didn’t blame them.

  Ruiz was unmoved. “Try harder.”

  “You have any suggestions?”

  “Just try harder.”

  ***

  On their return trip from the infirmary, Chelsea couldn’t stop thinking about what Ruiz had said. Try harder? How?

  Their vehicle rumbled past a few groups of soldiers doing their daily training routines on the open field. An idea came to Chelsea. Maybe if she joined them, she could talk to them while they were exercising. Maybe do a little bit of bonding. That sounded good, right?

  Or not.

  Nope, she couldn’t join them for a run, because she ran like a girl.

  Nope, she couldn’t rappel from a forty-meter tower. She’d done one single rock climbing session in her life, and once was quite enough.

  And forget about unarmed combat. She got a yellow belt in Jiu Jitsu during junior high, but that was kiddy stuff compared to what these guys were doing, wrestling each other and pressing their opponent’s head onto the ground.

  Then Chelsea’s eyes landed on the part of the
field where they were doing weapons training, particularly where they were practicing throwing hand grenades. The soldiers would throw the little bombs and duck. Seconds later, where the bombs landed there would be mini-explosions with accompanying fireballs.

  Remembering her apparent luck in throwing stuff during the attacks from the Obsessed, Chelsea called to her assigned driver, “Stop the vehicle, please.”

  Once the truck was stopped, she climbed down and started walking toward the field. When Day called to her she was tempted to ignore him, afraid that her bravado would desert her if she paused and gave herself a chance to think things over. But then she remembered where she was.

  A place where bullets flew.

  Perhaps a little caution was in order.

  She turned to Day, who had just caught up with her. She gestured to the soldiers who had been throwing grenades. “Can you ask them if I could join them? Perhaps have a lesson or two?”

  The field went quiet and all eyes were on her, which was quite astonishing considering what an open area it was. Even the soldiers who’d been wrestling stopped and looked at her, some upside-down. They must’ve been observing her while they went about their activities, but they didn’t show it until she had opened her mouth.

  Day cleared his throat. “You want to see if you can throw a few grenades?”

  Alright, it sounded dumb when he put it that way.

  “Err, maybe just the stuff that gives a flash-bang.” Ouch, she was digging herself into a hole and she knew it.

  “You mean like a practice grenade.”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “You’re sure about this?” He leaned slightly closer and lowered his voice.

  “Yes.” Somehow she managed to keep the squeal out of her voice. Her desire to do this warred with her fear of failure. But out of that came the conviction that she really could do this. She didn’t know why, but she knew she could do it.

  People were openly smirking now as Day made his way to the sergeant overseeing the practice. Some were even openly insulting.

  “Hey, Day, are there any openings on your team? I could use a vacation.”

  “Man, do they put those nanny cams on you?”

  “Newbridge must look real cozy just now.”

  They were laughing at him because they couldn’t take shots at her, Chelsea realized. Or was it more than that? And just what the heck was Newbridge?

  With an expressionless face, Day ignored them and pulled the training sergeant aside for a quiet chat. The sergeant blew out a breath, then waved her over. Was he agreeing to Chelsea’s request simply because he couldn’t technically refuse the so-called Commander-In-Chief, or was it because he wanted to see her make a fool of herself?

  No, she was the one who was making a fool of herself for thinking she could try her hand at something others had spent a long time training for. In full view of everyone, no less. Yep, this one was solely on her.

  The training sergeant was standing behind a waist-high protective wall. The soldier who had been practicing throwing live grenades and ducking behind the wall jumped up and moved out of the way.

  “Have you done this before?” the training sergeant asked Chelsea.

  “No.”

  He pursed his lips and told a soldier next to him, “Bring the M69s. And get the M67s out of here.”

  The soldier nodded and proceeded to remove all of the dark green grenades stacked on the ground. He made sure to move them well out of her reach.

  She supposed those must’ve been the live ones. She couldn’t exactly blame the soldiers for not trusting her with them.

  The soldier came back with a few grenades with blue-painted levers and blue bodies.

  “You can use these.” The training sergeant gestured at them. “We’re going to try a few at the kneeling position. It gives you a limited throwing distance, but what the hell.”

  As in, it wasn’t as if she was going to hit the target anyway.

  Thankfully, she was in simple jeans. It was a lot easier to move in jeans, and they were less likely to be ruined by mud when kneeling. She still looked ridiculous with her girly heels, but at least she wouldn’t be rolling around while accidentally exposing her ass in the air.

  The training sergeant showed her the correct procedure for throwing a grenade, which involved mentally estimating the throwing distance, pulling out the pin, placing one knee on the ground while bending the other at a 90-degree angle, throwing the grenade, then dropping back behind the low wall.

  Much easier said than done.

