The Price of Love

Chapter 2

Alex's PoV

"Dad! I'm home!" I yell. There's a muffled yell of greeting from his office, aka his war room. I walk through the house and open the door. He looks up from a large map on his desk.

"I believe we should move forces to Kips Bay, but I'm not sure from where." He tells me, tapping the map thoughtfully. I smirk, leaning against the doorframe.

"You're slow." I tease. "I'm one step ahead of you. I just sent a message to Sergeants Dodgeson and Lewis to move their squads to Kips Bay." He smiles proudly.

"And that's why I made you a General." He rumbles, walking over to me and ruffling my hair affectionately. "A good choice in their squads, son."

"Do I make anything but good choices when it comes to the war, father?" I inquire dryly. He laughs.

"No, indeed you don't." He walks back to his map and I follow, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him. "When do you think they'll attack?"

"As I unfortunately don't possess the ability to peer into the future, I can't say. But my gut tells me within a week, a fortnight at most. And no doubt one of their targets will be Kips Bay. They won't dare attack Long Island, we've successfully defended it too many times. My guess is they won't attempt to attack it for a minimum of three months." I say confidently. He nods in agreement.

"Where would I be without you?" He mutters.

"Dead. Or imprisoned." I offer. "At the most. At least, New York would be in shambles and our army would be a fraction of what it is currently, and highly unwilling to fight. In short, you'd be in Hell without me." He boxes my ears gently and I chuckle. "You know it's true." I tease.

"That it is." He admits grudgingly. "How many ships do you expect them to attack with?"

"Based on what they've used in the past for more fortified targets, I estimate at least two, armed with cannons. When they attack, there won't be any footmen in the initial attack, they'll want to scare us off. But we're not so easily intimidated. The best course of action will be to attack with cannons of our own and drive them off, but not sink them. Drive them out into the ocean, then let our vengeance reign down upon them." My words turn into a snarl at the end and I slam my fist into the table.

"Calm down there." Dad reprimands mildly. "You'll get the chance to get back in action soon." I growl with frustration.

"I hate this waiting." I spit, fired up. "Why can't they just attack instead of waiting and stressing me out?" I slam the table in frustration. "I'm going out. I need to go shoot some trees before I break your table." I say abruptly, running to my room to grab my pistol and take out my anger and frustration on some innocent trees and squirrels. Heh, if I shoot a squirrel, I can go give it to the butcher. He'd be grateful for it. Everyone is running low on supplies, has been for months. I haven't had coffee in ages and I'm dying because of it. I walk around the back of our house to my personal 'shooting range', which is a few old barrels stacked on top of each other and some old trees. Going on autopilot, I adopt the proper stance and blindly shoot, aiming, firing, and reloading with barely a thought. I need to stop holing myself up in my room and thinking about the war. I think. Getting out and away from it for a little while had put me in a much better mood. But the moment it returns to the forefront of my mind, I'm in a shitty mood again. I snarl a little. "Is it too much to ask just to fight?" I roar in frustration, lowering my pistol and snapping into reality. I run my free hand through my hair, both lightly dusted with gunpowder. I need to get back on the battlefield. Just get in a little skirmish soon or I'm going to snap. Thank the Lord, a messenger, badly wounded, runs up to me on his tawny stallion.