“Exam? On Friday?”

“Last class of the day. They told us about it last week, it´s your fault for not having your ears open.”

“Yeah, you do sleep quite a lot, dude.”

The Kid yawned and blinked to get his eyes in working condition again. Lucie and Jan were delivering what was supposedly important information about a test of sorts.

“Alright… and what is it about?”

Lucie groaned as loudly as she could, covering her face in frustration, while Jan merely sighed in disappointment.

“I can´t believe this…”

“Why am I even surprised at this point?”

Czesch turned to Annie, who was stretching her arms around and moving her shoulders after too much time staying motionless. She met his gaze and, knowing the context, proceeded to inform her colleague.

“English Literature… you know, that class you never pay attention to… the one with that mysoginist fatso.”

“Oh, that one… I do have some notes for some reason, will that be enough?”

Annie chuckled to herself while looking away, as Lucie came back to the conversation to bring the thunder.

“Of course it isn’t enough! You have a book to read for that one!”

“Huh… Guess I´ll go around getting it today.”

“You literally have 4 days for a 900 page book. I don’t think you´ll have time to get enough notes out.”

“I still gotta try. Besides, I work better under pressure.”

Czesch´s companions all looked at each other and, at unison, said the same statement:

“If you say so…”

This was bad, the Kid knew that much. He had heard nothing about that test until now, and it did seem important, since half the class was scavenging for any quick way to avoid having to read through that dense block of words. The 3 musketeers were probably ahead on that, already having taken notes on every important point of the book. He felt a bit bad, not being up to par with them in that regard.

Then again, that was the consequence of sleeping through class, that much he understood perfectly well. Besides, Czesch was used to skimming contract reports to get the important info out of them. With that in mind, a book wouldn’t be that different, right?

The bell rung and people rushed out of class like a bunch of religious zealots charging towards a professional army head on . It was appaling how some people desperately clawed past others to reach the exits to gain a few seconds of freedom. Czesch was starting to head out, when Annie grabbed him by the ear and tugged him in the opposite direction. Vivi had done the same at other times, but never enough to get the Kid used to it.

“Heeeyyy! Ouch, that hurts!”

“I can´t believe you can be this freaking dense! Have you forgotten already!?”

“Huh? About what?”

“We are going over to visit the jazz club! You weren´t just planning on going home, were you?”

“Errrr, no, of course not, hehe… ehe…”

The scratching of the back of his neck was a dead giveaway… and he knew it.

“You had forgotten about it…”

“… completely.”

Annie´s sigh could probably be heard from the next building over. It was true that Czesch had mostly forgotten about that, but news about the exam had got his mind on a bind.

“Supposedly, they start practice in an hour or so… we should probably find a quiet spot to wait at.”

“And to get some sleep. That actually sounds like something I would do.”

“Get some- You have slept through all lessons today!! How can you still be tired?”

“Worked all night long on some… documents. Nothing major, but I wanted to have them done just in case this one dragged on.”

She gave him a hard stare for a couple of seconds, the immediately clicked her tongue and turned away from him.

“Yeah, nice excuse… not going to let you sleep, you know.”

“Knew you weren´t planning to.”

They both sat at a café close to St Vincent, a small, modern spot with a lot of charm. It was suited to high school students for the most part, but they still served the usual beverages. It was at that moment that they came across a familiar face, someone that Czesch knew from an earlier battle and that Annie had tried to avoid for the most part.

“Kieran!? Is that you?”

“Czesch? Anna too? Didn´t know you guys were going to come over!”

“Didn´t plan on it. Annie just needs a place to keep an eye on me so I don´t- Ouch!”

A kick in the shin, directed with all the caring love the Kid expected out of her.

“This idiot is going to fall asleep at any point, so I need to get some caffeine in his system.”

“Oh, right… heard from some of the lads you like your sleep in class a lot.”

“One of my favorite activities of the day.”

He sat down with them, Annie having a face of discomfort that clearly revealed the invitation hadn’t come from her.

“You know, Czesch, some of the boys are already missing you on the field. Seriously, that match you pulled off was amazing. You should come to training with us, maybe convince you to join the team!”

“Sounds fun, but I think Im going to pass on this one.”

“Can I know why?”

Czesch had to think on his answer. He couldn’t just tell him about why football had an important place in his heart, as it had managed to convince Sabrina to form the Pack, and that he didn’t want to turn it into something out of routine. The main reason he had decided to play Kieran was that he was presenting him with a losing match, and Czesch couldn’t help but support lost causes.

“Well, football is alright and the team is filled with good people, I´m sure… but it isn’t my thing at all.”

“Huh? What do you mean by that? You are extremely good at it!”

“I hate to side with him on this, but he has a point, C. I´ve never seen a match like that one.”

Kieran raised an eyebrow, with Annie merely shrugging to piss him off further.

“Hey, what´s your problem?”

“What? I´m helping you out here, should have more consideration.”

“Thing is… that game was a bit of a fluke. I, uhh, I am usually not very good at that sort of thing and having to stop all those shots required a lot of concentration… that and a hundred glass shards to the head made the job a little harder! Anyways, if I were to play again, I´d probably get a lot of balls thrown into the net and most of them would reach their target.”

Annie took a sip from her drink and coughed to get the Kid´s attention.

“In summary, you were simply so pumped that it just turned out that way?”

“Yeah, Annie, something like that.”

“Knowing you… Figures.”

“What about that shot at the end? That was outright insane!”

“Almost broke my leg doing something so stupid… still feel a bit of pain, but it didn’t turn as bad as I thought. Another reason to not want to touch a ball for a while.”

Czesch scratched his right leg, remembering the pain during the procedure to save his own limb from rotting in front of him. Kieran saw that grim face of his as sign that he wouldn’t be getting his star player any time soon.

“W-Well, I think I get it now… but could you come over to one of our games? That pep talk you did during the match is still in some of their heads and, to be honest, seeing you cheering us on would really help.”

Annie choked on her drink and, after half a minute of coughing, finally got the words out of her mouth.

“Wait, wait, you… YOU did a pep talk?”

“Errr, yeah… we were about to give up the game and-“

“Now I think I finally managed to figure out your number 1 passtime: Practicing impressive speeches in the mirror! Hahahaha, this is rich!”

“Laugh all you want, it helped us win the game.”

“Besides, didn’t you say yourself that the one I gave you the other day was- Ouch!”

Another kick, same spot. It seemed women in his life were attracted to him in a violent way.

“Shush! Quiet now!”

“Honestly, Czesch, I can´t help but feel that she treats you like a dog.”

Annie took offense to that, immediately giving “the look” to Kieran.

“Hey! I´m not that bad to him!”

“To be fair, most women in my life treat me worse than this.”

“OK… not going to dig further on that one.”

They spent quite some time just talking about anything that seemed to fit the bill. Czesch was starting to realize that this idle talk was not bad per se, it was simply boring for the person that could add less to the topic (In this case, Czesch had no clue about half the people that Annie and Kieran were discussing) At any point he felt like taking a fiver, Annie simply knocked on his head as if she was trying to break open a door by punching it.

“Well, I have to go train with the team. Last time I arrived late, they almost lynched me in the spot.”

“Alright, have fun.”

As Kieran left, Czesch asked the obvious question.

“Something happened between you and Kieran? You seem a bit more angsty when he´s around.”

“We used to go out together, but I had to dump him in the end… half the time, I think he got over it, while the other half just proves how desperate he´s getting.”

“Was he that bad?”

“Let´s just say that he can be even more of a smartass than you at times, although he keeps it to himself for the most part. He´s more of a football freak than a human being, I know that much.”

“That I can see…”

“Enough about this! I really don’t want to talk about past hookups with a boy.”

“You are doing it anyways, I don’t know why you complain all of a-“

“Look at the time! Let´s go meet your new team!”

It was finally the moment for Czesch to meet that failing Jazz band that clawed desperately for survival.  He hadn’t been given much detail on the members or on the shortcomings on the group, but Annie probably wanted him entering without any pre-conceived ideas to get the full picture. Very considerate of her, to let him in without any made-up thoughts.

Annie didn’t even consider knocking on the door labeled “Group Room 3”. There were certainly some Jazzy tunes coming out of it, but something felt loose about them. She just straight up opened it, as if she owned the place, and immediately proclaimed:

“Jessica, you bitch!! Are you listening or has that sax of yours filled your ears with shit!?”

The music stopped, as well as Czesch´s hope for a normal conversation. Out from the back of the room, a voice responded to Annie.

“Well, well, look who finally decided to show up!! Been sucking cocks as of late, Annie!? You seem in a good mood!”

The conversation was… uncomfortable, to say the least. Then again, it was probably the way they referred to each other. And Jessica had referred to her as Annie, so they were probably good friends… maybe. There was a weird air of rivalry between the two, something hidden behind their laughter.

Apart from them, there were 4 more people in the room: 2 girls, both twins, with dark, long straight hair and different colored eyes, looking over their trumpets while chatting away. A nervous-looking boy with an auburn ponytail and glasses and a face that only a mother could love, holding the contrabass and damning his luck for some god-forsaken reason, lay in the corner of the room. The last person, an older looking guy with blonde, straight hair up to his shoulders and a metal contraption pierced through his nose, was sitting with the drums, testing them quietly. Out of all of them, the drummer seemed like the most experienced. Then again, Jessica looked like the one in charge of the group, her long, silver-like hair a fascinating counterpart to Annie´s golden locks, while giving Czesch more reasons behind seeing them both as best of friends. Side by side, it was almost as if they came pre-packaged with one another.

“Look, Jess, seeing that you need help to-“

“Oh, we don’t need any help, don´t worry! We have this one!”

Annie chuckled, seeing behind the bullshit Jessica was spouting.

“Yeah, you told me that last time and even I found it hard to stay in my seat and not leave. This is Czesch, a friend from class. Czesch, this magnificent liar over here is my old friend Jessica.”

“Call me Jess and I´ll cut it off.”

Hearing those words along with her smile… it was an open invitation for another edition of the Snarkathon, sponsored by one Nathan Croxley of Blue Sparrow´s SOT. His teachings often came as a blessing… at other times, they were bound to do more harm than good.

“Okay… what is it with you women and wanting to cut off my dick? Didn’t know it was that popular…”

Both girls looked at each other in unison, finding common ground at the pathetic performance on display.

“So, is he made up of snark or can he actually do anything?”

“Well, I didn’t believe it till yesterday, but he´s a really good pianist. Add to that his vocal range and the fact he´s a songwriter, and you got yourself a perfect package!”

“Yeah… almost too good to be true… no offense, Annie, but your musical ear is complete garbage… Hey, Chess, mind giving me a demonstration?”

“It´s Czesch.”

“Huh? I said it right, no? Chess?”

“Czesch.”

“Chess.”

He knew that Jessica was doing it intentionally to piss him off, but it was still enraging to hear it repeated times.

“Argh, fine, just… just roll with that…”

“I hope Annie is not bullshitting me with this, so you better give it your best.”

“Wasn´t planning on anything else.”

The piano was in a corner of the room. Apparently, the last person who played it had left at the end of last term, unable to cope with the pressure, so they simply left it in there until someone applied for the job. The two boys, André and Simon, helped him drag it to a better position. Both clearly had experience in carrying their respective instruments, even though André got help for his drum kit.

The piano was in position, so Czesch started checking if the key was the appropriate one. He did a bit of improv before playing anything serious, checking if the notes were correctly aligned. He started getting in the mood, playing around a rhythm that had popped in his head a while back.  He was about to start with a proper tune when-

“Alright, that´s good enough!”

-And that was enough to put him off immediately.

“Errr, but… I haven´t even started.”

“Huh? I thought that was it. It sounded really good!”

“I can´t just play away and hope for it to come as I hope!  I need to try it out first, then I´ll play something that´s actually decent!”

Annie decided to intervene, seeing that this would only make the problem at hand grow even larger.

“Jess, how about you guys play a bit for Czesch? Let him get acquainted with the way you do things?”

“Oh, that´s right! Yeah, just sit around and listen! We´ll show you what we´ve got”

Czesch, still stunned, left the piano. He hadn’t even played seriously and they had already given him a sort of green light. How bad was their level that even his testing impressed them? They were high schoolers, but they seemed to know how to play properly. He´d have to wait and see.

“OK!! And a 1…2… 1,2,3…”

And off they went. At the start, Czesch didn’t notice anything awry. They were simply playing and they were quite proficient at that, especially Simon, who fiddled around with the contrabass as if it were a Spanish guitar. The speed of those fingers was insane… he´d give Nate a run for his money.

Then something caught his attention: The rhythm, the melody… just about everything was going slightly off course, out of its intended path. True, Jazz is a music all about self-expression and freedom, but even such musicians know that, when playing in a band, cohesion is the most important part. It doesn’t matter if the sax is a messiah of music, if the drums don’t follow in properly then it just won’t sound as well as it could. They were off key, doing an improv that just showed that, in a slight way, their music was creating more dissonance than anything else. When they finished, Czesch had got a grasp of the situation: They were playing a music that was just their own personal best… good for friends, not so much when there´s a critical public to appease.

“Impressive… now, can you play a song for me?”

“A song? Haven´t we already done that?”

“A proper one, something you may have practiced before…not improv.”

“Isn´t Jazz all about improv?”

A misconception, of course they were playing based on that thought. He got up from his seat and walked around between them.

“There is improvisation in it, true. But it doesn’t make up the whole range. Even the best musicians know a base from where to play and enhance, and even during improv they try to help their colleagues out by not going out of their way.”

“Are you implying that we are going off-key?”

“Yes, that´s exactly what´s happening.”

Silence. Czesch was being harsh, but such things need to be told in advance. No wonder people didn’t exactly like their playing, yet they were completely unable to find a reason for it. It had taken Czesch months to properly get acquainted with the intricacies of writing a proper song, after having failed dozens of times, and only then he realized that cohesion when playing was an important factor. If Buri or Nate went slightly out of tempo, or Vivi suddenly jumped out a second late, it would all end up muddying a perfectly good song.

Jessica looked pretty pissed, and she had a reason to be. Czesch had basically implied that she knew nothing about music besides playing an instrument. She put her face straight up to his, anger burrowing in her forehead and her eyes dead set on his to try and intimidate him… the trick word being “try”. The Kid had seen Mary eye-to-eye so many times that Jessica´s attempt was half-baked at best.

“You think you can just come in here and talk shit as if you are some sort of music guru? You believe you are better than us?”

“I think I proved that just a couple of minutes ago. What I played was bad because its purpose is to sound bad, to make sure that what you play afterwards doesn’t sound like it. What you just pulled off… it needs to get better, and quick. And it won´t suddenly change by just playing at random, so I need you to play a proper song to start tweaking.”

“And now you want to boss us around from the get-go!?! Hah! The nerve in this fucker!”

André, clearly seeing the opportunity about to be wasted, decided to intervene. Behind him, Simon also got ready to provide his thoughts on the matter.

“Jess, calm down, no need to get rough with-!”

“I´m not letting an entitled prick like him on the band!! He can take his piano and singing, and shove it up his arse for all I care!”

“H-He looks like he knows what he´s doing, m-maybe we can-“

“And now you are siding with him!? This is ridiculous! He wants to take away the way we play so that it fits his own bill! Can´t you fucking see that!?”

The other girls were shaking her heads, seeing that logic was getting them nowhere. Annie sighed and tried to apply some more reason to the table.

“Jess, just let him try for a while, you have nothing to-“

“Oh no, we have everything to lose!! And this dickhead friend of yours is going to turn our passion into work, and that´s the way great music turns into soulless beats without a heart.

The Kid could do nothing besides scratch the back of his neck and wait for her to cool off. After she spouted her last, he took a deep breath and went ahead with his reversal.

“Jess, you are the best sax player I´ve seen in years.”

That caught her and everyone else completely off-guard. Czesch was keeping it neutral, playing quite a dangerous game of wits, balancing praise with actual criticism. Jessica didn’t know how to respond to a compliment from a man that had told her she was going off-key.

“A-Are you being sarcastic right now? T-Then, what was all that before!? Are you taking the piss!?”

“If I am… then I´m doing a piss poor job at it… haha… oh god, that was horrible…”

Czesch sat at the piano again, with the whole band retinue looking directly at him. Annie was on the sidelines, enjoying the show as it went. He stretched his fingers while preparing to add some positive reinforcement.

“You all have incredible talent in your individual playing and that is amazing. I don’t think I´ve ever seen a bassist as quick on the fingers as you, Simon. André, those drums sounded so smooth that it got hard to not hear them after a while, as if silence can´t be the same without them. Girls… I didn’t get your names, sorry…”

Both of them got up. They were twins in everything but a few inches in height difference and their eyes, one dark and the other brown.

“Laurie, and my lil sis, Laura.”

“You are the little one!”

“Only in height!”

“Anyways… that trumpet play was superb, both in the highs and the lows, splendid work. And Jessica, the sax has never sounded sexier than that, I can tell you that much for a fact. I´ve heard a lot of them, and yours has that small peak that makes all the difference.”

