Chapter 328: I Want To Help You
"Hey, what’s this?" Dean asked, feeling Lyssa behind him. She had moved on instinct and pulled back after he spoke, but not before almost a minute had passed.
"I... Uh... Don’t know..." Lyssa said, feeling anxious. She didn’t honestly understand why her body had moved like that. She felt like his story was sad and believed him, but she never intended to hug him. Since Dean was facing away from her and she couldn’t look on her own head, she missed the imprint of a crown on her head that vanished just as she pulled away.
Neither of them knew anything about it.
"Well. Thank you, but I am fine. It’s something I have come to live with." Dean continued making coffee, reaching up and wiping off the tear as though it had nothing to do with him.
"Yes. I can see that. Well, since I don’t have any more questions to ask, I will be on my way," Lyssa said, wanting to leave.
"Ah, Ok," Dean didn’t know how to respond. He hadn’t been thinking she would want any, but some of the coffee he was making was going to be for her. Still, no harm no foul.
Lyssa arrived at the door and peeked outside, relieved to find the hallway empty.
"You know... I don’t know why... but I want to help you, even if it’s just a little. I feel like... I owe you something I can’t repay..." Lyssa said, almost in a whisper.
Dean turned around to look at her and saw that she had vanished, the door swinging closed silently behind her.
"What kind of help could you possibly be? You’re just a kid..." Dean said out loud to himself while shaking his head.
He still had no idea what to make of this girl, more so now that she really was a beauty. After all, girls were hard to ignore on a good day, much less the beautiful ones.
...
"There are signs of a wave coming. The forest outside of the lake has been overly active recently. We even sent in helicopters to napalm the center, but that just led to them being shot down by the inhabitants."
In a round room full of uniformed officers, a report was being read out loud to those who had gathered. Even though they had all read this before, there was protocol that had to be followed before discussing options.
"So we send in ground teams?" One of the uniformed men asked.
"Ground teams would be totally blind wo whatever they were fighting. They would be killed in an instant as soon as they penetrated the border. Don’t think we haven’t tried a couple times. We even sent in low flying drones with cameras, but those were destroyed before they could even see what was attacking them." One man sat at the head of the table with his fingers locked while leaning back. While this man happened to be the highest ranking officer here, he was looking to see if there were any good ideas to be had.
"What about a missile strike?"
"Or a low yield nuke? Contain the blast area and evacuate nearby citizens?"
"We start nuking on home ground and the media will have a field day with it."
"Not if it’s kept quiet."
"Maybe that would have worked thirty years ago, but now social media makes these things next to impossible. No matter how contained the mission is, we will have to assume that it will be leaked somewhere. Besides, no matter how small the yield, there is no way to hide it from every prying eye."
"Besides which, that lake has a substantial population of resorts around it with the largest one being favorited by even the governor himself. You think he’s going to just stay quiet if we interfere with his vacation plans?"
"Gentlemen!" The man sitting at the head of the table raised his hand for quiet and attention, causing everyone else to fall silent.
"From what I am understanding, we currently don’t have a single usable idea for handling this situation?"
"What about those chosen we keep seeing on the news and hearing about? Aren’t they suppose to deal with these types of incidents?" One of the braver, younger uniformed officers commented to the commander.
"Yes. They are actually. However, without intel, they will refuse to walk into this as it could be a death trap for them as well. However, there is still one option open to us." After saying this, the commander turned his chair around to face a large blank screen that was behind him.
"Agent Wallace, are you there?"
"Yes Commander. I take it that you have considered my proposal?" The screen came to life with the middle aged Agent Wallace coming into focus. He was sitting back, legs crossed while holding some papers. Although he was speaking to the commander, it was clear that he was working on other things as well. While normally this might have been considered rude, the commander didn’t seem to mind even when the agent didn’t look up.
"We seem to have no other option."
"Excellent. Do not concern yourself commander as I can guarantee the outcome. We have used this tactic before and while the end result is somewhat mixed, at the very least it helps to alleviate the current stress of the situation and brings things down to more tolerable levels that can be handled by your local troops."
"Even that would be more than enough. How long before your crews can arrive?" The commander asked.
"It will take a day or two to collect the ones we need as they are housed in different centers, but after that it will simply take a day or two to get them down there with there handlers and to double check the restraints. We have to make sure we can track down and retrieve all of the ones who survive after all. Can’t have them getting loose now can we?" Even though Agent Wallace laughed, he still didn’t look up.
"Thank you for your quick response agent."
"That’s what we are here for. I will have my command unit contact you once they arrive. The handlers and the ones in their care will need some base level lodgings, tents and the like and obviously food so just make sure that’s arranged for them when they get there."
"Of course Agent Wallace."
"I shall await the good news." And with that, the screen went black and agent Wallace disappeared from sight. From the start to the end of the video call, agent Wallace didn’t look at the commander once.
