A Dreamer Caught In The Crossfire

Chapter 10

Jasmine found herself following Brooke through a dimly lit, noisy hallway with her feet aching from all the running they did. The barracks were at least a 2 kilometers away from the building they came from and by the time they arrived Brooke had pointed out at least 50 important places and looked exactly like she did when they started whilst Jasmine was panting and sweating buckets. They walked past a few soldiers on the way who either completely ignored their presence or sent a salute in Brooke's direction. Jasmine was thankful when Brooke finally stopped walking. They had stopped in front of an ageing wooden door with a shiny brass sign that read 'rat-a-tat-tat'. With a bit of effort, Brooke opened the door to reveal a large workshop filled with various machines, tools and workstations. A woman with tattoo sleeves running down both her arms sat at one of the counters lazily flipping through a magazine.

"Hey-" started Brooke.

"You're fifteen minutes late," stated the woman without looking up from her magazine.

Jasmine stood awkwardly at the door with Tabitha in her hand, completely unsure of what to do. Brooke opened her mouth to explain but the woman abruptly raised her palm and silenced her immediately.

"You're lucky I don't have a lot of people coming in today," said the woman as she shut the magazine, "Who's the lucky person needing my services?"

"Um, Luz this is Jasmine. The newbie I was talking about and," she turned to Jasmine, "Jazz this is Luz. She's been designing armor and machinery for the Hellfire Corps ever since it started. You might not want to visit her tattoo parlor at night though."

Luz groaned, a slight smile on her lips.

"Oh come on! It was only that one time!"

"Yeah but Cam is going to suffer that 'one time' for eternity!"

Luz laughed lightly and shook her head making the curls on her purple undercut faux hawk bounce slightly.

"Fine. You win this round Brooke Jordan. Jasmine get your butt in here and shut the door behind you. Don't worry, I don't bite."

"Yeah, as if my first thought when I saw you was that you were going to bite me," mumbled Jasmine as she entered the room fully.

Without wasting any time, Luz grabbed a notepad and some measuring tape set to work.

"So Jasmine, Tell me about yourself. I hear you're already prepping up for your elite initiation," She said as she scribbled down some measurements into the notepad.

"I guess so. I literally just got here and I already have to work my butt off."

Luz snickered.

"Well, that's just how things work around here now. With the ongoing hostility between Aeras and Griffinstone everybody's just trying to focus on the main things that could actually help the situation."

Jasmine didn't reply. She zoned out again, leaving Luz to do her job in silence while Brooke patted Tabitha.

xxx

Time flew by filled with measuring tape, design boards and minimal conversation when Luz finally announced she was done.

"Finally!" exclaimed Brooke, "I was so bored! Never make me sit still and silent like that ever again!"

"Brooke, it was literally only twelve minutes," stated Jasmine.

"Exactly! Do you know how long twelve minutes is in my time?! Do you?! That's what I thought Jasmine."