He meant all of that, aside from a few exaggerations. Rob was an alright saxophone player, but he was much more calm and selective than others, allowing Vivi to shine with her trumpet more often than not. Jessica was still weary, clearly not used to the positive words coming from a complete stranger.

“O-Okay… where are you going with this?”

“Individually, you can make amazing music… but, as a band, as a team, you need to play in a different manner than the one you are used to.”

“And how does that work?”

“Well, for starters… André, Simon, you both need to decide when to go all out and when to let the other do it. As the base of the group, finding the right moment to alter the rhythm falls to you two, and if you both do it at the same time you end up screwing with everyone´s pace without them noticing, because you still play really well and they believe things are still going smoothly… Lauras, you both need to play in unison for longer periods. Having both trumpets going off in separate pitches is extremely distracting and it´s the sax´s job to alter things around. Besides, I´m sure that when you both pull it off it sounds amazing.”

“Well, we tried it that one time… it did sound good, but only to me. She´s the one who wants to be the center of attention.”

“Oh, screw you!”

“And, last but not least, Jessica… the only advice I can give you is that you have to move with the flow instead of against it. Everything else is good in my book.”

She took some sort of offence to that, a face of disgust quickly forming from the weariness.

“And what is that supposed to mean, huh? That I have to lower my music to the lowest common denominator so that people can enjoy it? Is that it?”

“Not really, it´s… hard to explain, something the sax player in my group often says when he really gets into it. I might have to ask him, but I doubt he has a definite answer. I can tell you straight up that you play extremely well, that´s the only visible problem I found.”

“Well then, what are you going to do now?”

“If you want me to play with you, I´ll gladly do so. Hell, I can probably come up with a song with your help! It always comes easier when playing with others.”

“And how is that going to help?”

“As much as I may love doing improv, the thing most people want to hear in the end is a piece of music, one with as few mistakes as possible. It will have improv sections, don’t worry, but there will also be others set on stone… so that the former can have more impact than the latter.”

She had her arms crossed, still against having to trust him just by looking at her expression. The rest of the group seemed to be in the exact opposite side of the spectrum… which led the Kid to believe that they had been craving for guidance such as his for some time.

“… I´m not sure this is going to work…”

Annie sprung up, hugging her from behind. The rest of the group gathered close, as if trying to get her to accept by sheer peer pressure.

“Jess, let him work his magic! He helped Kieran out, he´s bound to do some good here as well!”

“Besides, we don’t really have much of a choice. The principal did say he wanted to know what we were planning on doing and this is better than just saying “the usual”.”

“… Argh, to hell with all of you! Alright, you are up for the time being until you fuck up!”

“Love your reassuring tone!! Okay, let’s start building our magnum opus!! André, give me a beat, whichever you prefer… we´ll start building from there…”

They spent an hour and a half working away their respective instruments, with Czesch directing them to play something resembling proper music. After a ton of practices with the SOT, he knew when the noise transformed naturally into that magnificent thing we call music. It wasn’t hard ordering them around, apart from Jessica, who seemed reluctant at every point. Still, even she had to admit that, at the end of the day, the final product was somewhat satisfactory. Hell, it was day and night compared to their latest show.

They finished up practice with a sense of relief, as if things were finally starting to get into motion. Czesch, on the other hand, saw a lot of work ahead, all the while being grateful for playing again. The SOT was renowned by their sessions, but they were limited in number due to their flickery schedules. They had started to play almost 2 and a half years ago, and even then they only had around 30 full sessions on their book, which was quite a low number.

“I think we are done for the day!! You are all making good progress, so keep it up!”

“I hate to admit it but… that sounded really good…”

“It´s only going to sound better the more we practice it. We have the framework, so let´s make this one a masterpiece!”

“Awesome!”

“Yeah!”

Everyone was, in one way or another, pumped by the prospect of blowing everyone´s minds during the school festival. Jessica still seemed a bit reluctant, but she had accepted the fact that things had to go that way to make some progress. Having thought that, she didn’t exactly find Czesch´s new leading role at all encouraging, since she had always been the group lead.

Everyone packed up and left apart from Czesch and Annie, who decided to stay for the practice. She seemed quite awake for someone who had heard people fucking up on purpose with instruments. He would have thought of it a dull thing, but it looked like it hadn´t been as bad as he had thought. She had weird sort of grin plastered on her face… satisfaction, was it?

“You have a very weird bunch of friends.”

“You are one to talk! Besides, I´ve been with her ever since primary, it´s no wonder we are still besties.”

“Yeah… by the way, what did you think? Did it sound better than usual?”

“… It still needs some work, but… fuck, I still can´t believe you play and sing that well.”

“Someone decided that my fingers were fit for the piano and that my voice wasn´ear-screeching, so it just turned out that way.”

“I mean, you must have practiced a ton to get to that level!”

“You could say that, yeah…”

Calling those sessions “practice” would be like calling shooting arrows at a human being “turkey shooting”. Czesch had sometimes spent tens of hours practicing, his fingers raw and bloody after a session, always trying to aim to break his limits. It reached a point where he had spent an entire day playing almost non-stop. That was the moment where he decided to take it a bit easier… that and the fact his hands couldn’t even move for a while.

“Before I forget, Pete just texted me, asked if you want to go partying on Thursday.”

“Thursday? Don´t we have an exam the day after?”

“It´s a literature exam, if you read you´ll pass without issue. Besides, Thursdays are always packed tight by college students, so we have more of a chance of entering the good spots.”

Another chance to fulfill even more of his contract. He had to remember that these “vacations” still needed reports, and that he´d have to make them convincing enough for those at Intel to validate him and not report him as a laggard. A party sounded like just the perfect topic to write about.

“When you put it that way… Alright, tell him I´m up for it.”

“Awesome! That way, we can fix the fuckup at the lake.”

“No need to fix anything, but I can see you really want to go party.”

Her feet were bouncing up and down

“It feels like ages since the last time I´ve had a proper partying night, so yeah, I´m a bit pumped.”

“Hmmm… Ready to go now.”

“Oh, OK, let´s go.”

They both left school and separated half-way, since Annie had to buy the things Czesch had stopped her from getting the day before. He went over to a bookstore, where he finally got the book he had been meant to read this whole time. He´d gloss over it as if it were a report and hope for the best. It looked so unappealing that he didn’t even try to remember the title.

Just as unappealing as his next report would be.

The week came by without much incident. Czesch managed to find time for everything, from reading to practicing with the piano to preparing the presentation. He had an innate talent for finding things to do to not experience the dread of boredom. As far as he could remember, he never had a moment in his life where he stood there, doing nothing. Instead, he always found an activity, any one task, to keep his mind from drifting. The book itself was an adventure of sorts talking about the human condition and such… vague details that helped him bring the tale closer to home, but which didn’t make the struggle any easier.

Thursday came and things seemed to be going well. The presentation looked like something that could be exposed in university by a journalism major or maybe even a professor. Czesch helped Jan and Lucie practice their exposition skills in class, all the while Annie corrected inaccuracies and other negative aspects. The jazz group was also showing promise, with everyone slowly but surely learning from each other´s quirks… apart from Jessica, but that couldn’t be helped. She still played quite well with them ,but one could see she wasn’t having the best of times.

Czesch looked at his wardrobe as he pondered on what was the usual attire for such occasions. He had seen people go out in any type of clothing, but a popular option was a business shirt and jeans, with shoes to make it look even more casual. He didn’t really understand much about fashion sense or clothing combinations, but he knew that it was like going to a contract signing without the suit on. Using that idea in mind, he got prepared for the night.

His expectations were murky, to say the least. He had never partying before, although apparently they were going to a fancy disco somewhere in town. The activities inside according to Nate´s intel: Drinking, dancing… and more drinking. And possibly some drugs involved somewhere in between, but Czesch would stay clear from getting anywhere near them. He had one experience with them and… let´s just say that he learned his lesson.

It was a chilly night, wind rustling trees and throwing plastic bags in the air, yet Czesch was perfectly fine. He had been under harsher cold with the same protection, so a slight torrent of air wouldn’t deter him. He had tried to better his image a little bit, adding cologne and other weird products he had only just opened, because, as Vivi put it, he needed a bit of help on certain areas.

He arrived at the point agreed on by Annie. Of course, he had arrived quite early, around 10 minutes beforehand. He started whistling a tune he had heard on the street a day before when, out of nowhere, Djura tried to get the jump on him. Czesch had already heard him, but still he feigned some surprise to make him feel better about it.

“Wow, easy there! Thought you were planning on stabbing me or something!”

“Knowing you, you probably would have broken my arm or thrown me against a wall! Man, you look good! I mean, I did expect you to try out some stuff but, Jesus, that fits you like a glove!”

“Keep it up and we´ll have to start dating.”

“Hahaha, I take it back, you look like a hobo.”

“And you look like a herd of cows just decided to try out that shitty perfume of yours.”

“Speaking of perfumes, what are you packing? Toilet water?”

Both of them started a session of what can only be described as “insulting friendliness”, a variety that Nate loved to practice with Jason, another contractor from the company. After a short while, more and more members of the group started showing up until, finally, Annie, Pete and Reuben appeared with drinks for all of them.

“Alright, listen up!! We have about an hour to drink these babies up, so make sure you take the right amount of time between each shot! After that, we are all heading to the Lovely Sasha and I´ll give the IDs right by the door… everyone set? Okay, you Bloody Bastards, let´s have some fun!”

“Ooraahh!!”

The only members missing from the gang were Allan, because he had to take care of his sick grandmother, and Chester, who was stuck in a shitty part-time job that was keeping him alive for the time being. The rest had their share of fun, drinking, dancing without music and laughing at each other´s faces. Czesch drank a bit, but he never liked the idea of drinking for the sake of it. Getting drunk to distort one´s view was impractical and, in his case, quite dangerous.

Annie got to where Czesch was after having her share of fun with the others. She was wearing a red one-piece dress that forced Czesch to gulp. It had taken a bit, but he now found her absolutely stunning. Seeing that Czesch was a bit too shaken by her sudden metamorphosis, Annie decided to take the lead, clearly having some shots already on her.

“Come on, I haven´t changed that much! You on the other hand…”

“I-It´s just that… wow, I needed a moment to process…”

She puffed his chest twice, with enough strength to break whatever feeling had been building up inside the Kid.

“You look good… well, better than good, actually! You look like you are going on the hunt for some women in need… am I on the list?”

More scratching of the back of his neck, Annie being too close for comfort and saying things to tease him.

“Errr, I… err… wasn´t planning on-”

“Hehe, kidding! Vivi was right, you really suck when dealing with us! You better change that before people start believing you lean to the other side!”

“When women are as crazy as you or her, no wonder some people choose to jump street.”

“Hey, we aren´t that bad!! You just need to know us better! Come on, drink with me, it´s good!”

An hour passed and the now drunk group started their trek towards the Russian mob-owned locale, the Lovely Sasha. It was one of the newest locales turned to a disco in Harville, and it had quite a ton of publicity. According to Reuben, the place was the best rave center in town, while Johnny (Not to be confused with John) compared parts of it to a stable. Pete, the voice of reason among them, noted that the place was so successful because they brought the drinks directly from Russia and Poland, of the best quality possible, and the place could hold more than 500 people inside its doors. Still, the part about the Russian mob was worrying enough. The reason Czesch had left the UK had been because of an incident with Russians, so he was a bit reluctant about going to a place where his parents would have performed one of their “jobs”.

They finally arrived at the front gate of the Russian establishment and, true to their word, it was packed full of people, all waiting below huge pink neon lights. It must have been the best place in town, because there were people pushing each other just to be able to get a good spot on the line. Pete told the group they would have no problem getting in with the fake ID´s.

“You don´t need one, Czesch. Just with your looks and all of these people, you´ll be let in in a flash.”

And it was true. Czesch entered the disco without having to show his ID or anything, just paying a small fee to enter. He was a bit struck by how light security was in a place like that. The Russian mob was bound to have better people, otherwise a place like that could easily be taken over by a rival group. He even thought about talking with management about hiring proper security contractors… then again, they were probably bored to their minds dealing with drunk and drugged teenagers, so maybe they were the right fit for the job.

The group entered the packed tight interior of the Lovely Sasha, and what received them was a metric ton of flashes of color and blinking lights, which reminded Czesch about an operation in Stockholm, where, due to time constraints, he was given a UMP-45 sub-machinegun with a tactical blinking  flashlight attatched to it to storm the interior of a building without power. So this is how it feels, he thought, as his eyes tried to get used to the incessant blinking.

Then there was the music. It was a hum with beats, that´s the only way he could describe it. It felt like someone was firing a 12.7 milimiter round sniper rifle constantly, a deafening sound continuously playing over and over, without end. For a moment, he felt a little sick, his head feeling light and his balance off. He almost knocked over a bunch of people, but he got himself back up, Big Bo shaking him up to his old self.

The Bloody Bastards flew to the wind at that moment, most of the single boys searching for easy and drunk women to try their luck on and the girls just having fun together. Maybe that was the point of going to places like that: The lights, the music, the alcohol… all mechanisms to give people an equal opportunity at the game of love… or just sex, for that matter. Czesch wanted none of that game, so he went by the bar to get himself some breathing space. The uncomfortable feeling was growing inside of him, slowly but surely… until it finally erupted.

He felt a cold shiver running down his spine as he began to realize what the sound really reminded him of.  And off he went in his mind again, different time and place, a burning city and a bunch of armed kids running through it, shells falling all around them as their contents blew holes in the earth. He still remembered it clearly… Sabrina was laughing, Iosef joining the laugh as he rushed past her, Rabi limping from the pain in his legs, Jusuk breathing heavily from the stress… Czesch was expressionless, firing his gun up front and, right behind him, Laria, checking his back for any movement… yes, the sounds were the same. True silence had been kidnapped and his doppelganger had come in the form of explosive ordnance. If Czesch had ever seen a similar image to hell, then that day, in the outskirts of Brno, he saw the closest thing he could think of.

He came back, feeling the heavy breathing that came with remembering. That place was taking a toll on him, trying to make him lose whatever control he had. Maybe that was the point of it all, but he couldn´t give in. He was different from all of them, different from the kids who had to study and those who were doing so for a future job. His sanity depended on him differentiating reality from fiction and, when the line became so blurry, he knew that he was in for a hard night.

A bunch of girls came and went, all wanting him to dance with them and, hopefully, make out or something along those lines. Czesch found it hard enough to just acknowledge their existance, so he simply told them that he was waiting for his girlfriend. It was a sad excuse indeed, but he found himself with no material to work with. Out of nowhere, Annie appeared, ecstatic and joyful, laughing as she danced and moved towards him. Czesch, having pulled himself together somewhat, realized that she was actually laughing from the heart. True, it was an alcohol induced laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. Maybe it was the ambiance or the music distorting it, but he rather liked the way she did so much more than Alice had a week prior.

Annie finally got to him, soaked in what looked like both vodka and sweat. Someone must have poured over a drink on her by accident, but she didn’t seem to mind. She got extremely close to him, with a bright red face to boot.

“C! I haven´t seen you around in ages!! How have you been!?”

“I can see you are having the time of your life…”

“This is the best night of our lives!! You should be dancing and singing, not standing there like an idiot!”

“I´m…  I´m OK like this, thank you…”

The music got into another climax, stopping Annie from hearing him properly.

“What!?”

“I said I´m OK like this!!”

“The hell you are!! Come and dance with me right now!!”

“Annie, I don´t feel like-“

“What!?”

“I don´t feel like dancing!!”

“You´ll feel it once we get to the dance floor!! Now, come on, Lancelot!! You must take the princess to the ball!!!”

He finally gave in. Part of him knew this was probably a bad idea, but he was full of bad ideas at the moment and just staying still and drinking the surroundings meant a slow death. Czesch thought that a quicker one would save him a lot of trouble and effort. Besides, moving his body around would do him some good… the music wasn’t anything to write home about, but it was simple enough to dance to.

He started to move his body, trying to follow the example of other dancers in the room and trying not to resort to his fighting moves. Him and Annie started to move together with that hellish beat, getting closer and closer by the second. Annie was on top of Czesch and all he could see was her face. A face that showed no other emotion than lust. That had been the reason behind wanting to dance, he thought. Just an attempt to get in close and move in for the kill.

Czesch played along, even thought that was a dangerous thing to do by itself. His mind started to drift as he locked eyes with her. Innocent eyes, he thought. Eyes that hadn´t yet seen true horror or had their light forced out. The music went away, as did the unnecessary blinking and the people. The only ones in existence were him and her, alone in an empty dance floor. As he blinked and gave away, Annie disappeared, instead exchanged by a familiar face… Laria… Laria was dancing with him. For a second, he even believed it… and that belief was the one thing that scared him the most.

Reality was forced down upon him as the music and the lights came back thundering on top. Laria wasn´t there anymore, only Annie, who was still laughing and jumping around like a toddler. Czesch was, once again, having a hard time getting air in and out of his lungs. That night was being a hard one on him. He thought about leaving to take some air outside, to get his thoughts back in order and hallucinations in check.

That is when Djura came, moving around and pushing people, trying to get to him as quickly as possible.

