Goodie! More reviews! With this part I wanted to give more of a background
story to Zee and Vee's first meeting and show what kind of relationship Tyr
and Harper had. I'll probably have more of their past in the next chapter
as well. I hope you enjoy!
Jenben, I'm glad your liking Vee ( I wanted to make a strong female character but not one that's flawless or a "marysue".
Chapter 5: The Negotiator
Harper could sense frantic commotion all around him. His ears picked up a women's voice barking orders but he couldn't place a face. There was a thick ozone of smoke and smog but he was to weak to cough.
"Oh my god! Harper can you hear me! Harper!" he heard as shivering hands held his face. He opened his eyes and blinked trying to clear the blur to no avail. Before him kneeled a blond woman with radiant blue eyes. She looked worried and the first thing that came to his mind was 'mother' but she was too young to be his mother, which confused him. She ran her hands over his face and through his hair with tears in her eyes and an expression of happy anguish. Her mouth moved but her words were to slow and distorted for him to understand.
"Hang in there ok! Please!" she said unable to take her hands off of him for even a second, afraid that he'd just disappear and she'd wake up from whatever dream this was, alone and without him once again. She wrestled with the seat belt and finally unlocked it making Harper teeter forward and she steadied him. His eyes began to close again and she noticed that her hand was in something warm and sticky. She pulled it back to find it coated in dark thick blood, she then noticed the large pool of blood collecting behind the chair. She gasped and looked at his paling face in horror.
"Stay with me!" she cried out but the darkness began to engulf him, his vision doubled and he suddenly found himself in a different time and place.
#########
Harper stood quietly in an empty parking lot leaning against his newest creation, his big shiny black car. Something he had made out the history books but had altered and tweaked it for his own purposes. It was a quiet night void of any snow flurries so for once he could actually see the moon clearly, sitting bright and heavy against the dark velvet sky. It was only his third mission and already he had gotten the code name Zee, meaning he was the best of the best, but even with his highly decelerated title he was still nerves. He still felt new and uncomfortable in his surroundings but he hid it well. The crunch of snow alerted him to someone's presence and he instinctively gripped his holstered guns. He turned to see a shapely figure walking his way and he relaxed. Tyr had told him he was picking up what he called a "negotiator" but he had assumed it would have been a man, but judging by the switch of it's hips and the gracefulness of it's strides he realized that he had assumed wrong. The cloaked figure finally walked up to the car and studied it for a while before acknowledging him.
"Zee?" a sweet voice said from under her dark hood. Her voice was sweet yet stern and focused.
"That's me, you must be the negotiator." He said and she nodded.
"You can call me Vee." She said and Harper cocked his head to the side inquisitively.
"Vee? You're pretty high on the list. You must be good." He said while continuing to leisurely lean against his car.
"I do alright, your pretty high yourself. You must be the best." She said idly.
"I do alright." He said and she smirked. He smiled back and silence fell between the two.
"Shall we?" He said walking around to his side of the car. He opened it and jumped in and she did the same. He started the engine and the car awoke rumbling underneath them. He sped away toward there objective.
"You got a full debriefing of the mission right?"
"Yes I did, I understand how important this is. You shouldn't worry about my part of this mission; I'm good at what I do." She said lowering her hood. Harper couldn't help but gaze in awe at her beauty, her smooth chocolate skin, her full plump lips and alluring eyes. Her hair fell about her slender shoulders in ringlets and Harper had to use all his strength and integrity not to loudly inhale her scent and run his hands down her unblemished skin.
"What do you call this thing?" She said running her hands over the dashboard and tapping two red furry dice that hung on the rearview mirror.
"It's a car." He said nonchalantly.
"You should give it a better name." She said wrinkling her nose at the name 'car'.
"Like what?" He said with amusement.
"I don't know...how about Nancy."
"Nancy? Why Nancy?"
"I don't know, just always seemed like a good name to me." She said with a shrug and Harper looked at her for awhile trying to figure the exquisite women out. She seemed happy to talk to him and genuinely surprised every time he responded back to her.
"That name is growing on me...I think I like it." He said getting a smile from his beautiful passenger. The dice she had tapped finally stopped one had three dots and the other had four.
