To Cut Blood Ties

Chapter 21: It Is a Lie

August 24, 2016

Paradise Valley, Arizona

5:14pm

Sam scanned through the reports that were on her desk. This last mission had been a joke, the fairy had stolen up to ten thousands dollars in jewelry and electronics, and had been stealing small parts from cars so that they wouldn't work anymore. Fairies were notoriously tricky little creatures, but usually they were a bit tamer than...well this one. She untied her hair, leaning back and fluffing out her hair. Sam was annoyed and stressed; this was her least favorite part about being a captain. She had to read through all of the reports than sum them up in her own report. And usually it was a pain in the ass, but with a mission that was already challenging, it just made everything more tedious and annoying.

Sam pushed away from her desk and walked down the hall, she was one of the few captains that had an office at the Oswald mansion. She had a feeling that the six captains who had offices, were basically glorified bodyguards for George and Alice, and in a way Marie and Jason as well. Recently Sam had been feeling more protective of Alice than anyone else in the family, though she had felt her place as a bodyguard unneeded as Alice got more angry and violent.

Sam paused next to the staircase, lurking somewhat in the shadows. She needed a break from all of the reports and paperwork. She had been working on them for two days now, on top of the paperwork that came from the five graduates, well it was giving her a headache. Out in the backyard, by the garage, Sam spotted movement. She walked over to the window and watched as a team was gathering their weapons and getting ready for a mission. Sam could see the scythe that belonged to Alice, and she felt a spark of worry. The woman was going out almost every night on a mission, and each day she was getting paler and thinner. She was hurting herself, and Sam didn't think she knew.

She knew that she needed to say something soon to Alice, especially since it wasn't just the fact that she was working too hard. But there was something odd going on under the roof, the missions were becoming more frequent and they weren't just interrogation or warnings anymore. The soldiers wouldn't know due to the fact that they didn't have access to the history of missions. But Sam did, and she was seeing that the three warnings weren't happening. There were a lot more elimination missions than there had been before. And while Jason did have to approve the missions, Sam had noticed in reports that any team that had George on it was an automatic annihilation. Marie was also pushing missions and some of them were not yet approved by Jason and a team was sent out to deal with it. The captains hadn't gossiped but there were hints that there was an internal war happening within the family. It had been hinted at for years, with many having to choose between Jason and Marie, but it was never something that was strictly obvious. But recently, especially in the last six months, it had been getting a bit more intense.

Sam wanted to protect Alice, but that would mean betraying her career. And she didn't know how to do that, and part of her was afraid to.

Alice felt frustrated which was refreshing. She liked the feeling of anger, and missions that exploited that were her favorite. But the thing about this mission was that it wasn't the accused that were pissing her off tonight. It was the captain of this mission: Mary Layke. She had a reputation of being a challenging captain, not for good reasons, but for simply being difficult and not letting any of the soldiers have their own thoughts. She has reprimanded soldiers before and even put in a report that they have completely disregarded her orders, when the simple fact was that the soldier reacted to a situation where they had to protect themselves and the team.