“Czesch!! Czesch, thank god I found you!! I need help!!”

“What is it!? Did something happen!?”

“Pete is about to go toe to toe with a Russian!!! I need help to stop him!!”

“Oh, shit!!”

Djura quickly informed Annie as they all went towards the brewing fight. For now, it was just an exchange of insults over a spilled drink, with both parties having a mediator trying to keep things civil, with the main offenders desiring conflict above all else. The situation was too similar to the Cold War for Czesch not to make the comparison. He would have to act the mediator part in this one, because Djura was going to have to talk to the staff about it to avoid problems with them in case things got hot.

And things were about to get hot. Pete was literally in the Russian´s face, with “faggot” being the nicest word coming from their mouths. Czesch moved in-between them to get things under control.

“Come on, both of you!! We came here to have fun, not kick each other in the face!!”

“Who is this idiot, cyka? Your boyfriend came in here to save your ass?”

“Czesch, I can beat him!! I don’t need any help, I can take him alone!”

The Kid pressed his palm against his chest, gently stopping his forward momentum.

“Pete, I´m sure you can take him, but what about all the people around him?”

“Probably a bunch of assholes hoping to get cheap thrills!! The guy is a nobody!!”

“Nobody calls Ulianov Grazarin a “nobody” and gets to live!! Not in his establishment!”

So, there it was. Pete had been lucky enough to pick up a fight with the owner… well, most likely the owner´s son. That spoiled, rich kid face was hard to hide under all of his wealth.

“Pete, the last thing we want is to get thrown out of here, so please, calm down!”

“Here goes nothing!!”

Pete went past Czesch as he grabbed him by the collar, hoping that he would miss his strike. Unfortunately for the Kid, Pete managed to land his blow, forcing Ulianov to punch him in the face with his full fist. The blow had been a hard one, knocking Pete into the ground. The Bloody Bastards stirred, while Ulianov´s posse laughed at Pete´s fuckup.

“The tiny Brit wants another homemade Russian sandwich!? Ulianov has more if you want them!”

“Alright, mate, calm down! You already got a punch into him, he has learned his lesson, he won´t fuck with you again, just leave it at that!”

“Hah! Leave it at that!! But it´s so much fun!”

Ulianov kicked the then grounded Pete in the torso, forcing Czesch to stand in-between and receive a blow himself. He brushed it off to a side, not interested in taking an active part on the conflict.

“Look, I told you to quit it!!”

“Hah!! I´m going to have fun with you then!!”

Ulianov´s first hit was a powerful one, landing on Czesch´s ribs and causing relative pain due to the alcohol in his blood. What Czesch hadn´t expected was the glass in Ulianov´s hand becoming a weapon. Part of him, quite naively, thought that wasting a drink was a sin by itself. Apparently, for the owner of the place, it wasn’t that much of a waste.

The crashing glass made the same sound as the bottle during Kieran´s suicide football game, only it was muffled by the droning beat of the music. It was at that point that Czesch had enough. Enough of the music, enough of the fucking blinking and enough of cheeky bastards like Ulianov crashing glass objects against his head. He was done with it… and he would show the worm in front of him the consequences of pissing him off.

The Bloody Bastards were about to enter a fight they were bound to lose, since Ulianov´s people were more in number. The mob son was laughing, aware that he was untouchable and that he could do whatever he wanted with the person in front of him. He was preparing another blow when Czesch sprung up from his static posture and grabbed Ulianov´s readied fist.

At first, the Russian boy was unsure of what was going on, then realized that the Czesch´s grip was becoming tighter and tighter, slowly but surely crashing his fingers and twisting his wrist. Finally becoming aware of his predicament, he tried to hit with his remaining hand, only to have Czesch do a quick disarming hit on his elbow, rendering Ulianov´s arm useless. The Russian kid could only see how the Czech boy in front of him looked at him with blood pouring all over his face and eyes used to having killing intent in them.

“You done fucked up, mate…”

Czesch tightened his grip, forcing Ulianov to take a knee as his wrist started to give in to the pressure. He couldn’t escape and Czesch wouldn’t let him move from place, moving only making him more prone to breaking his arm even more.

“Tovarich! Don´t stand there and do something!”

In the end he called his lap dogs to do his dirty work.  Czesch finished breaking his wrist and left him to a side as 2 of Ulianov´s men, drunk and not ready at all, came tumbling towards him.  Czesch didn’t give it much thought when engaging them. A jab at a stomach, that caused the man in question to puke out all of his contents, and a backhand on the other man´s jaw, causing him to fly a few metres in that direction before tumbling down.

He went back to Ulianov. The rest of his men were reluctant, figuring that losing an arm or a leg because of that was not worth the effort. Czesch grabbed him by the collar as the son of the Russian mob tried to crawl out of danger. Czesch would have none of that.

“Listen to me, you ruskie piece of shit… I´ve had it with dumb fucks like you thinking they own the world just because their daddy has connections. Well, listen here, because your fucking family and connections? I don’t give a damn about any of that!! If you are stupid enough to try and wrestle with me, then you should be expecting me to come and give back what you send my way. Because my patience with you bloody people is beyond spent!”

“… Argh… fuck you…”

Czesch retorted with a headbutt, splattering his blood onto his crying opponent.

“Try that shit again and I swear I´ll make sure to finish the job!! Fuck with my people again and you´ll find yourself in a world of pain, understood!?... Understood!?!?”

“…Argghhh… Da, Da, yes!!”

“Good!”

Czesch dropped him to a side, letting Ulianov´s pets drag him away from that clusterfuck. After they left, Czesch sighed out of relief.  If the bastard had stayed any more time, he would have stayed to his word and finished his life right then and there. Back in the Czech Republic, during the war, Bishop had taught him a valuable lesson: Idiocy can´t be cured, but you can keep it in check by pulling smartass idiots back in line, hitting them as hard as you can so they get the message. He doubted that would work in that town, but it was worth a shot.

Speaking of smartasses, Pete got back up to his feet, blood coming out of his nose, and Annie checked over him to make sure he was alright (while also laughing at his misery). Ulianov got a good hit on him, but it certainly wasn’t anything as bad as what Czesch had been through. The glass hadn’t completely shattered, yet it had opened a few head wounds ,  with blood pouring from some of them. Before anyone could get a word to him, Czesch went to the bar, asking for vodka and some bandages, before going to the bathroom to get the pieces out. They were kind enough to see the circumstances and have the medical supplies at hand for him to use.

The night had to gone to shit… again. He started to wonder whether it was the usual for that group or it was because of him that things had gone awry. He also started to notice the clear divide between him and the rest of the people his age he kept encountering. There was a clear group of cowardly fighters, only hitting when they knew that they wouldn’t be hit back, and then another of suicidal fools, picking up fights against him they were bound to lose. Back when he was a kid, he´d call those types of fights “training” and use it to polish his abilities, and he´d understand if those people did so for that same reason… yet they seemed to be doing so only to get a kick out of it, to enjoy themselves. It sickened him… he couldn’t understand…

He applied the last of the band-aids on his head and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked menacing enough, which made him wonder if there´d be any more fools trying to challenge him after that night. He was bound to draw more heat from such an incident, and that´d put him in the Russian mob´s hitlist sooner or later… he had to be careful, yet it seemed that even if he tried he´d find himself backed into a corner again.

He came out of the bathroom, face and head clean of injury,  and saw Pete waiting by the door, either wanting to take a piss himself or just talk to him.

“Look, Czesch, I´m… Fuck, I´m sorry about getting you involved!!”

“It´s alright!! It looks worse than it actually is!”

“OK! We are leaving now!! They said that they´ll gloss over it if we leave for the night and don’t cause any more trouble down the line!!”

“Sounds like a good offer!”

“Better than most I´ve received!! Now come on, let´s bounce out of here!”

They came out of that wretched place to find out that most of the group had already left, apart from Tony, Reuben, Tiff and Annie. Djura, apparently, got a call from the hospital and had to go, probably something family related. Just as they all joined, Pete got a call on his cellphone and talked away from the group to avoid anyone listening in on him.

Annie came jumping and humming the first tune Czesch had played on Sunday with Vivi. He hated when they did that… especially with “Back Alley Cats”. People had the tendency to mess it up after hearing it only once.

“C, you showed that asshole who´s boss!! That was amazing!

“Well, I… don´t feel too proud about it, to be honest.”

“Oh, come on! The way you twisted his wrist and forced him into the ground… I laughed my ass off!!”

“He certainly wasn´t…”

Pete came back with a worried look in his face. Apparently, the phone call had been a dangerous one, or at least that´s what his expression said. Either that or the scuffle with the Ulianov kid had spooked him.

“Czesch, I know that this is wrong and everything, but I need to ask a favor of you.”

His head still hurt and he was in a foul mood, but the Kid wasn’t in a state that could stop him from helping someone out.

“Ask away.”

“Could you take Annie home for me? I would do so myself, but I have to go have a chat with some undesirables and can´t keep them waiting much longer, even though I´m more worried about her… could you do that?”

“Sure thing, I live close to her, so it won´t be an problem.”

“You are amazing!! I owe you for tonight, mate! Catch you all later!”

He sprinted away into the night and the rest did their thing and went their separate ways, leaving Czesch to deal with a drunk girl who had tried to make out with him in the same room as her boyfriend.

Things could only go downhill from there.

Czesch had nothing against Annie. In fact, he liked her quite a lot when compared to the other examples he had to deal with prior to him coming to Harville. However, it was one thing dealing with the usual Annie, and even that was excruciating at times, but drunk Annie was in a league of its own. She did a mix between dancing and jogging that was supposed to take the place of walking, all while laughing and pointing at everything she deemed mildly entertaining. It wasn´t too obnoxious, but it certainly made Czesch feel uncomfortable as she accompanied her. And it had been a long while since the Kid had been this uncomfortable.

“Hey, C!! Sing something for me!”

“Sing? Right now?”

“Yeah! Or can you only sing with a piano?”

“Well, I can try…”

He started to think about a chorus for one of his songs as Annie danced around in circles. He started humming and snapping his fingers until he got to the part he wanted.

“I am so chipper/ go dip away your hate/ If you ain´t a dipper/you won´t reach an early grave…”

“Hehehe, I will never get why your lyrics sound so stupid!”

“…It´s supposed to sound like that with dumb music… to relax after a heavy song.”

“Another one!”

“… Keep on walking and move along/ This aint the time to sing a bloody song/ Take your time, don´t do it wrong/ The nighttime blues just aint that long…”

“That sounds a bit better! Another!”

“… Pick away the bastard, pick him away/ Throw him out the night and enter the day/ The hours are forlorn/ the tongue will keep on sore/ the drunkard will always move on his way…”

“That a song of yours? It sounds more like you picked it up in a bar!”

It wasn´t one of his, that was for sure. Nate had learned it a long time ago and he had simply adapted it. They barely ever played it, for the obvious reason that Annie was still laughing her ass off.

“Hey, C! Can you get me another drink?”

“Haven´t you drunk enough?”

“I´m still growing and need my nourishment! Can you buy me a drink, Lancelot?”

Appealing to his White Knight complex… it wouldn’t work. Not that night, anyways.

“I don’t think that´s a good idea… just stay thirsty until we get home.”

“Hmmmmm, you are no f- Arghhh!!!”

“Annie!? What´s wrong!?”

Annie crouched on the floor, holding her head and groaning from pain that Czesch could not locate the source of. He knelt next to her,  remembering something she had revealed a while back.

“Is it the migraines?”

“… Yeah… argh, god… it hurts to… to think…shit…”

“We´ll move when you feel better, OK?”

“Give me… a minute… arghhhh… fuck…”

Annie sat on the floor, still holding her hair with both her hands. For a moment, it looked like she was about to puke, but it was just a gag reflex. After a few minutes, she seemed to have calmed down, her look becoming much less cheerful than before, with only a silent chuckle to confirm that she was no longer in deep pain.

“Better?”

“… Chipper…”

“Alright, let´s get a move on.”

The Kid got up and extended his hand, but she looked aloof, not really focusing on him.

“I don´t think I can…”

“Huh?”

“My legs don´t want to get up. And I´m a bit tired now… I think I´m going to get some sleep first…”

“Oh, the hell you are!! Come on, get up!”

The irony was not lost to him, and so he couldn´t help but wince at the obvious reversal of fortunes. How was a sleepyhead like him supposed to tackle that?

“I don´t want to… just leave me here…”

Czesch was starting to get pissed, so he bit his lip and went for the most embarrassing thing he thought of to get that situation somewhere. He just hoped that none of the SOT had any cameras around to watch him do it.

“Hop on my back.”

He turned around and knelt on the ground, with Annie looking puzzled for a moment.

“What did… What did you just say?”

“I won´t say it again, hop on my back and I´ll carry you.”

“F-For real?”

“Yes, for real. Come on, we don´t have all night!”

She didn’t quite accept the ride… it was more like she jumped into it the moment finished the sentence.

“Yay!! Piggyback ride, woooohooo!!”

“…Someone please hit me in the head, just enough so that I get knocked out… Ouch! Not you!!”

It was almost 4 AM and Czesch was giving a piggyback ride to a drunk girl to get her home. At least she had calmed down, so that was a plus. Carrying her was quite easy, since she wasn’t moving as much and her weight was nothing compared to that of mortars or other static weaponry. He simply moved along the empty streets, hoping that the night would be over soon.

“Hey… Czesch…”

Her whispering caught him offguard. He couldn’t quite see her face like that, but her eyes looked droopy, like all her energy had left her body.

“What is it?”

“Are you… mad at me?”

“Huh? Why are you asking that?”

“Because… Because I made you scream at me… and I know you don’t like that…”

The Kid sighed. It was true that he never enjoyed shouting at people. He did his best to conjure a fake smile for her.

“… It´s alright, I´m not mad at you. I´m just… a bit on edge, is all.”

“OK…good… your heart is beating so slow… it almost sounds like it´s not beating at all...”

He could feel her ear in his back, and that made him blush for some reason. She started whispering some nonsense into his ear, most of which he couldn’t piece together. This was the first time he was experiencing something like that, and, even though he had bigger concerns than that, he couldn’t help but notice the hard-on forming in his pants… that and how difficult it was to move with his rod fully extended. He had to avoid that as much as possible during firefights.

“Hey, Czesch…”

“Y-Yeah?”

“Am I heavy?”

“Not at all. D-Don´t worry about that, we are almost there.”

“Good… I… I´m glad you are OK…”

They finally reached Annie´s flat, still a humongous mess even after his round of cleaning. Czesch entered her bedroom and left her on the bed, hurrying before she got any weird ideas in her head. He was about to go for the door when she reached his hand and grabbed it. His heart was pounding faster and faster with every passing second, the uncertainty of the whole situation and his baton still in full swing making his train of thought harder by the second.

“W-What is it, Annie? Are you feeling alright?”

“I don´t feel like sleeping… I want to play instead.”

Those eyes… same as in the party. Alarms were ringing in the Kid´s head like never before, but he didn’t have an out for a situation like that.

“Uuuhhhh… p-play what?”

“You know what I mean… don´t be shy…”

She started moving her hand around his arm, then his chest and to his pants. Sweat started forming in Czesch´s face, his breathing getting heavier again and his mind about to drag away into a land he had never dared enter. She was moving in to take his pants off when Annie uttered the words she shouldn’t have said that night.

“I want to take all your worries away… so let me do it…”

He took a step back upon hearing those words, remembering a moment still tragic and bitter in memory. It had been right after Sabrina had lost her life, when Laria had offered to ease his pain by doing something she had heard from other soldiers only women could do… he still recalled seeing her desperate visage, tears flowing with a smile made up of pity, as she spoke those words… it had been too much for him that time, and now it was but another dagger to remind him of errors past. He had to be honest with himself, because as much as part of him wanted to… he couldn’t… he couldn’t do it….

“I´m sorry, Annie… I can´t…”

She looked at him, perplexed for a moment, grabbing the bed sheets into a tight fist.

“W-What!? Why!? Why don´t you want to-“

“I have my own reasons… just go to sleep, please…”

“… It´s because of her, isn´t it? The mystery girl…”

“Yes, it´s because of her, but not in the way you-“

She threw her pillow at him while groaning in anger. He made no attempt at evading it, so shaken that he still was. The Kid simply stood there, watching the maddened girl before him venting out against him.

“Vivi was right, you are obsessed with her!! So obsessed you don´t even have the guts to make a move on me!”

“That has nothing to do with her!! You are drunk and I´m in the same gang with your boyfriend, and I have enough problems as is!”

“A gang need I remind you, I invited you in!! I´m trying to help you out here, but all you can do is remember that bitch and close up on me!”

Insulting Laria was akin to throwing stones while being in a minefield… bad idea…

“Annie, don´t cross that line…”

“Oh, I´m going to cross it alright!! You said it yourself, the past is in the bloody past, yet you still fucking cling to it like there is no tomorrow!!”

“Annie… stop, last warning…”

“Why the fuck would you cling to her!? What did you do to become so obsessed, huh!? What can I do to get you the same!?”

