Suffering: Male Reader x TWDG

Chapter 23: Drama At Dixieland

1 Year Later

Y/N's POV:

"You ready?" Captain Anderson asks. You snap out of your day dream and look over to him. He hands you your rifle with a serious look on his face.

"Yes sir" you reply with a quick salute. You missed your 16th birthday, you're pretty sure it was about a week ago but you don't have time to dwell on it.

"And you know what you're doing?" he asks with a raised eyebrow, he knows he's caught you unfocused again and is probably overjoyed with the thought of embarrassing you.

"I'm being sent with a few others to help stop the protests at Dixieland" you say rolling your eyes at him, "See, I was listening".

He smiles and nods his head, "I was just checking Ghost, have a safe journey" he says, his smile is infectious and you begin to smile as well.

"Y/N, we're all waiting for you!" Jessie's voice shouts from the back of an old military truck, there's about 12 people waiting in the back for you to hurry up. You jog to the truck and climb in the back, Chloe saved you a space next to her; awkwardly, Jessie sits opposite you.

There is a wide array of people in this truck, some from the Wolves, Alpha team, Sabre team, the Hunters, and you; the only Ranger being sent. You're not sure what to expect as the truck begins to drive out the gates of Fort Summer but you're almost excited, it's a nice change of pace from what you usually get up to.

Chloe turns to you and opens her mouth to speak but is interrupted by Jessie, "So Y/N, how have you been?" she asks.

"Fine" you reply abruptly, Jessie is the last person you want to talk to right now and you'd much prefer listening to the rumble of the engine.

"So are you and Chloe like dating or something?" she asks, glancing between you and Chloe.

"No" you respond as dryly as possible, hoping she'll stop talking.

"Why? Would it be a problem if we were?" Chloe asks Jessie, clearly irritated by her questions.

"Oh no, not at all, I was just curious" Jessie replies sheepishly as her eyes dart around trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

"Well lets keep this curiosity to ourselves then shall we?" Chloe says as she frowns at Jessie who nods and looks down at her lap, clearly taken aback by Chloe's response. You can't help but smirk at this, you didn't need Chloe to get involved but you don't really care, it's pretty funny and at least you know that Chloe has your back; she's a good friend.

The rest of the trip to Dixieland was spent in relative silence with only the occasional few words exchanged between you and Chloe to break it. As the truck pulls up to the gates, you can feel everyone grow tense, no-one is sure of exactly what to expect and it's not like you've been trained in this sort of thing; how do you stop a protest?

The truck's engine cuts out and everyone begins to climb out. As you do, you can see a crowd of people gathering to observe you all. You hate being watched. Mr Johnson seems stressed as he walks over to you all, "Hey y'all!" he exclaims with a smile you presume is fake, "As you can see, we have a little situation here" he says pointing to the gathering crowd which is getting larger by the minute.

"What do you need us to do sir?" someone asks, stepping forward. You guess they're going to assume leadership of the situation.

"Well, there's supposed to be another protest soon so we're going to need to make sure it doesn't get out of hand" Mr Johnson replies, he looks around at you all and his eyes rest on you. "Who's in charge here?" he asks.