Page 6 of The Entire Team

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Taylor responded as he stepped into her personal space. He mirrored her movements as she backed up, not stopping until her back was against the wall.

“I’m not interested and don’t want you, Taylor.”

Taylor scoffed. “You’ve been on this boat for three months and I haven’t seen you with anybody else.”

“If you don’t need anything I was getting ready to close shop.”

“Is it the uniform you don’t like?” he looked down at his NWUs. His eyes came back up, hoping to catch her looking him over, “or the Navy?”

“It’s the person in the uniform,” she answered blatantly.

In a flash, Taylor slammed her against the wall, his hand around her throat. There was a shuffle at the door, Sylvie seeing what had to be, a Special Warfare Team freeze entering the clinic. Before anyone had a chance to speak Sylvie’s face shifted from mildly bored to hate.

She clasped her hands together, reached up and threw her elbows down into Taylor’s forearm, breaking his hold while his head was turned. As he turned back toward her, Sylvie palmed the back of his head driving his face into her knee. Covering his broken and bleeding nose as he fell to the ground, Sylvie stepped over him. She reached back with her right foot and drove it as hard as she could into his groin. There was a reverberated gasp from the door, mirroring Taylor’s as he moved his hands from his nose to his balls. She stepped back from Taylor’s wriggling body, looked up with a hard gaze still in place at the team frozen in the door, “I was just closing up. You’ll need to come back later.” She headed for the door, the team moving to allow her to leave.

As she hit the threshold, the team split on either side of her, she heard Taylor, “I’m gonna get you, you fucking bitch.”

Two sets of hands grabbed her as she spun around. The two farthest into the clinic faced Taylor, effectively blocking Sylvie from him. The dark haired, crystal blue eyed team member, who was clearly their leader started slowly, “Man, you should think about this. Maybe we can find somebody to look you over?”

The second SEAL, blonde and clean shaven, chimed in, “that nose surely seems broken. Maybe we can find some ice packs for everything.” The final two SEALs moved around the two holding Sylvie and into the clinic to start looking for supplies to clean up Taylor.

One of the two SEALs that restrained Sylvie, Red, dropped his hands and backed up a step, hanging around just for backup. Sylvie felt the adrenaline shakes start, her skin goose bumped.The set of hands that remained on her, instinctively started rubbing her arms, “Are you okay?” he dipped his head trying to catch her gaze.

Her jaw still set she looked up at him, “Why are you helping him?” Rave could have sworn his heart stopped when she stared up at him. She was so defiant, her dark green eyes shooting daggers, her nose flared, mouth set, a muscle in her jaw ticking. His teammate coughed quietly.

Rave blinked back into the present. “To keep you out of as much trouble as possible.” He watched her face relax the tiniest, her eyes still skeptical.

“I don’t care anymore. He hasn’t left me alone since this tour started.” She spared a look back into the clinic, “besides, I don’t think he’d tell anyone I did that to him.” She looked back up at Rave. “His ego is too fragile.” She heard Red stifle a laugh from behind her. Another set of goose bumps spread across her body. She needed to go; the adrenaline was gonna make her look weak; no way in front of these guys after what just happened. Sylvie took a half step back away from Rave’s hands, stumbled on the boots behind her. Red steadied her as she turned to head down the hall. Rave watched her disappear as his teammate headed into the clinic. Rave looked into the clinic and saw his team leader standing over Taylor, now on a table, looking at his broken nose. He glanced back at Sylvie’s back, a stupid grin on his face. He stepped into the clinic and headed toward the mop bucket to start cleaning up the floor.

Sylvie collapsed into her bunk.Crap! What the hell did I do! Fuck!She pounded on her pillow. She didn’t doubt Taylor would come after her, but she was confident he’d have to convince his friends to help without admitting she broke his nose.Never again.This assignment was not working out the way she’d hoped. She’d spend the rest of the time watching her back. She figured she would still be able to see some cool stuff duringany shore leave but it would be time to go back to an Army assignment afterwards.

9

RAVE

The team had finished cleaning up the clinic and sent Taylor off, telling him to come back when an Officer would be in. Their team leader, Genie, made it clear it wasn’t in Taylor’s best interest to seek out Sylvie at the clinic or anywhere else. They headed toward dinner when they walked out.

Rave saw Sylvie sitting by herself in the far corner of the mess deck. He motioned the team in her direction as they finished going through the line. Sylvie looked up surprised as trays came into her line of sight. She sat back in her chair watching as the men assembled around her as much as possible. “Hey,” Rave started, settling next to her. “We didn’t catch your name earlier.”

“I didn’t give it.”

Rave tried again, “So Taylor is gonna live, he may not procreate-“

“The human race would be better for it.” The team tried to hide their smiles.

“I’m Noah, they call me Rave,” he started, hand against his chest. Moving counterclockwise around the group, “Tech, Red, Flash, Genie, and Stitch…”

“Sylvie.” She relented. “And thank you,” she paused trying to think of the right word. Genie raised his eyebrow in anticipation. “for the clinic, I guess?” Sylvie’s eyes started to look around as she keyed into background noise. Tech and Stitch followed the sound of Sailors as well. A couple females were whispering.

“So, this probably wasn’t what you’d hoped for when you were able to take this assignment, huh?” Stitch asked.

Sylvie looked up, directly at Stitch, blond and brown-eyed. “Lonelier than I thought. Guys like Taylor are everywhere.” Genie watched Rave’s expression harden. Not to totally discredit the opportunity she was given, Sylvie continued, “shore leave is cool. You guys definitely have better locations than Army does for time off.” The group settled into silence as they ate. “I guess you guys are here for a short layover, huh?”

Still thinking about the situation they had walked into at the clinic, Rave intercepted the question with his own. Turning to look at her, his expression still hard, “Do we need to tell the CO about Taylor?”

Sylvie shrugged. “I don’t suppose I’m the first. Honestly, you’d think we’d be better at creating a ‘female mafia’ with guys like him around.”

“A what?” the team said in near unison.

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