“Stop it…”

“What did you do!?!? Did you suck her pussy and can´t taste any others!?”

“Annie, for the love of-“

“What did she do!?!?”

“ENOUGH!!”

Annie jumped back as Czesch tightened his fists. He was trying to keep his wits, remain calm, but nothing was working. She had pressed all the wrong buttons willingly, even with his constant pleas for her to stop. The only thing he could do was stop his physical onslaught. The verbal one would begin whether he wanted it or not, the words burning in his throat as coals in a fire. It had been a long night and his patience had ran out.

“You want to know what I bloody did!?!? I left her alone, that´s what!! I promised to be by her side, to protect her as she would protect me, to give her some hope for tomorrow! And what did I do!? Not only did I survive, but I fucking left her, abandoned her to a country that wanted her dead. And the worst part!?!? That never would have happened if that bastard hadn’t… if he hadn´t… ARGH, FOR FUCK´S SAKE!!”

He punched the wall next to him, almost making a hole in it. He had to let the repressed pain and anger out in some way, and the wall would hurt less than her. Annie was shocked, static on top of her bed, watching the situation with fear as it unfolded, thinking for a second that he was about to do something horrible to her. The Kid managed to let a deep sight out, cooling off as quickly as he could. He had remembered him again, the drowner, the monster, the hellish spawn who had driven him away from Laria. It isn´t Annie´s fault, he kept telling himself.”It isn´t  hers, yet I´m still mad”. He didn’t want to be angry. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, but the world kept forcing him to. He didn’t want to lose any more people in his life… he needed some rest.

“Go to sleep, Annie… I… I don´t want to argue anymore…”

And with that, he left the room, closing the door behind him. As he did, he lay his back against it for a second, sighing a second time. He had fucked up royally, he knew that much. He hadn´t completely lost it by sheer willpower, but he had been way too close to harming Annie. Her words rang back in his mind like daggers. Worst part was… that they were true. For a man who says that living in the past never helped anyone, he truly relived it time and time again with a simple mention or any stimuli that reminded him of it, sometimes having disastrous consequences. He felt like a complete hypocrite, and there was nothing he hated more than hypocrites.

Half of what Annie had said came from the alcohol, the other… he´d rather not think much about it. He liked the girl, he really did, but a drunk night was no way to start a relationship like that. He´d wait it out, see the bigger picture and move when needed. It was a problem he could still solve, after all.

He came out of the building, the cold air of the night giving him some respite. His head was a bit of a mess… so much so he had almost forgotten about the exam in the morning. The best he could do now was hope that sleep would get him properly before heading off… a ridiculous notion, yet one that fit the circumstances.

After all, drunk people are known for their good judgement.

Annie stood still for a while longer after Czesch had left the room. For a second, she thought that he would enter again and smother her till she was dead. She couldn’t take her eyes away from his while he uttered those words. Dead eyes filled with anger and determination… and also eyes that were sad and saw the same pain day after day. He hadn´t come out of the room as a triumphant male, instead leaving with a sense of defeat and dread.

She had said the words Vivi had told her never to utter, and it felt wrong. She was furious for being rejected, but he was in his right and made complete sense. It was she that had acted childishly and had kept on pressuring him to do something he didn’t want to do. And he had been the one who had carried her halfway across town to make sure she made it out OK.

“Idiot… Idiot, who is the idiot now?”

She tucked herself in bed, her eyes watering due to frustration. She had made Czesch angry, the last thing she wanted to do to a person like him. Time and time again she had seen him keep his cool at situations that would challenge leaders, keeping that cocky smile of his, but there were certain places where, just like anyone else, he felt defenseless. And, to hurt him, she had done the whole tour around those spots.

“…He probably hates me now… shit, shit, shit…”

The hangover in the morning was bound to be a brutal one, worse with the migraines added. She already felt that she wanted to die, and that being the case, the morning would bring more suicidal tendencies.

She closed her eyes, trying to let the sense of desperation out of her body slowly.

The morning came without fanfare and a loud noise forced her out of her sleep. Someone was at the door, banging on and on incessantly. Seeing that it wasn’t stopping, she got out of bed and, wiggling side to side, she finally made it there and opened it, messy hair and party clothes to provide context.

“Can you stop with the fucking knocking!? Some of us are trying to-“

She froze. She immediately froze in place as the man in the door knocked again, trying to prove a point. Czesch had a half-smile formed and stood there as if nothing had happened yesterday night, the bags under his eyes still prominent.

“We have class in 30 minutes… and there´s an exam right after that, hope you haven’t forgotten.”

“O-Oh, Czesch!! I… I kind of fell asleep!”

“Aha… you remember anything about last night?”

“Errr… No? Not much, my head is still a little woozy”

He scratched the back of his neck while looking to a side, sighing to put an uncomfortable thought to rest.

“Good… good… well then, are you going to get ready or are you having me stand here for nothing?”

“Oh right, school! Shit, shit, where was the… Alright, give me a couple of minutes!”

She rushed indoors, trying to remember what to do in the appropriate order.

“You have 5 and I´m being generous!”

“Shhhh! Don´t shout.”

“Oh, sorry…”

Almost 10 minutes passed and they were off. Annie had somehow managed to look semi-decent, while also carrying her notes (She had been smart and had prepared her material the day before). She was having a really hard time going ahead, the hangover feeling just like her migraines, every step of the way becoming a mountain ladder of sorts.

“Urgghhh, I can´t… I can´t do this… I… urghh…”

“Drama queen…”

“Hey! I heard that one!”

“What, you want me to carry you over?”

“I… wait, what?”

“I´m not going to let you drop halfway… the moment you give up, I´ll carry you there myself.”

What the hell is his problem… she thought of that as Czesch kept up with her pace. The night before she had done the worst thing she knew to screw him up, and now he was offering help once again. He clearly wanted something with her, but if he didn’t want to do it the night before,then what was his goal? What was going on in that head of his?

“We have 5 minutes left, you think you can double time it?”

“Huh? Y-Yeah, sure….”

They sprinted the rest of the way and managed to get in on time. Jan was already there, Lucie having called in sick and waiting for the exam to get out of bed. Annie thought that she had been smart, but such a trick would not work in her case.

She sat down, exhausted and about to faint. Jan looked back, a worrisome frown forming in his face.

“Anna? Are you alright?”

“J-Just great… can´t you see how full of energy I am? Mind your own business.”

“… Sheesh, forget I asked anything…”

Annie felt her eyes becoming heavier and heavier by the minute. She was still tired, but in this particular class she couldn’t fall asleep. If she did, she´d probably be notified again and that would reach his father in no time. She couldn’t let that happen, no matter what. If only there was a way to-

“Annie, you can sleep if you want, I got you covered.”

She wasn’t quite sure what surprised her most: Czesch being awake or the fact he wanted to stay awake for her sake.

“W-What? Are you nuts?”

“I´ll make sure she doesn’t suspect a thing, so just get some rest.”

“You are the one who´ll watch over me? A guy that spends his mornings sleeping wherever he pleases?”

“Look, do you trust me or not? It´s that simple.”

Honest eyes… she lost part of herself when responding as she stared into them.

“… I… I trust you…”

“Then just have a quick sleep, you´ll feel better that way.”

Czesch was about to say something else, but Annie fell asleep immediately after.

Annie was clearly happy about the exam result. Every answer popped in her head as she went through it and she would definitely score a high mark. The same couldn’t be said for Czesch, who struggled from the lack of any sleep, but who managed to get most of the answers solved. The results would show themselves after a while.

They both walked home together, this time not talking between them. Annie tried to evade looking in his direction. She was embarrassed, filled with confused feelings about everything that had happened since the night before. She had been at her bitchiest when she confronted Czesch like that, and the last man she had fought off in that way had never spoken to her ever again. And yet, Czesch was still there, helping her out without worry.

She stopped dead on her tracks. She had to know what was going on through that head of his.

“Hmm? Annie, what´s wrong?”

“What´s wrong? What´s wrong with you, that´s the question I´m asking here, and I´m drawing a blank.”

He turned around, scratching the back of his neck as usual.

“Errr… Care to explain where this is going?”

“After last night, you should be at least furious with me, but… but you´ve done nothing but help me this morning, even so far as to not getting sleep! That´s not you at all!”

“Yeah, I guess that must have weirded you out…”

“Why? That´s all I want to know.”

He pondered for a moment, then sighed as he scratched his head.

“Hmmm… why am I not mad at you? Well, very simple: Thing is, I am mad at you.”

Annie´s puzzled face must have looked funny from the outside, because the Kid managed to chuckle.

“Huh?”

“I really am, but… it doesn’t take away the fact that, as much as it pains me to admit it… you were right. About everything.”

Was that… a confession? Was Czesch confessing to his feelings for her? What the actual hell was happening?

“W-What are you- A-Are you really-?”

“I am still clinging to the past, and no matter how many times I say otherwise, I´ll always do that. Because it reminds me of what I really am, and of how I got here in the first place. If it wasn´t for you, I wouldn’t have realized how dumb I look when I do stuff like that.”

“Oh… so you aren´t actually…”

“Hmm? What, was I supposed to say something else?”

“… No… no, you weren´t…”

Annie managed to pull off a grin and a chuckle. She hadn´t got Czesch to confess his feelings, but at least he had been clear with his words. She was more than glad that he wasn’t angry enough to cut their relationship short… because she really wanted to see how far it could go. Over the weekend, she would try to talk with him, maybe invite him over to teach her how to cook. Something to learn a little bit more about that weird boy walking next to her.

“Hey, C, mind coming to-“

Czesch´s phone rang, a jazzy tune coming out of it as he went to answer the call.

“Czesch speaking!... Aha… Yeah, yeah… when?... Oh, shit, really?... You could tell me about this stuff with some time, you know that right?... that big?... Argh, fucking hell… where are you picking me up?... I´ll get a cab there, will arrive in half an hour or so… talk to you later…”

He hung up, letting a groan out that left his lungs with no air at all. Annie looked at him with curiosity, wondering whether to ask or not. He was kind enough to provide context.

“… I have work to do… for the whole weekend…”

“Wha-? The whole weekend!?!? What are you doing that takes so long!?”

“Helping Vivi with some representatives, it´s… complicated business…”

“I can´t believe she needs you that bad to take a whole weekend away from you!”

Again, scratching the back of his neck. Talking about Vivi´s job always seemed to put him off.

“You could say that, yeah…”

“What about the presentation? We were going to practice on Saturday.”

“I´ll make sure to get my lines in order, you worry about getting Jan and Lucie up to scratch.”

“Hmmm… alright, I guess you have to go now…”

She felt a lot sadder than she expected, seeing him leave like that. Luckily, for once the Kid took notice and retaliated with one of his cheeky smiles.

“I´ll be back Sunday night, don´t worry.”

“I-I wasn´t worrying about you! You are just helping your sister, it ain´t like you are going to get killed or something!”

Czesch fell silent and dared not answer that statement. He instead grinned even more.

“I´ll make sure to get you something.”

“Oh, right, like that´s going to help.”

“See you on Monday, A! Don´t get drunk while I´m gone!”

“Fuck you too, C! Hope you catch something nasty while off!”

And they both parted ways, leaving Annie plenty of time to prepare something.

Czesch arrived at the airport and got into the company designated plane. He had been given minimal information about their contract, but it required the SOT, so it must have been quite a tough nut to crack or something outside the reach of the unit in that area. Vivi handed him the report and, as he read it, the Kid began feeling the need to pack as many fridges filled with nothing but ice as possible.

“Of course it had to be this shit… wake me up when we get there.”

Czesch was about to embark on a journey into memory lane, as an old acquaintance had just called them to her realm… and not in a figurative sense.

He was off to protect a princess… a princess younger and wiser than he ever would be.

Another sunny day in the desert nation of Aryakstan, a monarchy formed after the separation of one of the prior stan-like countries (Czesch couldn’t keep track with how many had just vanished in the last 5 years) and one that had managed certain stability in a sea of surrounding anarchy. True, they had guerrilla´s in the mountains and certain parts of the elites disproved greatly of the governing faction, but the king was a strong leader and had managed to keep things salvageable. Now, that man was on his deathbed, and his only daughter would have to carry the burden of fate.

Princess Rakya was already moving with conviction, talking with people and coming to friendly resolutions. She had leadership material, and people against the continuous rule of the king´s bloodline were setting their eyes on her to get the killing blow. Rakya knew that there was opposition, and set her Ministry of Intelligence to find as much info as possible on them. As it turned out, an anti-government organization had bought a mercenary group to set up the queen´s assassination. Having no other info on them and fearing for the princess´s life, the best course of action was to call in the professionals… Blue Sparrow´s SOT.

And that was the reason they were out in the middle of the desert… well, not quite the desert, but the middle of nowhere. It was the midway point between Rakya´s safe haven in her home and the last city she had visited. On that point, her bodyguards would be relieved and the SOT would make sure of her protection until they reached her home. Was it ethical to pay them such a high amount for such a menial task? Czesch didn’t question it much, people liked spending money on a lot of useless things. It was more likely that they had been set to deal with the troublemakers and be back before Monday… and the Kid was OK with that.

They had been flown in with a company SUV outfitted with the necessary material to act properly in the desert. Nate had taken position on a hill to their South, overlooking a smaller hill and the surrounding area. The others decided to wait in their different ways… Rob was making an inventory of their supplies, Buri checked the MG in the back, a FN Minimi (An older model, packing larger 7.62 caliber rounds),Vivi got the backpack UAV operational, while Czesch… well, the Kid read something important… important enough that Buri had to check it out himself.

“What are you reading there?”

“Hey, go bother someone else.”

“I think I want to take a look myself!”

He pried it out of Czesch´s hands, as if he were a bully stealing candy from a very dangerous midget.

“Buri, give it back, they are going to be here in 10 minutes! Let me finish the last line!”

“Class Project Presentation”!? What the hell is this?”

“It´s work, now can I have it back?”

“First you have to tell me how much you respect me!”

“Oh, go to hell!”

Vivi cleared her throat loudly enough to get their attention. She then proceeded to activate the small helicopter drone and launch it into the skies.

“Buri, give it back to the Kid and get yourself in the UAV camera.”

“Aye aye, Ma´am… lucky…”

“Piss off.”

Buri went into the car, giving Czesch´s script back. He kept on reading, but it was Vivi´s time to bother him.

“Would have never though you would take it so seriously.”

“Well, someone has to in this bloody place.”

“I feel proud of you… then again, I figured you would be at least a bit nervous.”

He raised his view from the piece of paper, weary of the second meaning behind her words.

“Huh? Why?”

“You know who we are going to see after all this time…”

He knew now, as his face reddened in advance for Vivi´s own brand of shipping.

“Oh god, V, don´t do this shit again, for the love of-“

“Your dearest Rakya!! I´m sure she´s still head over heels for you!”

“You are never going to let go, are you!? Nothing happened!”

“That´s what men always think when they aren’t interested…”

This was the team´s second time in the country (3rd time for Rob, but that was a completely different story). The first one had been a protection program for the Princess which lasted a week and a half. This happened right after the Italian incident, and Czesch had his morale on the lowest possible point. Being able to not fuck this one up gave him a bit more hope, but it had been just that: A week and a half of watching empty corridors and standing ready for threats that would never come. According to Vivi, the Princess had been eavesdropping on Czesch, interested by how young he was. They talked a couple of times and, according to her, she fell in fairy tale love.

“… Then again, I guess she´s a bit younger for your taste… I´m betting you are going 100% Annie for now…”

“Vivi, stop trying to hook me up with people, it´s embarrassing!”

“But it´s so much fun! Plus, you should at least get some experience at your age!”

“Talking from experience yourself or from lack of?”

“… Touché…”

They both laughed, even though they didn’t have much to laugh about. It was probably the heat playing tricks with them.

“Boss, you better see this!”

Czesch and Vivi came over to Buri, while Rob damned the men in Logistics for not putting enough atriquinine injectors for possible surgery.

“What is it?”

“I got eyes on the convoy and it looks like they are doing fine… but watch what happens when I go over to thermal…”

He switched the camera mode of the UAV, showing the 3 vehicle convoy moving up the road as white blobs. One of the blobs had something painted on top, hotter than the rest of the vehicle´s surface,  though it was hard to distinguish it.

“Looks like a… camel?”

“An ostrich? It is definitely a bird.”

“A bird… those are drops from its feathers… a Bloody Eagle… not them, shit, shit, shit!!”

Czesch remembered fire, ash, smoke, dust and ruin. That Eagle could only mean one thing, and he desperately hoped he was wrong about it. He took out the radio to talk with Nate.

“Overwatch, this is Cyprus, how copy?”

“Overwatch copies, send it my way.”

“Get eyes to the patch of desert to your… where would that bastard… Aha! North West, check for anything resembling German desert camouflage, how copy?”

“Errr, Cyprus, repeat last, did you specify Bundeswehr desert-pattern camo?”

“Confirmed. Look for any of that and report back.”

“Overwatch copies, over and out”

The Kid walked out the vehicle and into the scorching heat, checking the immediate surroundings for any venues of approach. Seeing the Southern approach being such a gentle slope, he managed to ascertain the Northern crest as the best possible attack position.

