Page 36 of The General's Captive
“If they don’t give the order to evacuate, then people will run, regardless, especially when they see there is no hope to save the base. I have had others spreading the word to rendezvous at the train yard should it all go to shit.”
“You have?” I asked in shock.
“Yeah, I knew that when it came to it, Taylor would do a shit job at making the right decisions. So, I made a plan to spread the word.”
I gave him my hurt expression but before I could say another word, he grinned and said,
“Babe… I made this plan on the way back from the supply run, since then, you and I have been a little busy.” The grin he gave me was infectious.
“You mean kissing me?”
“You mean spending my time wisely, yes, Alex, I did… speaking of which…” He kissed me again, and we both ignored the cat calls and wolf whistles coming from his squad because I couldn’t think of anything else when Riley had his lips on me. The soft way his kiss claimed me, it was tender and spoke of so many things. The main one being…hope.
Hope that we’d make it out of this alive. Hope that this meant the freedom to explore this new relationship of ours. Hope for a future together. And despite knowing that hope could be a dangerous thing in this new apocalyptic life we had been forced into, we still couldn't help the dream. The dream that, one day, we would finally make it to that other side and the wall that contained us would be open after the last Myth had fallen.
“Be safe and look for my signal,” he said, making me nod.
“I will.”
He gave me one last kiss, this time on the cheek, before running toward the building where the council meetings were held, in what had one time been the sheriff's office.
After this, I got to work because if we were going down fighting, then we were doing so by taking out as many of those fuckers as we could!
I made my way to where we kept most of our ammo and inside held more than just guns and bullets. Because most of these fuckers needed something more original. But this was where I had come in to play when I first got here as what the trained military guys came to realize was that most of the Myths were immune to conventional firepower. Oh, they could kill a low class five or even a four, like the Harpies. But class threes and twos needed something more.
Of course, we didn’t know exactly what was coming, so I wanted to plan for it all. I shouted to others to help carry supplies to the wall, where we knew most of the fighting would take place.
“What are these for?” a newcomer asked, surprising me as he stepped inside behind me.
He lifted the various glass bottles that were all shapes and sizes, as we had used anything we could find to fill them. Each was a mixture of perfumes and aftershaves that, when combined, made an overwhelming smell that had all our eyes watering.
It had to be mixed outside, wearing masks and safety glasses and we always put our names in a hat that we got one of the kids to pick out. They thought it was hilarious the way the loser they picked would whine about doing it, and we always went overboard with our complaints just to make them laugh.
“The Spiked Uglies don’t like overpowering scents, it disorientates them so they can’t focus on ramming shit with their spiked heads. Y…you’ve never seen them?”
He frowned before shaking his head. At first it looked like he had wanted to say something, but he stopped himself.
“You’re new here, right?” I asked, already knowing the answer, because I had seen him around the last few days. And let’s just say he was hard to miss. But this was the first time I’d had a chance to speak with him.
The females on the base had certainly noticed him, as like I said, yeah, he was hard to miss what with those almond shaped, chocolate brown eyes that held unusual flecks of forest green that crinkled at the sides when he flashed that cheeky, bad boy smile. All that flawless olive skin gave him a Mediterranean look, and then there was those prominent cheek bones and that square jaw with its prickle of a groomed moustache framing the softness of his full lips.
What gave him an edge was the ring piercing in one nostril, and the thin silver bull ring that went through his septum. It was also the size of the guy. I thought Riley was big, but this guy was a behemoth. Standing at least six foot six, he made me feellike a child. My inner mind took me back to the General and I wondered if they weren’t far off being the same height.
Most would have been scared when this guy showed up if he wasn’t so handsome. A happy face that instantly put a person at ease if he offered that easy smile of his. The base had been gossiping about him for days, but Riley hadn’t been here, so I hadn’t taken in half of it. I was always distracted when he was away.
But now, I couldn’t help but notice him, as I felt like one punch from this guy, and you would be dead. Yet he seemed friendly enough and, well, being built like a freight train would certainly help in the fight.
“I sure am, name’s Aster,” he said, holding out his big meaty paw for me to put my much smaller one in it to shake.
“I’m Alex.”
“Oh, I know.”
I raised a questioning brow, prompting him to offer, “I’ve heard a lot about you. Most say you’re the brains of the operation here. Something about a kill bible?”
I grinned and after turning back to the shelves, I told him,
“My dad always said knowledge is power.”
