Chapter 9 Tess
Tess was alone. It hadn’t started out that way and now she didn’t know what to do.
She didn’t know a thing about warfare. She went along with whatever Kal told her to.
So she stayed on the roof and tried to make herself useful while ducking the occasional shots that came her way when somebody managed to notice the small woman on the roof shooting down at them.
There had been snipers and archers all along the roof’s edge and Tess found a rhythm in carefully taking out whoever she could on the ground, waiting until they were close.
She didn’t always shoot to kill. She followed the person-to-person fights and was sometimes able to disable an enemy enough so whoever was on them could get in their shot.
More than one fighter on their side looked up at her perched there on the roof, and tossed her a salute.
Ash fell like snow on the roof from one of the fires on the field of battle. There were several buildings going up in flames. Chicago was pretty bombed-out, though not as much as New York. It would be a little worse now.
She bided her time. She was careful. She had a backpack full of ammo for the gun Mara had taught her to use.
She thought it was important to know her place and do as much good as she could realistically manage.
They seemed to be winning, she thought, but it was hard to tell.
She got distracted looking down on the ground whenever she saw someone from their side get killed or hit.
Just one casualty felt like a punch to the gut.
It felt like she saw a lot of casualties, though no one she knew.
She kept an eye out for Kal too, figuring she could cover him if he needed her.
But she never saw him from her lookout and figured he might still be in the Council building.
She spent a long time there as the battle wore on and then finally crawled away from the ledge to stand up and stretch, only to notice she was the only one left.
That seemed rude somehow. She felt like somebody should have warned her they were leaving her alone.
Tess reloaded her gun, grabbed the backpack, and ran to the stairs, crouching low just in case of any flying bullets from higher buildings.
Inside, she pressed up against the door and caught her breath.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d become used to the constant roar of the fires, guns, explosions, and vehicles thundering around, and the chaos of shouts and screams. Silence somehow sounded louder.
Tess took a breath and made her way downstairs, her heart thudding in her chest and her ears perked up for any danger coming from below. Her plan was to get to the ground and stay small, sticking to the shadows, and take out as many enemy Vampyren as she could.
She reached the ground floor and saw no one.
Kal drove everyone off and anyone coming down from the roof had gone out to the street, she supposed.
Still, she stayed careful and quiet and pressed up against walls, peeking around corners of corridors before she moved.
She heard explosions from far away, distant shouting. But things had gone quiet there.
Tess pressed up against a marble wall and closed her eyes.
She despised how afraid she was. She’d done plenty of dangerous things.
She’d traveled long-distance trapped in a wooden crate hiding from checkpoints, looking for women to put in creches or on-the-run resistance members.
She’d headed up several liberations of children from armed guards.
She hated that one battle was terrifying her to this degree.
But it made her appreciate the trained warriors among them.
She wondered if Kal was okay and immediately dismissed the thought.
She couldn’t worry about him now. She’d lose her mind.
Tess patted her stomach and opened her eyes, dashing to a side door and outside before she could second guess herself.
She refused transport to a safe house. She insisted on joining the fight. She couldn’t back out now.
Things seemed eerie outside. She heard an explosion far away, and the muted roar of fire but she didn’t hear anyone and it creeped her out a little.
The fighting had likely spread out, but it was hard not to wonder if they had all just killed each other, their numbers ending up evenly matched in the end.
Tess ran to a pillar in a courtyard between the Council HQ and the next office building over.
She hid behind it and scanned around seeing no one excepting a stray dog running across a street, seemingly unaware of the chaos around him.
Tess stayed hidden, frozen to her spot, and eventually, she saw an enemy Vampyren casually strolling out of a building across the street.
She breathed slowly, watching him look around for threats, waiting for him to get close enough.
She swallowed, aimed, and just as he’d spotted her leaning out from behind the pillar, she shot him, catching him in the thigh.
He was wearing armor. She hadn’t expected to be able to shoot him dead but now she ran before she could allow herself to think.
He had a blade but she couldn’t see a gun.
Or perhaps the Vampyren had run out of ammunition quickly, not knowing what they were doing with guns.