“Fuck me, I hope he doesn’t find him… this heat won´t help…”

“What´s going on, C?”

Vivi walked next to him, weapon in hand.

“Don´t panic, but I think we may be surrounded. And the people surrounding us are not rag-tag guerrilla…”

Bloody Eagles. Uttering their name in the Czech Republic meant remembering a lot of burning villages and towns. They were turned into a bedtime story for naughty kids, even though their actions had slaughtered thousands upon thousands of people. The Kid had the displeasure of encountering and having to survive with one of them under ironic circumstances… All of Czesch´s soul hoped that they weren´t dealing with such a group.

“Overwatch to Cyprus, come in.”

“This is Cyprus, send it.”

“Confirmed contact wearing desert camo on that patch of desert… looks like a sniper looking at our direction. Permission to engage, over?”

“Negative, keep an eye out for him and scan for more targets until I give you the word… Cyprus out… Argh, dammit! They are playing this one by the book…”

“You know who´s surrounding us?”

“Yup… if memory serves right and they haven’t changed tactics, we are dealing with a sniper,  around 8 people over that hill to our North, ready to charge the moment the party starts, and most likely an infiltrator inside the painted vehicle. They always liked painting a symbol of their group on top of things they blew up… a symbol of good luck so that the shrapnel hits the right spots.”

Vivi had her thoughtful stare on her, meaning she was brewing a strategy with what little info the Kid had on him. She was very good at that.

“Hmmm… Buri, get the MG set in that small hill to our South.”

“The one before Nate… got it.”

“And make sure you move there casually, do not make the sniper think we are onto their plan.”

They had been lucky that those bastards hadn’t patched into their comms, otherwise they´d be under a hail of fire already. Vivi´s mind was starting to accelerate as the plan came into view.

“Overwatch, this is Valory, the moment the party starts I want that sniper out of commission and eyes back North… we have scanned everything South of you and not a single fly is buzzing. Keep your ears open and pull back to Buri if you feel threatened.”

“Overwatch copies.”

“Barrock, man the MG and suppress the hills to our direct North as soon as you see a head popping up.”

“Barrock copies, setting up now.”

“Okay… Rob, you stay with me, we´ll get the princess in as quickly as possible and drive out as soon as we-“

“Forget that, we aren´t driving out.”

The Kid had to stop her short. They couldn’t leave the problem for later… that´d only make matters less manageable.

“… C, I know you aren´t in the best of terms with these people, but we have a mission and it revolves around protecting Rakya.”

“And it´s because of that… running away won´t eliminate the threat, only make it worse.”

“So we have to take them out no matter what?”

“They are probably the reason we were called in the first place, so yeah.”

Vivi breathed out deeply, brushing sweat out of her forehead.

“… Rob, you are going to make sure the girl stays safe. Me and Czesch will flank around those bastards as soon as Buri suppresses them. Czesch, I want you to stop the vehicle where you think that asshole is and neutralize as best as you can, then move with me.”

“Wilco.”

“Alright, all units, this is Valory, prepare for operation start.”

Czesch walked into the middle of the road, the heat becoming unbearable at that point of the day. He was pouring with sweat and panted heavily as the gear only became heavier. It was just like that 1st time in-country or that summer in Laos. And it looked like he would never be able to get used to the heat at all. He could do nothing but hope for Winter to come early that year.

The first vehicle appeared over the horizon as Czesch signaled it. The other two appeared right behind, keeping a safety separation distance and covering their sectors properly. It showed that the people in charge of her protection weren´t screwing around. Czesch let the first two vehicles into the redoubt where the SUV was parked. He stopped the third, signaling that he wanted the crew out of it to do a quick check.

It was a tense prospect. The moment the infiltrator knew that his cover had been blown, he would literally blow himself up. Those were the Bloody Eagles for you: 10 people sent to fulfill a task and they would all die to complete. It was sickening to think that human life came so cheap… then again, he was in no position to convince a bunch of zealots out of it.

The crew jumped out of the SUV, 8 people in total, all armed with sub-machineguns and wearing kevlar. They all got to the front of the vehicle, where they thought they would be received by a professional operator or an engineer of sorts to check their vehicle for possible secondary ordnance. Instead, they were met by a boy with a gun. Some of them even thought that he was from the anti-governmental guerrilla, a belief that only grew larger upon hearing his first words to them.

“Take my tears, my hate and my spite.”

Czesch knew those words had to produce a trigger. He had studied the Bloody Eagles culture during his time in Hereford from reports and interrogations, and their dogma was so religious their acolytes had to learn it by heart. He only needed one of them to-

“Blood of Bloods, hear my cry!!!”

With a swift move from his wrist, Czesch cocked his CZ-75 and pulled the trigger, blowing a hole in the head of their infiltrator who had finished the sentence. As the men around him got to their weapons and aimed them at him, Czesch wondered if it had been too easy. They must have thought that if the infiltrator died, the surprise attack would be done for. As he paid no mind of the gunmen around him, Czesch checked the body of the man he had murdered.

And, of course, he had a bloody timer on him… just his luck.

“Everyone away from the vehicle!!! Bomb!!”

The bodyguards were caught off-guard by this, but some had been in enough tours of the Middle-East to know that when someone shouts “Bomb!” or “IED!”, the best you can do is run away as fast as possible. 5 of the SUV´s crew ran as fast as their legs could manage to get to a safety distance, whereas the two remaining were still wondering whether it was a prank or not.

The car exploded in a blast of fire and shrapnel, completely decimating the 2 laggards and crippling one of the running operators as a piece of the car flew right into the back of his chest. They had put quite the amount of explosives in that thing, probably a bunch of mortar rounds worth of power, as the ground around the company SUV had shaken considerably.

“Valory to all callsigns, mission go! I repeat, mission go!”

Nate shot first, making the enemy sniper regret that he hadn´t found a better spot. With the sniper gone, Czesch started sprinting towards the hills, shouting at everyone to get eyes North and be ready to engage any targets. Vivi ran to meet him, carrying her modified G36 assault rifle and Czesch´s “Lightbringer”. They made their way to the left side of the hills just as Buri´s Minimi started firing at the first targets.

“Overwatch, Barrock, this is Valory. Moving in with Cyprus to flank enemy forces, watch your fire.”

“Overwatch copies, got eyes on you.”

“Barrock copies.”

Czesch and Vivi headed to a defilade to avoid getting spotted by someone on the side. They wanted to get the jump on them and take them out before the firefight went on for too long.The longer a firefight goes, the bigger the chances someone on your team will fuck up and get himself/herself killed. That wasn´t just opinion, it was a law of combat.

They finally got into position, and got their weapons trained on the group of hostiles. There were 6 of them, and that fired off all sorts of alarms on Czesch´s head.

“6… there should be 8 of them.”

“You mean there´s 2 that are missing?”

“Probably their commanding element… most likely scenario, they are far off in case the plan goes to shit… argh, this ain´t good. I wanted to be done with all of them at once.”

“Well, let´s focus on those up front… on my mark… Mark!”

The name of Czesch´s gun, “Lightbringer”, came from the flash hider on the muzzle of the weapon, which lowered the weapon´s visibility by making each shot harder to see than without it. The name also came from the 6.5 caliber rounds packed inside its magazines, rounds which made Vivi´s old gun look like a peashooter.

And those 6.5ers cut swathes through the Eagles, the rounds doing quite more damage to Kevlar than they had anticipated. The first burst had taken out 2 of them, leaving a third on the sand gasping for air as the bullets lodged inside his torso. The remaining 3 tried to turn towards the new threat, only to find two guns taking single shots at them, in a position with no cover. As much as they tried to run, they couldn’t match Vivi´s ability to lead up shots. She was an expert at it, for no matter how fast the person was running, her shot would reach its designated point. And if it didn’t, it wouldn’t take more than a 2nd one to finish the job.

It took them 30 endless seconds to finish their targets up. 5 people lay dead, with a 6th about to cross the Styx. Knowing he had little time to get information out of the dying man, Czesch ran towards him, not heeding Vivi´s warnings for remaining targets. He knew there were no more people around, and that the last man would put his remaining doubts to rest.

He finally made it to the bloody mess that once had been a human being, and then he crouched next to him. A bullet had gone through his right leg and another had penetrated his chest, right into the stomach. The poor sod was puking blood, trying his hardest to keep his innards to himself…

“Who is your target?”

He spat, signaling that he was still conscious.

“I already know who it is, but I want to hear it from you… the Princess?”

“… Rakya… the whore…”

A response like that meant that he wasn’t as strong-willed as the Kid had initially thought.

“Guessed as much… where is your leader and the other guy?”

“…ready… battle…”

“We´ll meet them soon enough, I´m sure… they only have until tonight to finish the contract anyway. You haven’t changed that much, have you?”

“… How do you… know so much about us?”

Czesch scratched the back of his neck, reticent about revealing his identity… no harm in giving a dying man the truth, that´s what he decided.

“You are not the only monsters to come from the war in the Czech Republic.”

And with those words, the dying man was granted illumination. And then he laughed, laughed as much as his collapsing lungs would allow.

“I… cough… I never knew… I´d die at the hands… of THE Svudnik… I´m… I´m happy it went this way… happy…”

“… Rest with your blood and kin… kunda…”

Czesch put his hand next to the incendiary grenade on his body. For a Bloody Eagle, there were two ways to go: Either by someone else´s gun or by fire. The fire thing came from the burning of Kàmen, a fatidical massacre that formed their legend. He pulled the pin and moved back to Vivi, trying not to hear the man´s laugh as he burned alive. Mad men, the lot of them, but still killers like Czesch. He couldn’t deny the dying wish of a man who had gone through the same as him.

“What was that? C, did he just-“

“It´s the way they go, burning off like a star about to die… come, we need to make plans.”

“The two stragglers. You know anything about them?”

“They will come to us soon enough. The only thing we can do is prepare for the worst.”

“I´m trusting your judgement on this one… Valory to all callsigns, mission complete, return to vic.”

They came back to  the parked vehicles, where the Princess´s retinue had formed a circle with their vehicles to cover the entire area. Nate came down with Buri, both joking and laughing at one of Nate´s quips. Rob had managed to stabilize the wounded man, deeming the other two “too charred to even check”. Vivi separated herself from Czesch to talk to the convoy lead, to get more information on their hidden spy and to exchange the protection programme for the time. Czesch went back to the vehicle by himself, trying to piece the puzzle together.

He kicked one of the tires out of frustration. When nothing happened, he wished for someone to shoot at him to get things heated, but he never would have wished for blood-crazed zealots with nothing to lose. He sat in the back of the vehicle, sighing as he stretched out, trying to form a counter of sorts in his head.

Someone was behind him and reflex had him pull out his gun and aim… and he had just aimed his gun at their contractor. Rakya was frightened for a second, but her caramel face and bright black eyes returned to a cheerful persona that ended up brushing the gun to a side and hugging the Kid, who was more than weirded out by that insane exchange.

“It really is you!! Oh, it´s been so long, feels like forever!”

“Errr, yeah, about a year… ummm, sorry about aiming at you, I´m a… a bit on edge.”

“I can imagine. Protecting me must be quite the tiring job for you people.”

“Not at all, Princess. I´ve been through worse than this.”

“And last time I told you to stop calling me Princess! Call me Rakya.”

He didn’t remember ever hearing that from her. Then again, he only remembered certain parts about his last tour of that desert. Her royal tone and authoritative figure only helped him calm down back to a more sarcastic persona, grin on top.

“As you wish, Princess.”

“Hmmmm, you are no fun.”

“Didn’t come here to have fun, came here to do my job.”

“But you can have both if you try.”

“In my line of work, I doubt that´s the case… Cyprus to Valory, can we get a move on?”

“Give me 2 more minutes, C, I´m almost done.”

“Copy... Princess, could you get me access to the palace blueprints? I´m going to need them.”

“Yes, I´ll give them to you right away!”

He was surprised by her willingness to provide sensitive information just like that. He would have tried to dig further on it, but Nate kept looking on his direction and giggling like an idiot.

“Thank you… What the fuck are you giggling about, Nate!? Oh, piss off, you man-child!”

Czesch had to make a battle plan and, as they got everything set and rode off, he still was planning on it. He had something resembling one, but it was risky and he wanted everyone to hear it out first, especially Rakya, for it involved putting her in danger. Vivi kept on driving as Czesch went over the blueprints for the 16th time. Rakya sat in the middle of the car with Nate and Buri on either side, as Rob lay down in the back, trying to get some proper sleep (He couldn’t sleep in planes and he didn’t have time prior to the ambush). Buri was the first to open up.

“So, are you going to tell us about those assholes or what? According to the Boss, you know them.”

“More friends of yours? Oh, C, you should have told me earlier! I would have prepared some sort of welcoming party, with balloons and the sort.”

“I didn’t realize it was them until I saw the painted bird on that SUV… I still can´t believe those arseholes… Princess, you have some desperate people after your head.”

He didn’t bother raising his view, so he only guessed that Rakya´s face was beyond puzzlement.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Princess, it means that Czesch here just remembered that his schoolmates all turned out to be a bunch of pricks.”

“Cut the jokes for a bit, Nate… Who are they, C?”

He raised his view from the blueprints, his worst expectations becoming true. He took a deep breath and lay the full picture on them.

“… Bloody Eagles… I would say they are damn finest the Czechia military had to offer, but I´d be lying. They were, in a sense, worse than us when it came to putting the fear on the other side, and that is already quite the stretch. They weren´t just trained to fight, they were trained to bring down countries, cutting supply lines,bombing buildings, setting entire cities on fire… that´s their signature. They already brought down the Czech Republic and, for a price, they will do the same anywhere else.”

“So, they are Czech?”

“Some Slovaks, Poles and Romanians as well. They don´t work with the Czechia government anymore, as their leader got killed by one of their firing squads for treason. Now they do mercenary work, mostly in the same vein… that´s why its weird they are carrying out her assassination. They are not exactly bad at it, but… I would have got others to do the dirty work, and I´m not even that much into it.”

“They didn´t seem that well-trained… we dispatched them quickly enough.”

“They are used to quick engagements against people that don´t know they are coming. It´s the basis of guerrilla warfare, and they are some of the best the world has at it. They weren´t expecting us to be on top of them so soon… and they looked like younger members, so there´s that.”

“Well, at least we dealt with them! That sniper didn’t even get to shoot his last, poor bastard!”

“There are two more left.”

“What of them? They won´t be able to touch us once we get there.”

“That´s where you are wrong… and I really wish you weren’t.”

Czech sighed heavily, about to drop the hard facts.

“Each of their contracts has a time limit, and their time limit is most definitely tonight. Those 2 will complete the contract, no matter how well we entrench ourselves in. If they can´t see a way in… they´ll blow the whole place up, simple as that.”

“It´s not that easy to blow up a palace.”

“It actually is… this one at least. Gas line goes through the whole building, and those bastards have breached highly secured military bases before. It won´t take them much to just kill everyone… they already have, basically. Even if we keep moving Rakya around… it wouldn’t work. They are relentless like that, they will get their way whether we like it or not.”

Silence fell in the SUV. Czesch knew there was an out, but it was way too risky for Rakya.

“So, the moment the princess gets there… we are toast? Like, literal toast?”

“Mmhhhmmmm… Security is extremely tight, so they´ll probably go for that, killing everyone first, then going for her… unless…”

“Unless what?”

He gulped, knowing that he was about to speak insanity.

“Unless we lower security, that´s a way we can turn the game around.”

“C, you can´t possibly mean that!? You´d be inviting them in!”

“The Bloody Eagles follow through with their contracts, but they don´t want a lot of collateral unless it´s needed. If they see that the gates are more open, they won´t think about going through with Plan B until they finish their work. They´ll be desperate, so they won´t doubt when moving in.”

“You´d leave Rakya defenseless… all to draw the moths to the light…”

“I´ll stay inside, make sure no harm comes to her, while you patrol the surroundings. Let´s be honest here, I´m the one that knows them best and I´m the best at CQC of the whole group in case things get dirty.”

Vivi pondered for a moment, scratching her chin. She had to add her own input before agreeing to anything.

“You´d be up against 2 people if they force a lockdown… you are staying with Buri, and I don´t want any-“

“There is a biometric scanner in the room, and they probably will have access to it. If they see more than 1 person in the room, they´ll just blow it up. I have to be there, while Rakya hides somewhere safe. That way, I´ll get the jump on them.”

“This plan is absolutely bonkers!!... I love it!!”

“Shut up, Nate!! C, I´m sure you have thought this through, but I´m still telling you that-“

“He can do it.”

Rakya spoke up. All the male members of the SOT looked in her direction, even Rob, who had just woken up. Vivi was too busy driving to stare at her.

“Czesch can protect me just fine if it comes to that… besides… I don´t want any more people to die protecting me. If this is the best way so that no one else has to die, then… so be it.”

“… Princess, with all due respect-“

“I know you think that his plan is too risky, Vivienne… but in our hardest times we need to have a little faith in risk. My father has taught me that much.”

