Lay Your Love

Chapter 8: Consequences of my actions

Hillary held a cold cup of coffee as he watched soldiers get out of small tents and jeeps, and start a small work out or just talking or eating breakfast. Not that it was a full breakfast, just something that they could scramble. He hadn't seen Tom yet, he needed to talk to the young soldier. Randall came behind Hillary with a big smile, like he was a cat who had just eaten a big canary. Hillary turned to him with a confused look, he knew Randall long enough to know that the old bastard had done something bad. "What have you done this time Randall?" Hillary asked as he took a sip from the cold bitter liquid. "Well, I got a bit more information from the soldier, but now I'm interested to know, what will we do with them?" Randall asked, having a dangerous tone in his voice. "Will we execute him? We certainly can't let him go" Randall stated. Hillary nodded in agreement and then turned to look at the tent the soldier was kept in. "We could convince him to join us" Hillary stated boldly, he knew himself that if he was younger he would probably shoot the soldier, but now wiser and just a bit older, he had more common sense. "Convince him?? how? All these red army soldiers are mind controlled by the red army program, I doubt they have a brain to use anymore" Randall remarked as he turned to Hillary. "You can't be serious! He will attack us or run away as soon as possible! HE cannot be trusted!" Randall ranted. "Well he's too young Randall! He's basically a kid- ''''He's clearly over eighteen years old Hillary, what sort of children do you see?" Randall remarked. Hillary and Randall ranted at each other. The tent where the red army soldier was held was invaded, into the tent crept Flin. Just a while back Lans and another few medics told Flin to check up on the red army soldier, Flin was scared at first to go and check on the soldier. However when Flin walked in the tent only to freeze in place, the soldier in front of him was cut out of his ropes but he was on the ground flailing and gasping, his uniform had rips and his neck was bleeding. Flin quickly yelled out for the other medics and rushed to help the soldier. The first two people that came in the tent were Hillary and Randall with confused faces turning into shock when they saw the soldier. "WHAT HAPPENED?!" Hillary yelled as he helped the soldier up for better examination for Flin as more medics rushed in. Hillary looked at Randall with a glare "Randall did you do this?" Hillary asked, Randall was about to answer but Flin beat him to it. "Sir, It must have been an animal-" "What?" "Look-" Flin quickly pointed away to where the pile of ropes lay and smears of blood. You could clearly see something that looked like a paw, but it looked big, not big enough to be a bear but not smaller than a wolf. Randall quickly walked after where the pawprints lead, while the medics attended the soldier who only got paler and paler. Soon they were able to stabilize the soldier but due to blood loss he was knocked out cold. A few medics picked him up and started to carry him towards their jeep where they could attend him better.

Hillary turned to Flin as the young medic was about to follow his teamates. "Flin, I want you to question him when he's coherent enough" Hillary said and Flin only nodded to his colonel then ran off. Hillary walked over to the bloody paw prints, he couldn't help but let out a confused hum. The paw brint seemed to be deformed?It had five 'fingers", which not a lot of animals had in this area. He also scratched the back of his head, in all his career he hadn't ever stumbled to a paw print like this. It looked like a mix of a bobcat and a human or monkey handprint. Whatever had made its way into the tent, Hillary full heartedly wished that it was gone now. Hillary turned around and then Tom came into the tent, looking a bit bewildered. Then they made eye contact, something seemed so wrong with Tom at that moment. Hillary couldn't pinpoint what, but he still got the uncanny valley feeling.

"What's going on?" Tom asked and suddenly those eerie feelings left Hillary instantly. It was as if Tom's face somehow changed back to a human. A rush of relief washed over Hillary as he looked at his young soldier and he gave a tired smile to Tom. "Some animal broke in here and had unfortunately wounded the red army soldier. But the medics managed to stabilize him" Hillary answered. Tom nodded, then Tom got a look of disappointment. Oh, right, their earlier "talk". "Tom, about earlier" Hillary started and Tom looked up at him. "I- Please stay by my side from now on, bowling ball. Son, I am glad that you caught a soldier and we got information out of him. But this could have turned out horribly" Hillary started as he stepped closer to Tom. "I was so worried, what if you got hurt? Please think before you act son" Hillary finally got out what he wanted to say, now all he needed was the closure that Tom would do as told. "Why didn't you tell me I was wanted then?" Tom said quietly, ah there it was. "Thomas I already know how much you stress with this war as it is, and your stress with your old friends. And not to mention the stress you get from him,, I just wanted to shield you from more worry and stress" Hillary explained and to him it seemed as if his words had reached Tom and the young soldier noded. "Alright, I understand," Tom said as he turned to Hillary. "But I still want some sort of revenge on the red army, and I thought this whole situation would be great for that" Tom said as he crossed his arms. "This situation? What do you mean?" Hillary asked. "We're so close to them! Why not take them by surprise?" Tom asked. "Tom, we were ordered not to engage with the red army!" "And by who? The higher ups! that are making false accusations about me! Hillary, can't you see? Were clearly not on their side anymore, you've already chosen to hide me from them" Tom pointed out. "Son, I know how you feel right now, but how will any of my men attack them now? We are weak as it is, we will fail, Thomas. We just have to wait" Hillary reasoned while Tom just looked to the side. "Fine, whatever I need to rest anyway" Tom said as he turned away and walked off while Hillary stayed behind waiting for Randall.