  The pin, it turned out, was a lot harder to pull out than they showed in the movies. By the time she actually removed it, she had only four to five seconds to throw the darned thing before it set off, producing a bang and a tiny puff of white smoke.

  Her target was supposed to be a tank with a cardboard cutout of an unfriendly at the driver’s seat. Where her grenade had landed? Nowhere near it.

  More than a few soldiers snickered. Even Nik and Sonny, who were standing at a distance, struggled to keep a straight face.

  The second grenade didn’t go any further.

  Neither did the third one.

  By then Chelsea had finally remembered—blame it on too much information all at once—she didn’t have to rush throwing the grenade. As long as she held down the safety lever she could pretty much hold onto the grenade forever. But knowing that and being able to aim well were totally different matters.

  Chelsea ground her teeth in frustration. Throwing stuff had worked so much better when she was face to face with the Obsessed. Why couldn’t she be half as good now? The problem was, she didn’t know how she had gotten so good then, so she had no idea how to replicate the result now.

  Onto the fourth one she went. She took a peek at the tank and got a mental map of how far she had to throw, which she’d never had a chance to do when the Obsessed were around…

  That was it! She had never had time to think stuff over. Maybe over-thinking was what was killing her moves. With her hands still on the pin, Chelsea inhaled through her nose and stilled her mind. She knew where the tank was already. There was no need to figure out anything. She just had to imagine it was a salivating Obsessed coming to stuff her toes into a Tiffany Somerset bangle…

  In one smooth motion, she pulled the pin and threw the grenade. It followed an arced trajectory, then landed right in the driver’s seat.

  The following bang reverberated around the open field, and the snickering and open laughter stopped abruptly.

  Chelsea grabbed the next grenade and repeated her newfound trick. When her grenade landed on the driver’s seat of the tank for the fifth time in a row, the silence—aside from the bang—was deafening.

  That was the last of the practice grenades.

  The training sergeant swallowed. “That was good. Very good. Would you like to try some live ones?”

  Chelsea nodded, and the soldier who had originally removed the dark green grenades placed them back beside her. Was it her imagination or did his mannerism appear a lot more respectful?

  Chelsea threw the first live grenade, then ducked behind the low wall with a zealousness she didn’t possess when she had been using the practice ones. The live grenade didn’t disappoint—it exploded with a loud bang that shook the ground. When she got up again, the cardboard cutout was on fire.

  “Not bad,” Day muttered, speaking for the first time since she had started this exercise.

  Similar sounds of admiration swept through the observing crowd, but there were also some jeering remarks of “beginner’s luck.”

  Chelsea didn’t care. She thought she could do it, and she did it. Her instinct was right. Emma clearly agreed, as she was now jumping up and down, cheering her little heart out. Slowly, many in the crowd began clapping.

  Drunk on her newfound success, Chelsea looked around the field with renewed excitement. What else might she also be good at?

  Her eyes were drawn to the place where they were fighting with pugil sticks—
heavily padded pole-like weapons used to train for rifle and bayonet combat. Two soldiers were geared in football helmets, hockey gloves, chest protectors, shin guards, and groin protectors. They were, however, too busy looking at her to beat on each other.

  There was something fascinating about the pugil sticks they were holding—something that made Chelsea itch to get her hands on them.

  There it was again, this delicious-yet-illogical conviction that she would be good at this sport.

  “Can I have a go at that?” she asked Day, while she pointed in the direction of the pugil sticks.

  Once again, he went over and chatted with the trainer who oversaw that exercise. This time it didn’t take long for her to be waved over.

  By the time she got to that part of the field, one of the fighters, the smaller of the two who happened to be a female, was already removing her protective gear and throwing it on the ground.

  “They say you should put these on.” Day pointed at the gear.

  Chelsea’s inner germaphobe shuddered. On top of being sweated on, this gear had also been warmed by another’s body heat. Ugh. “Err, do they have any other ones?”

  Day gave her a look. “This is the smallest size they have.”

  Chelsea suppressed a sigh and put the gear on, wishing she could pour her hand sanitizer all over it, but she didn’t want to show weakness in front of the very people she was trying to win over. Luckily, the groin protector was considered a personal item, so she was given a brand new one. Day helped her fasten the football helmet, then she was set.

  She totally didn’t enjoy having his fingers caressing her cheeks as he secured the helmet. Nope, not her. Not in front of all these strangers.

  It took a bit of adjustment to learn how to hold the pugil stick while wearing the hockey gloves, but it was alright. What was more unnerving was that she had to learn how to hold the stick while maintaining her stance in high heels while all eyes were on her.

  “Ready. Go!” The trainer yelled.

  Her sparring opponent started dancing around, trying to knock her down and score hits to her head and neck. Even with the gear on to protect her, the near-misses and hard shoving were still quite scary. Yeah, Commander-in-Chief or not, her opponent was ruthless. Or maybe he was ruthless because of who she was.