“… Understood… the client always has the last say…”

As Czesch kept on making final preparations, Vivi whispered something in his ear.

“If you die, I´ll kill you.”

Czesch couldn´t help but grin.

The palace was more of a fortress than a house. It combined good architecture, with alabaster and ivory in as many spots as possible, as well as reinforced doors and windows, with a security system with its own separate electrical grid, managing everything from cameras to locks. It was a system asking to be exploited by minds smarter than the ones it was constructed by.

Czesch and Rakya were already in the panic room, both waiting for the inevitable assault, as the rest of the SOT made the palace seem protected, but not impossible to breach. The palace security had been informed about the plan and, with the Princess´s approval, they reluctantly agreed to it. The only one who seemed to believe in their chances was Czesch, and even he wasn´t 100% sure of them.

He prepared his gun with the corresponding attachments, as Rakya just sat there, watching him with curiosity. She was quieter than before, looking down the moment Czesch decided to lift his eyes to meet hers.

“Are you tired? You should probably get some sleep.”

“No, no, it´s… not that.”

“Okay then… is it this gun?”

“… Yeah…”

Seeing his “Lightbringer” in proper firing condition, he brushed it off to a side. The last thing he wanted was the client feeling even more pressure.

“You never did like them, did you? I remember you looking at my holster like you saw a piece of dung on the road the first time around.”

Her face immediately lit up, catching Czesch off-guard. He kept forgetting that, for all intents and purposes, he was still talking to a kid just like him.

“Wait, you remember that!?”

“From time to time, I remember certain details about clients.”

“What else do you remember?”

“You had a plushie of sorts when we first met. You tried to hide it the first time I entered your room.”

“Ahhh, Yaffa! I thought you hadn´t noticed!”

“One of its legs was stuck in the box you hid it in and my job was checking for bombs or the sort…”

“Yeah, I didn’t want a boy to enter my room and find out I was still a kid playing with toys. Would have crushed my hopes if I hadn’t done that.”

“You also had a patch of flowers you liked to tend from time to time in the garden, but a servant would end up doing it when you forgot.”

“Yeah, my lilies! I can´t believe you remembered all of that! I mean, the time you were here you looked… distant. Like you weren´t here at all.”

He clenched his fists, the angst and frustration coming back for a moment, only to leave instantly. His combat awareness was in full swing, and it wouldn’t let past memories stop him from being efficient.

“Well… stuff had happened and… I was hitting a rough patch, to say the least.”

“What happened?”

“It´s complicated… let´s just say I fucked up… royally, if you can forgive the pun…”

“Oh, OK…”

Another uncomfortable silence of a young girl starting fearfully at a weapon. The Kid sighed, seeing that she was still not in the perfect condition.

“… Back on topic, you do really hate guns, don´t you?”

“With a passion.”

“I can guess a number of reasons why, but, while we´re at it, I want to hear it from you.”

“This is… new.”

“Talking things out serves well when being nervous… so, speak if you want.”

“Apart from guns killing people I knew, they are just… when taking life becomes as easy as pressing a button, don´t you think there is something wrong with the world?”

Czesch had never thought of it that way. The fact that he was being lectured on it by a 14 year old showed how little he cared about the righteousness of carrying a killing tool. The Princess continued on her rant.

“No wonder half the world is at war in one way or another, with those things around… wouldn’t we be better off without them?”

“I… don´t think guns are the main issue here…”

“What do you mean?”

Czesch wasn´t too comfortable talking about matters like that. His opinion was quite biased on the matter, but he would humor her debate for a bit.

“Our entire way of life is based on conflict. It´s the same way with animals, survival of the fittest. The more we fight, the stronger we become, and turning stronger is the only thing that will ensure survival… you take away guns, we are bound to use something else… before gunpowder was a thing, we used spears, swords, bows, axes, you name it. It´s more of a human problem than an armaments one.”

“I… think I see what you mean. But what about the act of killing? It´s too easy nowadays… you killed 8 people a few hours ago, and it took minutes!”

“It´s never easy… there´s only dumb men who have lost what little humanity they had saying so… that or they are bound to never sleep at night again.”

“I-Is that so?”

“I´m the living example of it.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to-“

The Kid crossed his hands together, staring at the nothingness before him.

“I´ve killed more people than I can count… and with every single one I add, it just… builds up how pointless it ends up being… tell yourself you are ridding the world of evil, only for new evil to grow from the ground beneath… that or become the devil yourself after a while… a battle against time itself and you are always on the losing side.”

“I… never knew it was like that…”

He shook the thought out of his head, noticing that Rakya was in a thoughtful and depressed mood. He had managed only half of his purpose, so he went back to a patient smile.

“Sorry for bothering you with this, Princess, I shouldn’t put my problems on you.”

The smile definitely caught her off-guard, her cheeks lighting up in red as she tried to calm herself again.

“It´s alright, no need to apologize! I mean, I don’t mind knowing you a little better.”

“Why is that?”

“W-Well… t-that´s because… y-you…”

Alarm bells rang just as Rakya said the words aloud, only for Czesch not to be able to hear them. Of course, he had an idea about what she meant, but he´d act like he hadn’t a clue and play a little bit with her… just to get a positive experience out of that whole clusterfuck.

“You´ll be able to tell me later. Get to your hiding spot, Princess, and don´t come out unless you know it´s me!”

The party was about to start. And Czesch would greet the guests with open arms and 6.5ers.

The assassins entered the way Czesch had thought they would. The sensors in the subterranean had been labeled as “malfunctioning”, even though they had been deactivated on purpose. Both men had entered through the tunnels connecting to the palace and, upon surfacing in one of the locker rooms, they had changed into security staff uniforms, blending in with the rest of people on alert. They moved around the palace, planting a bug in one of the security cameras to trigger the lockdown procedure at the click of a button, all the while moving towards the panic room where they figured the princess was hiding. They also managed to steal two keycards to open the door, because the lock on it could only be opened by them during lockdown.

Czesch waited in the shadows, knowing fully well they´d check the biometrics scanner to check if they had been duped or not. Since Rakya was out of the range of the sensors, they only detected Czesch, as he stood behind an oak cabinet, ready to strike.

The only thing he didn’t know was the method they would carry out their mission. They could either go loud or quiet, both options being viable ones. They were only asked to take out the girl, not specifying the method or the collateral involved, and that free reign is what made the Bloody Eagles so menacing: Given no specific ruleset in combat, they were masters of improvisation.

“Valory to Cyprus, come in.”

“Cyprus here, any news?”

“We´ll try to lift the lockdown as soon as we can. For now… do your best to keep her safe.”

“Wilco… Cyprus out.”

Czesch readied his “Lightbringer” and waited. Waited for the killing time to begin, and this time he would have dangerous opponents. The only reason they got off so easy is that the SOT had managed to gain every advantage possible and had read their every move. Still, it would have taken less time against other enemies. And now he was fighting against 2 Bloody Eagles at once. The taste of anticipation filled his mouth as he took the safety off.

The sound of keycards forced Czesch into a state of maximum concentration, as he prepared to at least take out one of them before resorting to CQB. He knew that the assassins were experienced close combat fighters, so he´d have to go for it as a last resort. Now came the important question: Loud or Quiet?”

Loud it was, as a flashbang grenade flew into the room.

As Czesch was hiding behind the cabinet, the flashbang merely produced a high pitched sound, something that wouldn’t hinder him much in combat (earplugs do that for you). After the bang, he immediately got out of his hiding spot and aimed at the door, waiting for the two men to come out of it. Instead, a fragmentation grenade flew in, forcing Czesch back behind the cabinet.

The ensuing explosion shredded the room, but miraculously hurt no one. The two assassins then entered, covering their sectors as if they were a Spetznatz group rescuing the president, going close together and covering their sectors. The point man was about to reach one of the corners of the room, when he noticed the muzzle aimed directly at his forehead.

A burst of 6.5 entered through the man´s temple, throwing his lifeless body to a side, as the other moved in to snatch the gun out of Czesch´s hands. Czesch let him keep the weapon for now, instead resorting to his CZ-75, and he would have got the first shot in if his opponent hadn´t seen that one coming, kicking the gun and Czesch´s hand back in he holster. With both their free hands, they each took their combat knives and prepared for some erratic  close-quarters combat, with a swing that didn’t quite connect and a stab that almost hit the Kid´s shoulder.

The assassin couldn’t move further out, for Czesch would take out his sidearm and just fill him with lead. And Czesch dared not take it out again, for it would create an opening for his assailant. They instead locked into an extremely close knife fight, slashing and stabbing at the air where their heads had been before. Czesch was having a hard time keeping up, for the main rule of the Dáz Prikhênka was that of constant movement, and the man in front of him was stopping him from moving freely. The best way to counter his moves and the bastard had come across it by sheer luck.

Then the man truly surprised Czesch: He used a tactical light on his knife, temporarily blinding him. He had to agree that it was a pretty unconventional but extremely effective strategy. The man then took Czesch´s sidearm and unleashed 2 bullets onto his torso, the knockback pushing him against the wall.

The Kevlar had done quite well against such a close proximity shot. The bullets had entered, but the channel wound had been reduced significantly. But Czesch had more pressing matters than marveling at the defensive capabilities of modern day armor. He sat with his back to a wall, gasping for some air as the pain started flowing in, his assailant wondering whether to finish the job.

“Are you the Wolf?”

The question came out of nowhere. He had probably heard Czesch´s conversation with his men in the desert. It made sense to, at least, humor him.

“Yes, I am… and you bastards still owe me for that one fight in Oprava.”

“The man you saved died 2 years ago.”

“Heh… serves me right for being kind…”

After a quick reminsicense, the gunman put his weapon right on the Kid´s nose.

“You are one of the demons that came to be from the ashes of war and, as such, all we could do is praise you as true gods of war. You were the Shadow to our Light… demons so early in their lives…”

“Yeah, hehe, since kids make the best soldiers, don´t they?”

“But now you have turned astray from the path of blood… now you must pay for your crime.”

He began moving the gun around, considering where to finish the Kid. Czesch would give him so pointers while he was at it… after all, he had nothing to lose.

“So, can I choose where you can lodge the bullet? I´d prefer anywhere but the leg. I hate when you people aim there.”

“I won´t kill you yet… instead, I´ll make you see the futility of your efforts, shepherd dog.”

The man dropped Czesch´s CZ-75 to a side and picked up his M4, unleashing its entire magazine on the bed where he thought the Princess was. Upon closer inspection, he returned to the bleeding Czesch, removing his Kevlar vest and inspecting the wound as he asked the following:

“Where is she?”

“What do you mean? I´ve no idea who you are talking about- Unnghh!”

A combat boot crushing his right leg. It didn’t hurt as much as the wounds on his torso, but it was still uncomfortable.

“The Princess!! The Target!! Where is she!?”

“How am I supposed to know? I just came here in vacation.”

The man put the muzzle of the M4 on Czesch´s head, but he simply grinned a little. He cared not if he died or not that way, he´d have to accept it one way or another if it came down to it. Knowing his luck… he knew better than to think about his eulogy.

“I´m not asking again. Where is she!? If you tell me, I´ll give you morphine to keep the pain away and give you an end fitting of a dog like you.”

An alright proposal… one that the Kid retaliated to with a piece of his own spit flying in good speed against the gunman´s face.

“… Try as much as you want. According to you, I´m a wolf pretending to be a dog… I don´t answer to sheep and won´t renounce the pain that is mine.”

He was about to pull the trigger and Czesch would have closed his eyes, retained his grin and taken the bullet with pleasure, but something caught his eye and made him panic. A cabinet that was supposed to be closed was open. A drawer with knives that should have been full was empty. And a Princess that should have been hiding dared fight for her life.

Her stab was mildly effective, creating a big wound on the assassin´s back. He retaliated by hitting her with the stock on her head, causing her to pass out. Having found his target, he started to reload the M4, ready to unleash another magazine at her unconscious prey.

“No… no, no, no, no!!”

Czesch´s body moved involuntarily and fast, gracing through the broken shards of wood and linen that flooded the room. He had to use that curse, no matter what. There was no more time to think. He´d apologize to Hek later, but now his curse was the only thing that could save that girl.

Just as the assassin readied his gun, he found a target he had thought gravely wounded up on his feet again, putting his body between the M4 and the girl. The assassin figured out that the man would drop, and then he would fire the rest at the girl. Before pulling the trigger, he noticed the boy was whispering something…

“Feed me the pain, Lord of Smiles, and make me laugh at their misery…”

Bullets started flying into Czesch´s body… only for them to bounce around as they started hitting him. The more the assassin fired, the more he became frightened at the prospect that the boy in front of him was immortal. Czesch started laughing maniacally at the puzzled assassin as he made his way closer to him.

“Impossible!! This is absurd!! You can´t be alive!! It can´t be!”

The grin was larger than his face, and his cheeks were so extended that they were about to break his jaw. It was funny and tragic at the same time… so funny…why was getting shot like that always that funny?

“Hehehehe… I guess I´m a bigger monster than you are!”

Czesch, having recovered his knife and taking advantage that the assassin´s guard was down, proceeded to end him quickly, a quick stab to the throat. The man groaned as the metal blade pierced through skin and tendon, only for him to finish up gurgling up blood in the floor and dying.

Mission complete, Princess saved… and a couple bullets lodged in his innards.

 A night as perfect as the one in the disco by his standards.

Hek had been known as the “Laughing Immortal”, for his curse, when triggered, rendered all objects thrown against his skin into literal laughing material. He could handle entire firing squads and laugh at their faces after a full magazine. Unlike Rabi, who used motion to redirect bullets around  him, all that Hek did was stand still and close his eyes, the only point where a bullet could prove fatal (In the end, he died that way) , taking all the enemy onslaught by himself and laugh about it. He had been a large boy, tall and with wide-shoulders, being the official “mule” for the Cub Pack… one that loved getting shot at as much as Rabi.

Now, some people thought this power was without fault. But, being curses, the Old Crone thought of an appropriate punishment. After deactivating it, all that joy and happiness return to their original form. Whenever Hek turned his ability off, he´d suffer the pain of hundreds of bullets that had never reached their target. He spent entire nights suffering from phantom pain that never made it through to him, and that tormented him quite a lot. Truth be told, most of the Pack were insomniacs in one way or another, but Hek´s issue was more positional and real to the mind than the absurd pain the rest of them went through.

And now Czesch was still laughing and he knew that turning it off would cause quite a shock. He sat down by his previous spot and opened up a morphine autoinjector. The pain would accelerate his heartbeat by an abnormal amount, so he´d have to regulate it. He got ready, breathing in and out to mentally prepare.

“I revert my smiles into pain, for I´m an unworthy sinner.”

And, with that, it came, as if a thousand daggers had descended upon him. He screamed and moved spastically, holding the morphine in his hand. With one swift motion, he injected it into his bloodstream. He felt his heart race and then almost come to a halt. He didn´t feel anything, nor did he feel the pain anymore. That said, his arms weren´t moving. Probably a side effect of such a quick administration of morphine… another side effect appeared to be a hard-on on his lower region. That was… unexpected.

The Princess woke up and, for some reason, Czesch hoped she wouldn’t notice the rising tower in his pants. She probably had other problems to worry about than that, though… he just didn’t want to find himself in a situation like that.

“Urghh… what… what happened?”

“You missed the party. We had a lot of fireworks and even cake… and two people died instead of four, so I think it went well.”

“Oh my god, Czesch! Are you alright!? Are you hurt!?”

“I think I should be the one asking that… let me see that.”

Rakya came over to the immobilized Czesch and she knelt next to him, letting him check the wound.

“It won´t ruin a future modeling career, I promise that much… the bruise will be there for a while though.”

“… And what about you?”

“Currently on morphine and with two bullets lodged, but I´ll live through it. I´ve been through much worse.”

It was at that point, with no threats in sight, that the young girl allowed herself to cry, tears flowing as she grabbed the floor. And the Kid was OK with that.

“… I´m sorry… I´m so, so sorry…”

“What are you apologizing for? We are alive, that´s what matters.”

“No, it´s… people die all around me every day, either trying to protect me… or kill me. It´s all my fault… all of it.”

“Princess…”

“I should just quit, throw the crown away. That way, no more people would have to die in my name. I don´t want that to happen to anyone else…”

She wasn’t quite wrong, but… it wasn’t the complete truth. The Kid knew better than to let her ruin herself like that.

“Princess, calm down and-“

“And what good am I!? If in everything I do there is always a madman about to kill a dozen or a hundred people because of me, am I worthy of leading them!? I´m a failure, a-“

“Rakya… shut up for a second and listen to me.”

She was caught off-guard as Czesch called her by name, accelerating her heart even more in the process.

“Bad things like that happen every day and everywhere. You turn on the news and they talk about the death toll of the day, on the weekends, they do a roundup of the week. It´s always a vicious circle that will never go and we have to accept it and live with it… but you know what? Whenever I hear of Aryakstan, it always comes down to you doing something I consider a change for the better.”

She was still sobbing, but at least he had got her attention.

“R-Really?”