Tess stuck her gun in her waistband and drew her blade.
The strangest part was how easy it was to kill him.
He had fallen to the ground, his thigh gushing blood.
He shouted for back-up but nobody was coming.
When he saw her run at him, he drew his blade, but realizing he was doomed, he tried to crawl away.
Tess wasted no time. She didn’t even think about it.
She just ran up to him and slit his throat with one swipe of her blade.
He gaped at her in surprise and fell back, his throat spraying blood so dramatically that it hardly seemed real.
It was her first battle kill. She wanted it to be only one.
She wanted this to be over so she could be eating tacos with Kal at one of those pop-ups, sipping horchata, and dreaming about their future.
Tess wiped her blade on his vest as he gurgled into his death and turned around, marching away without looking back.
But inwardly, she was shaking, adrenaline coursing through her.
That was doubtless why she didn’t see the second Vampyren behind her who now grabbed her and picked her up off the ground without a word.
Tess screamed, and the man snorted a laugh.
She cried out at the sensation of a sharp blade at her neck and shut her eyes, tears welling up, as she waited for her inevitable death.
She grabbed her stomach, grieving for her baby with Kal and everything that could have been, but the enemy wasn’t killing her.
Instead, he was carrying her away back into the Council HQ building.
It didn’t take Tess long to sort out the enemy’s intentions, and she clawed at the immoveable muscular arms that held her impossibly tight.
She’d dropped her own blade when he’d grabbed her and he was holding her too tightly for her to reach for her gun.
Even now he felt around and found the weapon, waving it in front of her before laughing and throwing it far away.
“I’m going to getsomethingout of this battle,” he said, panting as he carried her into the dark corridor she’d just come from.
“Nothing like some human whore. I’ll fuck you to death, how’s that?
” He was cackling and somehow it struck her that his laugh didn’t sound evil.
He just sounded very casual about the whole thing as he shoved her to the ground and climbed on top of her.
Tess kicked, scratched, and hit. It was doing nothing.
He was even taller than Kal and far too strong.
He covered her mouth and she felt fear, white and hot, in her veins.
The soldier smelled like death and blood and body odor and he was so drenched with sweat it was dampening her own clothes.
She shut her eyes, waiting for the pain when the awful weight of the man disappeared all at once.
Tess scrambled away, at least mindful enough to get out of the way without waiting.
She began to run down the corridor when she heard Kal’s voice.
“Tess!” His call echoed in the marble hallway and she stopped, turning around, wild-eyed and still shaking with adrenaline.
Kal stood over the body of the already dead enemy Vampyren and would-be rapist. Blood was gushing from his throat.
His head was nearly off his neck, Kal had cut almost all the way through it.
Now he stood, watching her quietly as if they weren’t in the middle of a war.
Tess was still catching her breath, trembling from the terror from the attack, but there was no one else around.
There was only Kal standing in the corridor with blood all over him.
But he was alive and did not look badly hurt.
She ran to him and he stepped around the Vampyren body, marching toward her.
She jumped and his strong, reliable arms came around her, picking her up.
She wrapped her legs around him and tears slid down her cheeks.
Is it over? She thought. Please be over.
She had not seen the thick of it but it hadseemedso awful, perched up on that roof for so long, watching people fall and bleed in the street, not knowing who was winning, or how long it would last.
“It’s over,” Kal whispered in her ear, his arms squeezing her so tight, she ached. “It’s over. We’re okay. We won. We’re just cleaning up now. That’s all. This asshole knew it was over and he wanted whatever he could get out of a failure. Now it’s over for him too.”
She gasped and began to sob into his shoulder.
She blamed her reaction on the hormones of pregnancy though she knew better than that.
For a long time, Kal just stood there with Tess wrapped around him as she cried on his shoulder.
She sniffed and pulled away, and he smiled against her cheek.
His whole handsomely chiseled face was caked with dried blood, his hair up in that bun he favored now. He still looked beautiful to her.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He pecked a kiss to her lips. “I got you. We’re okay now. Let’s go get some tacos.”