Cover Of Night

Neenah was utterly silent except for the harshness of her breathing. She clung to him like a monkey and tried to help by pushing with her feet. She’d recognized the sound of rifle fire, too; after all, she’d grown up around people who still hunted for some of their food.

He wasn’t certain where the shots were coming from, didn’t know if he was the target or if Neenah was. or if" neither of them was the specific target and this was more a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Right now the "why" didn’t matter, only the "where" – the location the shots were coming from. He couldn’t just blindly run out; he had to keep Neenah safe.

"Where’s the kitchen?" he rasped, listening to round after round being fired. It sounded like a fucking war out there. The kitchen would offer the most protection, with its array of metal appliances. A high-caliber bullet from a powerful rifle would punch through multiple walls unless it was stopped by something like a refrigerator. He still intended to stay on the floor, even if" Neenah happened to have a whole row of refrigerators lining her walls.

"I – I don’t know," she stuttered, gasping for breath. "I – where are we?"

She was disoriented, which wasn’t surprising. Creed tightened his left arm around her. "We’re in the hall; your feet are pointing toward the front door."

She was silent for a moment, breathing hard, as she struggled to order the position of her rooms. "Ah – okay. To your right. Ahead, and to the right. But I need to go to the bedroom."

He disregarded that; a bedroom wouldn’t offer as much protection. "The kitchen is safer."

"Clothes. I need clothes."

Creed paused. There had been some sort of powerful explosion, someone was shooting at them, and she wanted to change clothes? The same sort of acid comment that had taken strips off some very tough Marines boiled to his tongue, but he held it back. This wasn’t one of his men; this was Neenah… and she’d been a nun. Maybe former nuns were extremely modest. God, he hoped not, but –

"What you have on will do," he ventured, cautiously feeling his way lest he run afoul of some nun rule.

"I can’t run in this nightgown and robe, much less in bedroom slippers!"

Unfortunately, that made sense, not to mention that the nights were getting cold. He would have preferred to retreat to a safe position where he could assess the situation, but he was acutely aware he couldn’t command her as he had his men. Faced with that reality, Creed shifted his priority to helping her do what she wanted as safely as possible.

"Okay, one change of clothes coming up." Another round punched through the living room wall, followed by the deep crack of the rifle shot. Creed flattened her in case the next shot was lower, letting his weight crush her against the floor. She was so soft beneath him, the way he’d spent years imagining, and the thought of one of those powerful rounds tearing into her was horrifying. He’d fought wars, lost men to every kind of violence possible, whether it was a bullet, a bomb, a knife, or a training accident, and every loss had been a scar on his soul; he himself had killed, and that was a different sort of scar – but all of that he’d borne with an inner stoicism that had allowed him to function. If anything happened to Neenah, though, he simply couldn’t bear it. Because of that he said, "You stay in the kitchen – lie flat on the floor where it’s safest. I’ll get your clothes and bring them to you."

"You don’t know where they are; you’ll be exposed longer – " Before she finished speaking, she was trying to wriggle away from him.

Stunned, he realized she was trying to protect him. Shock made him a little rough with her as he blocked her effort to wriggle free, keeping her firmly beneath him.

She pushed on his shoulders, her breasts straining into his chest. "Mr. Creed…Joshua – I need to breathe!"

He eased his weight off her, but not enough that she could slide out from under him. He could piss her off, he thought, or he could keep her alive. To his way of thinking, the choice was crystal clear. He bent his head to her ear. "Here’s the way it is: Someone is shooting at us with a high-powered rifle, which makes this my game, not yours. My job is to get us out of here alive. Your job is to do what I say the second the words are out of my mouth. After we’re safe, you can slap my face or kick my shins, but until then I’m boss. Got it?"

"Of course I’ve got it," she said with remarkable cool, under the circumstances, one of which was not being able to draw a deep breath. "I don’t believe I’m an idiot. But it’s only logical that I would be able to get my clothes faster than you would, thereby making it safer for both of us, because if you get shot while you’re hunting for my shoes, then my own chances for getting out of here alive go down. Am I right?"

She was arguing with him. The experience was both novel and infuriating. Even more frustrating was the fact that she made sense – again. He hung there over her, torn between logic and his overpowering instinct to protect her at any cost.

With a sudden fierce movement he rolled off her and snapped, "Be fast. If you have a flashlight, get it, but don’t turn it on. Don’t stand up. Belly crawl if you can, get to your knees if you have to, but under no circumstances are you to stand up. Clear?"

"Clear," she said. Her voice shook a little, but she was in control of herself. Creed forced himself to let her move away from him, tracking her by the sounds she made as she pulled herself along on her elbows, and dug into the carpet with her toes to push. Once he heard what sounded like a muttered curse, but he was pretty sure nuns, even ex-nuns, didn’t swear, so he was probably wrong about that.

He broke out in a fine sheen of sweat, waiting for her, knowing that at any second another round could rip through the walls as if they were made of paper. So far the shots had been placed about head high, designed to catch people who were standing. The people of Trail Stop were civilians; they hadn’t been trained to automatically hit the ground. Instead they would try to run, and not necessarily in the best direction. They might even try to look out the windows, which was about the dumbest thing to do in this situation. Or they might grab their flashlights and turn them on, pinpointing their positions for the shooters. He needed to get out there, get them organized, stop them from doing stupid shit.