"I
am trouble babe," he was about to turn the tables on her when he heard the
alarm on his vest beep signaling that he was now out of the game. She
hadn’t even given him a chance to fight back, and how did she get two weapons?
"Sorry
about that, but," and this time she backed away before she finished,
leaving the area on his neck chilled by her absence, "I play for
keeps." She moved off as Ward turned to look at her. Without
even a glance in his direction she continued, “By the way, I hate,” and she
stressed the word hate, “being called babe.”
Knowing
that he was watching her, intently, she deliberately stopped before entering
the building to formally retrieve the envelope and as she glanced over her
shoulder she smiled, at least he thought he could safely call it that.
Her mouth was curved upwards in what could be interpreted as a smile but her eyes
said something completely different; not bad but tempting. He wasn't sure
what it all meant, but he knew that he was even more intent on finding out
now. Game on.
Ward
leaned back against the shed to think. He was waiting on his team.
Jan had left for the barracks; she must have because he felt cold and empty
like some important fluid had been drained from his body; a strange feeling for
him.
"That
chick's a witch," Bobby had walked up to him. Once the last of the
team had been shot down the game was over and they were free to move away from
the area that they had been killed.
"She
does have some wicked skills," he couldn't help but smile as he said this,
“Used your dead weapon to trick me.” He looked in the direction she would
have had to go, but she wasn’t there.
"Something
you want to share bro?" Bobby had noticed Ward's expression as well
as his well-guarded thoughts and knew something was up.
“Not
yet,” they started to move toward the barracks once Jordon had caught up with
them.
Bobby
and Jordon had made it back faster than Ward to the barracks to get cleaned
up. Bobby had noticed that Ward was dropping farther and farther back
when they had been walking. He had tried to talk to him, but Ward didn’t
answer and he couldn’t be read. He felt Ward’s energy enter and waited
until he was within earshot. Bobby had waited in the shadows outside and
watched what Ward was doing. Once Ward was inside it took him very little
time to strip off his once black pants and shirt and let them fall on the
floor. He was looking forward to washing off the layers of mud that had
dried on his skin. But he had had time to think about things while he
waited for Ward to go inside and the more he thought about it the more upset he
was that a girl had bested them all.
“Damn.
What in the hell was that?” Bobby said in anger, not really expecting an
answer. He was just walking into the shower stall in the men's locker
room next to Ward. Ward had already thrown off his mud-encrusted clothes
and gone into the showers to try and remove the layers that still clung to
him. Ward had trained with these men before and their reaction to the
mini training mission they had just been on was interesting. “Is she some
sort of freak?” Bobby continued as the spray hit him and the mud began to
puddle at the base of the stall.“They said she was good when we set up the
training mission,” Ward put his head under the water and closed his eyes.
He had been planning this since he had put in for a transfer to the Phoenix
office. Part of it had been curiosity, part of it just another way to
meet up with her again, but he hadn’t bothered to tell Bobby, his best friend
or, that. Closing his eyes and placing his face back under the water he
could clearly picture her. He couldn't help but smile at the outcome of
this training session. It didn’t surprise him that he had a good helping
of admiration for her either. She had beaten them thoroughly. Her
performance during the training session had not been anything less than extraordinary.
Nothing he hadn't expected after he had looked at her file, after all they were
PED agents. They were well trained in all types of areas to make them
virtually unstoppable. No one could yet beat her time in assembling a firearm
in pitch-blackness. It was pure pleasure to mentally watch as she moved
through terrain that was best left to swamp creatures. She then switched
her weapon under live fire. She had allowed him to watch all of this
through her mind. It was only toward the end when they had tried to block
each other that the true strength of her talents had shined. She had been
the only mind reader he had ever met that could pick off a trained blocker in
pitch-blackness. He was hoping he would get a chance to ask her about
that.