“No joke. You are doing more good rallying people like you do than by staying in the shadows. You have talent and the skill to lead and choose the right people, and you have been trying to do wht you believe is best. Sometimes it hasn´t worked as planned, but people know that making their lives more peaceful is your main objective and they´ll support you on that no matter what.”

“… People will still die because of me…”

“More would die if it weren´t for you. You´ve managed to make a change in one of the most dangerous parts of the planet, and you are doing it by the strength of words alone. If that isn’t something to be proud of… I, for one, have supported most of the stuff you´ve done.”

She took note of the odd word in between, chuckling for a moment.

“Most?”

“Can´t say all, because I have a job to keep… but I admire people like you.”

She still looked down, the adrenaline of a near death experience making her mind race like a sports car in a straight lane.

“… I don’t know… I don´t think I can-“

“Rakya, take my hand.”

His proposal suddenly grabbed her brain and slammed it into a full stop. He wouldn’t bring her down from her high horse with words alone, so he had to add some theatrics in the mix.

“H-Huh!?”

“Take my hand, I can´t move it, barely even feel it. Just grab it with yours.”

“O-Ok…”

She did just that, her gentle and soft paw grabbing a rough and bloodied hand that had done the unthinkable time and time again.

“Swear to me you won´t give up your cause. Swear that you´ll do your best to rid your people from decades of slaughter, on behalf of a child soldier who went through it all once already. Promise me that much.”

Cheesy and corny as speeches came, true… but it his head was already having trouble staying awake. He had to keep it simple, and all those stories about knights and princesses he read as a kid where the only reference he had in mind.

“… I promise… I promise I will do all that and more.”

With that resolution, he dropped the act and went back to a cheeky grin.

“Okay… whew, that was one hell of a speech, Princess! I hope you´ll pay extra!”

“Way to ruin the mood! And keep calling me Rakya, it isn’t that hard!”

“It is for me!”

“How so?”

As the security forces started entering the room, Czesch managed his biggest grin yet and said:

“I always wanted to be a knight in shining armor, and aiding royalty gives extra points!”

The night was an excruciating one. Rob had to remove both rounds stuck in the Kid´s abdomen, for apparently the bone had managed to stop the 9mil rounds from doing any significant harm to his innards. That meant, however, that his chest would be a little more fragile while in recovery. He´d heal soon, but he had to avoid any damage to that area. Czesch spent the rest of the night feeling the phantom pain of the assassin´s bullets going through him and tearing him to shreds. He slept with a gag, muffling his cries from the rest of the palace, with Vivi by his side to give him some much needed comfort.

The next morning, he was back up to full strength, only the bullet wounds hindering him somewhat. They would leave at noon and return late at night, which meant Czesch would have to get some sleep in the plane to properly act the day after. He wasn’t planning on fucking up a presentation like that, nor did he want it going wrong halfway from lack of sleep.

The SOT arrived at the airport, where their farewell committee was awaiting them, lead by none other than Princess Rakya herself. Even with her wound still visible through a white bandage, she would stand there to say goodbye to the people who had saved her life. They stood in front of them, Rakya taking a step forward to speak.

“We want to thank your services in protecting this country from those who would see it turn to anarchy… and my personal thanks for saving my life last night.”

The group behind her clapped and cheered at the SOT, only Vivi and Nate taking the cheers head on with handshakes and other shenanigans. Rob was way too tired to care and Buri didn’t like ceremonies like this one. Czesch simply relaxed.

“… and, to further prove that this was not just contract, I hereby grant to gifts to these… unexpected heroes…”

The first gift went to the group in particular, a marvelously crafted smoking pipe. Nate thought about giving it a whirl, but Vivi would probably take it from him and use it as decoration. Rob thought it would sell really well on the Internet, while Buri wondered if he could somehow trick the Kid into taking a whiff.

“And the second gift is this necklace made of rare stones, a symbol from my people and for friendlier times to come.”

Everyone let Czesch have this one, as much as Vivi´s girly side wanted to try it on. Czesch was fine with that, seeing that he had promised to bring a souvenir of sorts… then again, it was quite a rare and expensive souvenir at that, so he finally decided against giving it away. And just when he thought that he was done with the surprises…

“A-And… I also have a… final gift to give out… Czesch Travaly, could you step forward, please?”

He took a step forward, unsure as to what to expect from her. A scare? A joke? Another heirloom? He wasn’t completely sure, nor did he want to think much about it.

“Princess…”

“I… Thank you for everything you´ve done… I´m… really happy I managed to meet you again…”

He scratched the back of his neck, more so from the heat than from her proximity.

“The feeling is mutual.”

“Which is why… I want to do this in case you don´t come back in a while…”

All Czesch could feel were a couple of lips pressing against his. Rakya had moved quicker than he had even anticipated, and now her tongue was battling with his inside his mouth. He could hear Nate laugh in the back, while the rest just looked in shock as the scene took place.

He felt… what did he feel? He wasn’t sure. He liked it, that was a certainty, but… it was weird, he hadn´t expected something like that. He had been caught completely off-guard and now his mind was an utter mess of conflicted feelings… that, and the hard-on in his pants.

Rakya separated her lips from his, a grin forming in her face while Czesch looked like a vegetable, unable to react to any stimuli at all. Part of him wanted to go for seconds.

“Something to remember me by… may not be a very “Princess-y” thing to do, but a knight deserves no lesser a reward!”

Now, all that Czesch had to do was say something smart and suave. Anything remotely lovingly or tender would do to make her happy. Something like “I´ll always treasure this moment” or “Until we meet again, my Princess”. Something, anything…

“… Thank you for working with us!! We hope you hire our services again!!”

And he did like a Japanese man: He bowed, and he went towards the plane, double timing it.

Of course he couldn’t bring himself to say that. He had never understood the concept of “love” and his most basic interaction worked around snark and motivational talk. This was new grounds for him and, as much as Nate was laughing, he would indeed run off to not fuck up even more. His face was already red with embarrassment, even though the sun was also being quite helpful in that regard.

He then sneezed, feeling the knot forming in his mind untying by itself. He wasn’t meant to question that last act, nor did he want to any more than necessary. He just had to keep a cool head, continue as usual and nothing would get to him.

Optimism at its best.

Vivi walked over towards the Princess. She did always like her, a bold girl growing in a world where a lot of people thought she wouldn’t go high in life. A bit like her in that sense.

“Sorry about him, but that was probably his first kiss ever.”

Rakya looked surprised for a moment, then began to giggle as a result.

“Oh, really!? Wow, no wonder he seemed so sluggish!”

“Still, good job. I wasn´t expecting any of that.”

“Neither did I… It just came off naturally.”

“That said, his overreaction was priceless, if a bit of a bummer for you.”

The Princess shrugged, her shoulders bumping up and down with the heat.

“I expected it from him.”

“… You just stole one of my lines! Yeah, that´s just like him.”

“I do like that naïve side of him. Shows that no matter how old he wants to think he is, he will still be a kid like me. Serves also as a reminder… I may try my hardest, but I still have a lot to learn.”

Vivi had spoken with her only a few times, and only then did she get a newfound respect for the child in front of her.

“Yup… thanks for the help. After last night´s scare, he really needed that.”

“Make sure to make him a knight one of these days. He´ll love it.”

Vivi chuckled at that, now seeing the trigger behind that last romantic moment.

“I´ll keep that in mind… stay safe, Princess, and give us a call next time with some time.”

“Good luck on your contracts, Vivienne… farewell.”

And with that, the SOT left for their home, with a sneezing Czesch who now realized he would be getting no proper sleep in the plane, joining Rob into the cycle of plane insomniacs. Buri began a drinking competition with Nate, while Vivi tried to get some shut-eye before they arrived.

Another one for the bank, and, as usual, the Kid was the only wounded party.

They arrived at the Queen´s territories at 2 AM and Czesch had spent the entirety of the trip sneezing or coughing. Rob did a quick check and said he probably just caught a small cold and that a bit of fever could come up if he wasn’t careful, giving him some antibiotics to eliminate the bacteria that had caused it. The Kid paid no heed, still mentally rehearsing his lines for the morning.

Czesch finished writing his report at 3:30 AM, complaining to Vivi every 2 minutes, immediately grabbing a night cab to get him back to Harville. He wasn´t in a particular bad shape, but he did feel a little dizzy from all the coughing and sneezing. The fact that he had got no sleep at all probably just made things worse for wear, but Czesch would have to manage as always.

He arrived at his apartment at 6 AM, and he knew for a fact that he would be having no sleep that night. The presentation was at 8, first hour in the morning and worst possible period for all students, who would probably be grumpy as hell. That´s something you seriously don´t want when presenting something, especially a subject that they probably don´t care about.

He phoned Annie at 7 AM and ,a few minutes later, they met up at the midpoint between their houses. Czesch was feeling dizzier by the minute, but he tried his hardest to look normal… to no avail.

“Morning, C! How have you- Wow, OK, you look like shit… more so than usual.”

Her honesty didn’t help at all, and he let her know with one of his sighs.

“Morning, Annie… yeah, I think I caught a cold or something nasty…”

“You still think you can do your part?”

“Of course I can!... I´ll just need a glass of water from time to time, that´s all.”

They began walking together, like usual. Annie seemed a bit more chipper than usual, or maybe she just seemed less grumpy.

“Good… how did it go?”

“Well, I… I… Atchoooo! Argh! It went alright, all things considered.”

Czesch sniffed hard, now remembering he had forgotten to bring paper tissues, since he barely ever got ill. Annie handed him a pack of them as he cursed aloud.

“Thanks… I get the feeling this is going to come real handy.”

“Bring some for yourself next time… I´m not always going to bring tissues with me, you know.”

“Something tells me that´s not going to be the case at all”

Annie and Czesch finally made it to St Vincent´s hall through the back door, where Jan and Lucie were awaiting anxiously for their arrival. Throughout the way, Czesch started to feel a little nauseous, but he didn´t let that stop him from making his way there.

“Where the hell were you!? We start in 2 minutes!”

“And what is wrong, dude? You look like shit… more than usual, that is.”

“That´s because I feel like shit.”

“He has a bit of a cold, but we are going through with this, don´t worry. How´s our public?”

Lucie gave a quick look, clicking her tongue and breathing through her teeth.

“Angsty, asleep and bored… nothing new.”

“Good, we prepared for this… Everyone ready? Let´s do this!”

The presentation started with some images from a war film Jan had chosen, and with a small introduction Lucie had rehearsed for a while, as well as the index. Jan followed through with detailed explanations on certain aspects wrongfully represented on those films, and the reasons behind them. Annie budged in, keeping up the momentum and delivering her lines with a different tone altogether, keeping people both interested and awake. They were doing better than what Czesch had initially hoped. It almost looked like people were enjoying it, were it not for certain individuals snoring near the front.

It was finally his turn. He did start off with an apology for his sorry state, and kept on going through as best he could. He remembered the lines perfectly and just how long he had to expand on a certain topic. His throat and forehead were burning, sweat pouring from his hair like a sprinkler and, for a second, he thought he had heard a ringing noise in the back of his ear. He was feeling worse by the second, but he would still pull through nonetheless.

He remained there until the end, talking non-stop about film making and warfare while the nauseating feeling crept towards his head, as if no blood was pumping up there. His left hand started shaking, but he grasped it with his right one in the most natural way he could muster. He ended the presentation on a high note and… well, that was it. Not much fanfare to a bunch of kids exposing something.

He was unsure whether their public was clapping because the presentation had been that good or because they had seen a man struggle to just remain conscious. He nodded with his head as a sort of bowing gesture and went towards the back, his balance going from left to right in an abnormal fashion. He pushed himself against a wall backstage, trying to stay upright and attempting to find the origin behind his ailment. The other 3 finished saluting and went his way.

“That felt amazing!! I didn’t know we did so good!”

“Don´t get your hopes up, Jan, they were probably just cheering the fact that we were done.”

“Still, good job! We really pulled it off in the end!”

“It shows that, no matter what, we´ll get it done!”

“Group High Five!”

Only the three of them joined hands in the air. Czesch was too busy hoping that the ringing noise in his ears would go away sooner rather than later. They all now focused their attention on him, concern growing in their expressions as they took a better look.

“Czesch? You alright, dude?”

“You are not looking so hot… Want us to go fetch the nurse?”

“C… C, can you hear me? Czesch?”

Their voices were distant. He could still hear them ,but the ringing was becoming stronger and stronger. He was gasping for air, feeling every breath as fire coming from his stomach and his vision becoming blurrier by the second. He churned as he tried to take a step forward. Now he knew for sure what was happening to him. And it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“Czesch? Try not to move, Jan already went for the nurse.”

No nurse can help me, he thought. This illness was not an illness at all. Just years upon years of despair and regret suddenly coming down on him, like a waterfall of all the bad things he had done to the world coming down, crashing on top and tearing him apart. It had happened a few times before, but this one had come without any signal or event to force it down on him.

He stood up, freeing his hand from the wall. He had to start moving, or it would be too late. He tried to take one step, but his legs failed to take the command as he slumped forward, collapsing on the ground in front of him. For a second, he thought he heard Lucie scream, just as he felt someone´s hand touching his neck.

“He´s… -breathing… -fuck… -nurse!?...”

He wasn´t listening in on everything, only random words. His legs weren’t responding, his head felt like it was made of lava, his whole body feeling cold and limp as his forehead burnt as if a furnace was baking bread. He punched the ground, hoping the pain would get him to move again. The ringing stopped for a moment and a sting of pain went through his head, helping him get to a knee as he cursed from the horrid sensation coursing through his body.

“Czesch, stay put! The nurse is already on her way, just-“

“No… No, I… can´t…”

He felt helpless. If he couldn’t even stand up by himself, then what had been the point of it all? Could he really feel proud of how he had lead his life to that point if he ended up giving to tiredness and to his past?  He couldn’t let that happen. He had to get better, and, to that end, the first step was getting up.

He summoned as much strength as he could, managing to move his other leg and get into a standing position. His balance was still out, so he slumped against the same wall, trying to get his bearings. He was getting dizzier and dizzier by the second, his vision now a blur of colors and forms.

“I… I have to… gotta keep… moving… argh…”

His leg failed again, but this time he didn’t reach the floor. Instead, something stopped him halfway. Something that moved and that was now putting its head around his right shoulder. A support of sorts, that had magically appeared out of nowhere to aid him. The support then spoke, the voice feeling closer and closer to him.

“Damn you men and your fucking pride!”

“Anna! Are you… are you sure it´s not contagious!?”

“I couldn’t care less if it´s contagious! I´d rather help him halfway to the infirmary than see him pull this spectacle over and over!”

He felt another support on his left shoulder, and so his legs could move without the full weight of his body. He did so worriedly, afraid that the supports wouldn´t keep up with the pace. He was a complete mess at this point, so it was no wonder that he needed the help.

After that, everything became more of a blur, as his consciousness drifted into oblivion.

He woke up in a bed of sorts, quite a comfortable one. He was so used of sleeping in chairs or benches/sofas that doing so on a bed felt almost alien in comparison. He was still feeling like shit, but now he had a platform from where to make amends. He needed a boost, something to help him get home as quickly as possible. Only then he´d be able to heal this problem.

He blinked furiously, trying to get his eyes working again. The blurriness had almost gone fully now, the light becoming more bearable by the second. He looked to a side, maybe hoping to see someone friendly.

“Took you long enough, Czesch! Missed me much!?”

It was… Sabrina!? Impossible, it couldn’t be he! She was… Czesch was either hallucinating or in a dream, and both seemed possible at that point. He was about to ask when the “Ghost of Wars Past” put her finger on top of his mouth and giggled with malicious intent.

“It is a dream, just thought you´d want to know.”

“What… what is going on… why are you here?”

She popped out of existence and onto the other side of the bed, pondering in a position reminiscent of old British detectives.

“Why could I be here? Hmmm, I´m not quite sure myself… guess she gave me free reign to visit you this time.”

The mention of the Old crone only made the Kid recover some of his strength from anger alone.

“Oh, so now she is your boss?”

“Not my boss, just an annoying step-mother! It ain´t so bad with her, until you realize she´s trying to break you… if only that worked with me!”

“It didn’t work while you lived either, we all figured out that much…”

“Aaahhh, feels good to be free!”

She popped out again and was immediately flying through the air, enjoying the change of scenery from the usual battlefields Czesch dreamt about.

“But you aren´t.”

“Details, details… what matters is that you made a promise to me. And this scare was bad enough to make me worry that you wouldn’t pull through.”

The promise… had he done something like that? He´d remember if it were the case. He brushed the thought to a side, his head too hot to process anything complicated.

“Come on, it isn´t that bad… I only need to recover, that´s all.”

“Hmmm… why do you think this happened?”

“Had to happen someday. I am lucky it didn’t happen during an op…”

“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction… what do you think was the trigger? When did you start feeling weird?”

He didn’t remember Sabrina ever looking at a book of physics, but her point was still on the right side of the debate. He thought for a moment, slowly tracing his steps back to the cause.

“Must have been back at-“

His mind stopped. The realization hit him like a demolition ball a house, tearing everything from its hinges.

