Isolation & Fear (Damned of the 2/19th Book Seven)

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Daywalk, Third Wake Time

Snow fell gently around me as I dug in the snow by the creek and harvested wild onions and leeks. My fighting blade was belted to my hip in the leather sheathe that the woman had made for me, a comfortable weight that I appreciated.

She was not as I had expected. I had expected differently. How, I could not remember. but she was how she was, and that was fine. She was not a woman of sweet words and soft touches, but rather a solid presence that I was able to draw strength from as she drew strength from me. Now that her eyes were uncovered she helped around our home. She often sat and watched me cook with a smile, watched me hold the small white rabbits I had snared and put in cages. Her violet eyes were full of warmth and affection.

That alone was enough for me.

I was a man. The affection of a woman was reward unto itself.

A rustling in the bushes caught my attention. I glanced up, one hand going to the leather wrapped hilt of my fighting blade. I went perfectly still, breathing slowly and evenly so no steam rose from my face coverings.

Nothing.

I had almost relaxed when I heard it from far away. A scream of fear and rage. It rang faintly across the frozen forest. Once, twice, a third time, and I heard an enraged bellow answer it.

A fey threatened and her protector moving to help.

That was dangerous. Her wild feral cry would stir up the creatures of the woods.

I pushed the vegetables I had gathered into the leather pouch at my hip and took off running, weaving a complex pattern to avoid being easily followed home.

Her screams of rage and fear echoed through the woods.

I wondered, briefly, as I hurtled myself over a frozen creek, who had dared attempt to lay their hands on one of the beautiful but terrifying fey.

Not me. That's all that mattered.

I knew better.

When I got back home the woman was asleep, dreaming.

I started making food for us, glancing at her once in a while.

I wondered what she was dreaming about that made her stir and mumble in her sleep like she was in pain.

2/19th Special Weapons Group Area
Secure Area
Alfenwehr, West Germany
17 April, 1987, Friday
1330 Hours

The barracks still held their typical chill as I walked down the hallway to the Orderly Room. My Class-A's felt too tight and slightly restraining, my medal plate looked stupid with all the ribbons, and people I didn't recognize stared at me as I carried my suitcase on one hand and a folder with my orders in it in the other.

Shaft, the eternal Orderly Room Clerk, looked up at me when I came in. She lifted her fingers from her typerwriter and scooted her chair back, standing up.

"Cromwell," She smiled. She was one of those women with a natural beauty that other people paid Hollywood plastic surgeons millions to try to touch.

"Shaft," I smiled, setting the folder with my orders on it in front of her.

"How was your flight?" She asked me.

I shook my head. "Exhausting. The C-141 blew a door seal two hours out of Rammstein, the noise was terrible."

She pulled open her desk drawer, removing a bottle of bourbon. "Drink?" I held my hand out and she slapped the bottle into it. I noticed some of the Orderly Room clerks frowned disapprovingly as I took a long pull off the bottle, but I couldn't give two shifts what some baby-blood newbie thought of me. I handed the bottle back. "Better?" she asked, putting the bottle back.