"Sir... are you sure you want to do this?" That young officer asked. He had moved up the ranks rather easily thanks to connections and knowing who to sweet talk to and who to threaten. Therefore, he was the least reserved in the room when it came to the commander while also being the least experienced.
No one else said a word while still staring at the blank screen. They all knew what this meant and none of them really liked it, but what choice did they have.
"Do you object lieutenant?" The commander asked with a strange tone to his words.
"While I don’t believe these people deserve the same rights and freedoms as others, I still get a bad vibe from using them this way..."
BANG!
The shot rang out as the lieutenant fell to the floor, a hole in his head. The commander lowered his hand that was holding the gun everyone in the room was dead silent.
"This upcoming operation is going to classified top secret to the highest degree. If anyone shows any signs of hesitation or unwillingness, they will need to be permanently silenced in this manner. None of this is ever to get out to anyone. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes sir!" Although they had trouble speaking and it was somewhat faint in several cases, everyone replied in the affirmative. There would be no decent, no leak and no record of them doing this.
As the meeting finished, the commander still sat on the chair at the front of the room, his hands interlocked through folded fingers.
"So this is what it’s like to sell my soul for the greater good?" The commander looked over at the dead lieutenant and sighed deeply, wishing that he could just close his eyes, say a prayer and when he opened them, everything would be back to normal.
He knew it was impossible.
...
Dean was absentmindedly making a drink when he felt a poke in his ribs. Mike was right next to him watching him shake a cocktail for way longer than needed to mix it. Realizing he was zoning out, Dean quickly apologized and finished making the drink.
Fortunalty for him, the customer was staring at his face and not really paying attention to how long her drink was taking.
"You ok man? You been zoning out like I ain’t ever seen," Mike asked, trying to hide his laugh.
"Yeah bud. Just some things on the mind."
"Well, empty that mind a little will you and check this out." Mike pulled out his phone and showed Dean the video of him playing the piano and singing while Lyssa was playing the Cello next to him. Then he scrolled to the video of Tia and him singing together.
Cherry Bomb had posted it on their website showing that even when they went on vacation, the music never stopped. Mike then scrolled down to the various comments that were posted, most of them asking who Dean was and then debating if one of the members of the band were dating him. Luckily, none of the videos showed Dean in close contact with the band members and since the videos were mostly focused on the girls, even Dean’s face didn’t show up much.
But what little bit was visible was enough to set off flood of comments. Not only that, since the audio wasn’t half bad, people were wondering if he was some up and coming artist that the label had paired with them to do a song together.
Either way, no matter what they were talking about, they were blowing up the band’s site like the label had never seen before as clips constantly got liked and reposted on all the socials.
"Uh... well..." Dean didn’t have much of a response to Mike showing him this, at least not at first.
"Buddy... You’re one of the smartest guys I know, but you can still be so stupid at times. Think about it, someone sees this and maybe someone who knows you will come forward. Then maybe you can have some answers about your life, eh?" Mike was happy for his friend, thinking that maybe this would lead to Dean figuring out some of the shit that had haunted him since they met him.
But Dean’s feels on this were different. For example, Dean felt like getting his face out there would be more harmful then beneficial. He just didn’t know why.
’Do I have some enemies that I have forgotten about?’ Dean questioned himself as he started serving another drink.
...
A man ran screaming from a luxurious room, his expensive suit in shreds as blood dripped down his face. His head was throbbing and painful, but he was just glad he was still alive.
As he ran, he suddenly slipped on the white marble flooring and landed heavily on his back. Turning over to push himself up, he noticed that he had missed a puddle of red liquid that looked like it had been flung all over the place. Looking around, the white marble was were covered in splats and swipes of blood. What’s more, in this large, grandly decorated hallway, there were several bodies strewn from side to side and while each one of them was well dressed, the image was ruined by the looks of absolute horror on the faces of every single man who laid here dead.
While getting to his feet, the man in the tattered suit didn’t even stick around to see if they needed any help. He was on his way to the compound safe room where he could lock himself in and finally be safe.
Just as he turned the corner for the stairs, a head flew out of a room in front of him and came to a rolling stop next to his feet.
He had to clutch his hands over his mouth to keep him from screaming. Hearing the muffle sounds of screaming coming from the room, the well dressed man didn’t even stop to look as he took off.
Racing down the stairs, he didn’t see any signs of the invaders having gotten this far down in the compound. Seeing the door of the panic room wide open and waiting, the well dressed man jumped inside, closed and locked the door. Just as he took a deep breath, he noticed three women staring at him from the other side of the glass. At least, he thought, they were women. They each had their heads covered to the point to conceal their identities, but their body shape gave it away.
"HA. FUCK YOU BITCHES. AHORA ESTOY A SALVO Y NO HAY NADA QUE PUEDES HACER," the man yelled at the window on the door, forgetting there was a loud speaking he could use. Despite having lost him, none of the assassins seemed to be panicked which caused the well dressed man to yell out more.
Due to this, he never noticed the silent figure behind him drop from the ceiling and remove his head from his neck.