“Rakya? Our kiss?”

“What else? It was something out of your ordinary, and part of you probably thought it was like cheating behind Laria´s back.”

Embarassment yet again, but of a different sort, filled his expression… only this time Sabrina wasn’t quite laughing, just keeping her grin.

“What!? That´s… We are not-“

“Doesn´t matter what you, as a person, think! If part of you thinks that way, then it will affect the rest. You are not any random bloke, you have a curse of curses… the only thing keeping you together is willpower alone, and if your whole being is not concentrated on keeping you alive, then you are bound for shit like this to happen.”

“… So this will happen every time?”

“No, I think it was just something so surreal and happy that your mind couldn’t completely accept it, since your mind is so broken and twisted and “there´s no hope for tomorrow!”… hahaha…”

“Right. I can´t accept a girl kissing me, but I´m totally fine with the ghosts of my past talking to me in dreams… makes perfect sense.”

“Can´t tell you what´s wrong or right, only what is there.”

He slumped his head back to the pillow, sighing as he closed his eyes in annoyance. It was always something with the Old Crone, always another hurdle to jump, another reason to be miserable… and another… and another… a shiver crossed through his spine.

“Tell me, Sabi, will I… ever be happy?”

If she was good at something, it was at doing the French shrug to questions like that. If she hadn’t got the answer, she wouldn’t beat around the bush.

“I wouldn’t know… even if I did, I would never hand you over a cheat sheet!”

“Of course you would, you are with the Crone. She knows and, by extension, you… isn’t that how it went?”

She started tapping her head while laughing nervously, still floating on top of him.

“I… may know some things… but I can´t say for certain. Not even she knows what´s going to happen, which is really funny!”

“I think it´s more scary if that´s the case.”

She blinked back down to his side again, this time sitting on the bed.

“All I know is that there will be worse things than this to come. Whether you pull through or fail… is up to you.”

She pointed at him, then drove the finger into his forehead, phasing through him like it was nothing.

“Argh… anyways, thanks for the heads up.”

“No problem, always glad to help a little boy like you tie his shoes!”

“And fuck you too!”

“By the way, you have been grumbling for a couple of minutes now. The girl next to you is a little worried.”

Czesch woke in a flash, letting out a scream that startled Annie, who was now seating where Sabrina had made her warning. She loved doing that, getting into places where she wasn’t expected and throwing some weird information before vanishing, as a part of her personal trademark. Annie groaned in frustration after he gained his bearings.

“Could you stop doing that!?”

“What? What are you on about?”

“At the lake, you… argh… how are you feeling?”

“Shouldn’t you be in class?”

He managed to squint at the clock on the far-end wall of the infirmary. It was the middle of the 4th period, and he faintly recalled something important happening that day.

“Like I give a dog´s turd about class… I came over to check on you.”

“That´s… I appreciate it.”

“Then, how are you doing?”

He slapped his face a few times, trying to get a proper feel for his situation.

“Head´s still spinning a bit, legs feel sore and throat is still burning. Ringing in the ears is gone, so I can hear you talking to me. That´s a plus.”

“You went from bad to worse in less than an hour. Did you catch something that bad during the weekend?”

“You could say so, yeah.”

“Nurse said it was probably just a strong cold mixed with tiredness. She gave you some medication and told me that we´d have to wait for it to get better… but I´m not so sure.”

Was it just a cold? No, Czesch knew better. The medicine was just acting as a placebo and the effect would wear off soon. He had to go for his practical medicine, and fast, as he felt he was going to deteriorate quicker than he anticipated.

“Annie, can you do me a favor while you are here?”

“Sure, do you need a glass of water? A snack?”

“Could you check over the nurse´s cabinets for some stuff?”

“Errr… I don´t know about that. I can get kicked out if I fiddle around with-“

“It´s important… besides, I know you are dying to mess around with her stuff.”

“Tell me the name and the color of what you need!”

And just like that, Czesch started remembering off the top of his head one of Rob´s conversations about stimulants. Being the medic, he had been at times without enough medical supplies to treat people around him, so, during an operation in an urban area, he managed to make an epinephrine substitute by using household medication and other appliances. Since a lot of products came from the Risst Corporation or where direct  substitutes, managing so wasn’t as hard as one would think. During some dinners, he would speak to the other members of the SOT about his success or failure in making a stimulant. As he put it, it was just like cooking, only more lethal if done incorrectly.

Annie got the necessary ingredients for the recipe, and Czesch had to make it quick before the nurse decided to show up. He started moving stuff around from memory, recalling the amounts necessary to not blow his heart out in the process.

“Ummm, are you sure you should be doing this?”

“Trust me, it´s the best solution I can come up with.”

“I think you should try to rest a little bit.”

“And I think I should go for a run.”

“For a-? sigh… Czesch, why are you trying so hard not to do as people tell you?”

“I´m not doing that, I´m just…doing what I know works.”

“So sleeping to gain strength doesn’t work? I guess an adrenaline shot does, apparently.”

“In my case they-wait… how did you know I was making one? It´s impossible.”

“Hmm? How come?”

“All of these products… alone, they have nothing to do with any stimulation package. But you just read my intentions by looking at them.”

It was preposterous that a high school girl would instantly know his intentions at a mere glance. Did she secretly have knowledge about pharmaceuticals and such?

“I… I guess I did… not sure how though…”

She kept on scratching her head, unsure as to how she had come upon the Kid´s plan. He merely sighed.

“… Anyways, I have to get home quickly. I´ve been through this before and I know how to cure it.”

“So, it´s not a normal cold? Some fucked version of one?”

“When is anything ever normal around me?”

“You have a point there.”

Czesch was halfway done with the injection when his vision started to blur again. He gritted his teeth to try to retain what was left of it, but to no avail. He was about to fall forward, but Annie took a hold of him and grabbed him before he hurt himself.

“Jesus, watch what you are doing and stop falling over, it´s getting annoying!”

“I… have to… have to get home…”

His head was starting to burn again, even more fiercely. Annie pushed him back to the bed, only making the dizziness worse.

“Fucking hell… is it that important that you get home?”

“Life… or Death…”

She mulled over it for a second. Then she slumped back in her chair and sighed.

“… And you had to pick today of all days… Argh, this is going to suck… Just stay put, I´ll be right back.”

“What… what about-“

She tapped him twice in the chest, immediately getting up and heading to the door.

“Forget the stimulant, that only had enough kick to get you halfway.”

“That… would be enough for-“

“Yeah, enough to get you unconscious in the middle of the street… don´t be dumb, just trust me on this one…”

She left the room, leaving Czesch to think about his options. He could try and finish the stimulant, then take advantage of it to reach home in a dash. It was a risky proposition, but time was of the essence, as he started to feel the weardown on his body.

But Annie had said the magic words: Trust me on this one. Trust, a difficult word with Czesch. He always told people to trust in him, but he had a hard time trusting others to do their part. It happened in the company at the beginning, and it happened to a lesser degree during this contract.  Still, for some reason… he felt he could trust her. It was odd, how she had managed to rein him down, stop him from acting too rashly. It was almost as if... as if she was filling the void made by another.

Laria? Was he comparing Annie with Laria? Preposterous. The two had almost nothing in common… apart from stopping him from throwing his life away. It dawned on him that Annie worried about him just like she did. She had stopped going to class to make sure he was OK.

He fell back on the bed. A feeling of remorse started creeping in, not in the same vein as in Laria´s case, but remorse nonetheless. She was certainly trying to get his attention for some reason, and all he did was deny her at every step for her own safety. Curiosity was a dangerous thing, especially when concerning someone in his line of work. He knew secrets that were not even rumors to common people like her… and some of them didn’t even go through Blue Sparrow itself.

The door opened again, and this time Annie came accompanied by a football fanatic the Kid knew all too well.

“Help him up, I´ll get this whole mess into order before the nurse comes.”

“OK… Hey, Czesch! How are you hanging there?”

“H-Hey, Kieran… I´m… I´m just peachy…”

“Good to know… and, up you go! Come on!”

Kieran helped him sit on the bed. Czesch´s head was still a blurry mess and his right arm started shaking. He hated it, feeling weak and needing help to get up. He hated all of it.

“Ok, we are set! Let´s get this odyssey started”

“What… what are you doing?”

“We were planning on grabbing a cab, but today they are on strike”

“So what… what is… what are we going to…do?”

Annie tapped his forehead twice, as if trying to measure everything but heat.

“… Either that fever is turning you more idiotic than usual or you really were so to begin with… Kieran, grab his left one, I have the right…”

Both put their heads around each of Czesch´s shoulders, lifting him to the ground. He managed to get his legs to react to the sudden weightlessness. He looked right and, through his blurry lens, he managed to make out Annie´s grin, one that welcomed a challenge like that one.

“We are carrying you home and there´s nothing you can do about it”

The trek was a long one. Usually, it took around 30 minutes for Czesch to make it there while doing a light jog. But he was being carried by two people who hadn´t been training their bodies for that sort of thing. Czesch was used to carrying wounded people over and knew the trick to do it quickly and effectively. However, these two were doing their best for the Kid to not have to go crazy.

From time to time, he noticed their extenuated faces as they slowly moved forward. He kept on telling them to let him walk by his own foot, to stop overexerting themselves. Annie responded in the same manner in every one of his complains.

“Just shut the fuck up and save your strength, we are almost there”

They finally reached Czesch´s apartment complex and moved for the door. Czesch was about to collapse from the sheer pressure of just being awake. His legs had stopped moving, his mouth was drooling from all the gasping he was doing and his brain was a cluttered mess.

“Are you sure we should be carrying him home? I think he needs a hospital more than anything.”

“He told me he has been through this before, and I trust him enough to know he´s telling the truth when he says he has to get home… C, which one is your flat?”

“…Hnnggg… ark…”

Annie hit him hard on the head, thinking that might reset his brain for a moment. She wasn’t wrong.

“Czesch!! Your flat! Which one is it!?”

“… 4th… 4th C…”

“Come on, we are taking the elevator.”

They reached the 4th floor, Annie having taken Czesch´s keys from his pocket. They were in front of the door, her and Kieran panting almost as heavily as Czesch was. She opened up and dragged him inside.

“Thanks for the help, Kieran, really appreciate it.”

“No problem… you told me Czesch was in pinch, so I-“

In a quick maneuver, she stood by the door and grabbed it, leaving Kieran outside the flat.

“You can go now, I know you had stuff to do. Sorry I called you out of the blue.”

“W-Wait! You sure you don’t need any help with him!?”

“Don´t worry! Just let me handle this part.”

Annie closed the door on Kieran´s face and got a good look as he carried Czesch around. He started to feel like reality was separating itself from what he was seeing. It was so bad… he saw Laria carrying him for a second. At least, an older version of her was doing so. That way, he knew he was hallucinating from the fever.

“Your flat looks amazing… Oh shit, C! Tell me, what do you need?”

“Cupboard… infusion… tea…”

“An infusion? Which cupboard?”

“Left-most… f-fuck…”

“Ok, OK! I got it, I got it!”

Annie left him on the room´s sofa. He started drifting in and out of consciousness, feeling the Old Crone tightening her grip around his throat, the drowning sensation starting to take over his senses. He was going to lose control. He was going to lose control and start a rampage like no other.

Then he remembered Annie was there. He gritted his teeth and fought back, until Annie came back with the heated up brew.

“Here you go! Drink up.”

He took it all in one swig, not caring that it was boiling, since his throat was already burnt up. He started breathing normally again, having cooled down to a point were he could actually feel his body again without any numbness. He sighed in relief after a while, and even managed to crack a laugh as Annie watched in astonishment.

“Whew!! That one was really close!”

“A-Are you OK now?”

“Never been better! All I needed to do was drink some of that and, bam!, cured!”

“I´ve never seen such a quick recovery… still, I´m glad you got better.”

“I´ll still need some time to readjust. Could you tell Jessica that I won´t be able to come today? She´s probably going to be quite mad at me for not coming to practice.”

He scratched the back of his neck, trying to reasurre the girl in front of him that the storm was over.

“Sure thing!... so, you need anything else or-“

“You´ve helped me out a great deal, Annie… thanks.”

She put the smuggest face she had in her repertoire and locked her hands around her waist, looking triumphant.

“I only stopped you from passing out in a place where you could get robbed… or worse.”

“And that´s enough for me.”

“Well, I´m off. Do call if you need anything else.”

“Don´t worry, I will!”

She left the room… and Czesch could stop pretending now. He managed to get back up to his feet, the infusion having sped up his heart rate and given him more blood to work with. He wasn’t out of the blizzard just yet, the fever still creeping around. He had to do the outright mad to get himself back to the playing field.

He entered his training room and started to exercise with each machine, the Pack´s motto “Gotta keep on moving” repeating in his head every time he fell onto the floor. Staying still killed them, while moving kept them alive and going. That was the way of the accursed, a cruel existence based on beating circumstances above themselves. It was a race against their step-mother, to outrun her and stop her claws from reaching them.

Somewhere out there, Laria was suffering through the same… and he wouldn´t let her be the last. He was planning on at least keeping that one promise alive and well…

He wouldn’t give up any time soon.

Annie came back the following morning to check on him. She hadn´t tried to show it, but the moment Czesch fell down on the floor she had wanted to scream much like Lucie had. Then she figured out that screaming wouldn’t have helped anyone. He had told her that he was recovering now, but she was unsure whether that was the case or not. Maybe he was faking a quick recovery just to fool her. That was Czesch for you: He was always there to help out but when he needed help he always tried to take a tangent to avoid getting aid.

She knocked on his door and waited for a couple of minutes. The silence in that corridor was unbearable, and the fact he didn’t hear a sound inside wasn’t good at all.

“Czesch, you in there!? Come on, I know you don´t have the balls to leave me hanging at the door!!”

Suddenly, the door unlocked, as if by divine intervention or outright magic. She thought that, since the door had mysteriously opened, she would have no issue of getting in.

She made her way to the living room, with no sign of Czesch anywhere there. She knocked on the bedroom, slowly opening the door as she did. No sign of him there either, and the bed looked as if no one had slept on it for a while. She then checked the bathroom and, what a surprise, Czesch wasn´t there either.

The last room was labeled “training room” and, as she opened it, a myriad of training equipment flooded her field of vision. No wonder he´s so jacked up, she thought, with all of this. Her eyes turned to the ground, where a body lay in a pool of sweat.

“I can´t fucking believe-!! C!! C, can you hear me!?”

Part of her wanted to panic, to call for an ambulance or for any sort of help. The rest of her figured out that this was pretty much usual for him, so she simply poked the Kid to make sure he was still breathing.

He opened his eyes and pulled himself upright without effort. He stretched out, not noticing that Annie was in the room.

“Is this going to become a trend?”

Czesch, startled, jumped back and hit his head with one of the machines he had used the day prior. The strike on his head hadn´t been strong, but it looked like it hurt a lot.

“Argh, you can knock, you know!”

“Seems that we are even now… did that hurt?”

“Stings a bit, but I´m good… how did you- Oh wait, right… camera…”

“Camera?”

“There´s a camera in front of the gate that has facial recognition software. Yesterday, when you entered with me, it must have picked up your face and labeled you as a friend or something. That means that, in case I´m in the house but can´t answer, the door will open after a while.”

“That´s a… convenient system.”

“Don´t ask about the price, because I don´t want a heart attack so soon after recovering.”

“You seem better now… I mean, better than yesterday.”

“Seem better? I feel great! Haven´t felt this pumped in a while!”

He jumped upright, bouncing up and down as he stretched every joint in his body.

“I thought you would have stayed in bed, but that pool of your own sweat says otherwise.”

“Oh, I´ll clean that up as soon as I get the chance.”

She gave him a condescending look, one that would seek the truth to the best of her ability.

“You spent the whole afternoon working out, didn´t you?”

He scratched the back of his neck. Dead on, she thought.

“I… yeah, I have no excuse for this one. It´s just how I get better.”

“…One of these days, I´ll have you gone to a doctor to check you up and send me the results…”

“How come?”

“Because with every one of these stunts I doubt more and more that you are human.”

Another one of his iconic grins, this one just as mysterious as the others.

“Maybe you´ll be in for a surprise… what time is it anyway?”

She took out her phone in one swing, taking a quick peep at it.

“It´s… 7:15… AM, that is.”

“Wow, that´s...”

“Quite early for me, I know… after that scare yesterday, I… I wanted to double-check, make sure you hadn´t gone full catatonic.”

She put the phone back, unavertedly biting her lip. She noticed too late, but it seemed that the Kid had taken notice. He looked quite embarrassed by it, but also grateful to an extent.

“I… appreciate it. You didn’t have to, but… thanks.”

“Hmmmm… are you good enough to go to class?”

“Sure thing! Just let me clean this up and we´ll be off.”

As Czesch went off to find a mop, Annie couldn’t help but wonder a very crucial question. Something that had been on the back of her mind and that she hadn’t the heart to ask him about.

Why was there a firing range in that room?

Next Chapter: Chapter V: Nothing Like Family... After Beating Someone Up