Page 4 of Passion and Payback

My eyes drifted to Lucas, who was slumped against a wall, and I didn’t know if he even knew what had happened. His sight was unknowing and lifeless.

“Lucas!” I screamed, and something inside me twisted as I heard laughter from somewhere on the other side of the hill.

No.

No.

Nonononono.

A scream bellowed up from inside me as I saw his death had happened while I had been nothing. And that despite the screaming agony in my side, brought by the glittery flash of a blade?—

NO.

Everything in me hurt, and I crawled.

Crawled and crawled.

“Help,” I breathed once I was outside. “Help.”

KAI

Two Years Later

Conversation was kept at a low hum as I shuffled along carefully in the line of people as we made our way toward the exit of the plane. I was all too aware of my size as I tried not to step on the woman in front of me while minding the man behind me, who seemed less aware of his surroundings. I didn’t know if it was the tight confines of an airplane or if the woman an inch away from me had soaked in her perfume before boarding, but I could feel my nerves slowly tightening.

Thankfully, it was only a few more minutes before we were released from the narrow aisle and into the slightly more open connection to the airport. The sickeningly strong smell of lilac dissipated, replaced by the more tolerable smell of cleaner. The low murmur rapidly grew into the clamor of hundreds of people going about their business.

For a moment, I was dazed by the sheer volume of noise and the light. I’d flown out of a relatively small airport, but this was Port Dale. It wasn’t quite the size of somewhere like New YorkCity, but it was still huge and had the population and the airport to prove it.

It had been months since I’d last been around so many people, let alone all the…human noise. The chaos, everyone operating independently of one another as they tried to get to their destination, was unnerving. Sure, the military wasn’t anywhere near as orderly and precise as they made out, but it was a lot more than a populated civilian area.

However, this wasn’t my first return from a deployment, and I would get through it. The first time had been overwhelming, even though I’d been warned. This time, I could take a deep breath and remind myself thatthisis what normal was, and thereprobablywasn’t someone lurking in the crowd that posed a significant risk to me. Spending months where you had to look at every civilian as a potential threat had a way of breeding paranoia.

“Excuse me,” came a voice to my side.

My muscles tensed as I turned sharply. To her credit, the small, mousey-haired woman didn’t flinch but did lean back.

“Do you need something?” I asked, having to clear my throat as a reminder that I hadn’t spoken to anyone in hours.

“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “But you looked like maybe you did…it’s kinda crazy in here, isn’t it?”

“A little. Big airport.”

“That’s true. Just get back?”

“What?”

“From…wherever you were,” she said with a laugh, pointing first at my head and then my bag. “My husband got back from deployment a couple of months ago. He says it’s always crazy whenever he gets back.”

I reached up to run my fingers through my shorn hair and winced. “It…can be. But this isn’t my first time. You get used to it.”

“I’m sure,” she said, looking me over. “First time in Port Dale?”

“No,” I said. “Born and raised here.”

“Oh. You don’t sound happy about it.”

“That’s just how I sound…in general.”

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