"Seven, that's a lucky number you know."
"You believe in luck?"
"We are playing a game of chance everyday...the luck of the draw, either you win or you die." She said and Harper nodded, he had only met this woman 20 minuets ago and she already had him completely captivated and utterly fascinated. Vee looked back at the dice and smiled.
"Today it seems like something good is gonna happen, Luck is on my side." She said and caught Harper looking down at something white and fluffy that hung around his neck, she had no idea what it was but if he wore it so close to his heart then it must have been important. The rest of the drive was quiet while they exchanged awkward glances and smiles. They finally made it to their destination and they both climbed out of the car to join 4 men crouching behind a short concrete wall facing a small seemingly abandoned building.
"What's it lookin' like?" Harper said immediately taking his leadership role.
"We've got movement inside, I estimate 7-8 armed men. The Mark is inside we have confirmation on that. I've wired explosives around the perimeter of the building to cause one hell of a fireworks show." Dee said continuing to look through his night vision binoculars and chew on a bright piece of wire. He finally looked away and frowned at Vee but she just ignored the frown.
"I'm gonna use your car to prepare..." Vee said and Harper raised his eyebrow but didn't protest. Prepare? She walked away toward his car and Harper couldn't help but watch her switch away. Dee leaned over to Harper and whispered.
"You can look all you want but I wouldn't touch." Dee said with a wicked grin that warped into a frown. Vee disappeared into Harper's car and he diverted his attention to Dee.
"You tap that and who knows what you might come up with." Dee laughed switching the wire from one side of his mouth to the other with his tongue.
"What do you mean?" Harper said completely clueless.
"She's a negotiator Zee, I guess Tyr didn't tell you about what she does huh? Well, let me tell it to ya like this. She goes in, and her idea of negotiating is to get them all hot and bothered so they'll drop their trousers and well you know..." Dee said nudging him with his elbow with a wink and a smirk.
"Then she gives the signal... We storm in while their pants are around their ankles and whack 'em while they are off guard" Dee said turning up his nose in disgust. Harpers eyes widened and then saddened as he saw Vee step out of the car. She wore the same black cloak that hung just below her knees. It rippled slightly in the wind and Harper knew that she didn't have any clothes on underneath and his heart skipped a beat. Now he knew why she was so excited to talk to him before, these guys never gave her any respect because they thought of her as a whore; he must have been the first person to ever just take the time to talk to her, to treat her like a human being.
"So to put it bluntly, almost every mark we've ever whacked has had a piece of that ass, so look but don't touch." Dee whispered in a hurry as she walked up. Harper looked up at Vee's face but she had once again hidden it in her cloak.
"I'm ready." She said in her usual stoic and strong voice but inside Harper could tell there was a very scared and vulnerable women crying inside of her.
"Let's do this." Dee said and Vee nodded. She stepped up over the concrete wall that concealed the rest of the team and marched down toward the building.
##########
"Don't you dare leave me again Harper! Not after we just found you!" he could hear a voice and his eyes opened again snapping him back to reality. There were lights above moving, or was he moving and the lights staying still? He wasn't sure. His whole body felt numb and the blond women smiled down at him with cherry lips.
"I can't believe it, my Harper is back, my Harper is back." She said rubbing his hair, her other hand covering her mouth as her eyes wavered. They entered a large room and finally the lights stopped and he didn't feel so nauseas anymore.
"Beka, I need you to monitor Dylan's life signs." Came a tiny child like voice. Beka looked as if she didn't' want to part and the smooth voice outside of harpers field of vision spoke again.
"Beka I understand your need to stay by his side, but they are both dying and I only have 2 hands....please." Beka looked down at Harper one more time before letting go.
"Hang in there sport, I'm counting on you." She said kissing his forehead and then hurrying over to Dylan. Suddenly something Harper had only seen in his dreams stepped into his view and he smiled in disbelief.
"You're real...purple" he said deliriously.
"Yes, I'm real...now I need you to just relax. Everything will be ok." She said with a wide grin and eyes that seemed to glimmer just for him. She grabbed some swabs and began to clean his wound as his eyes rolled back once again and reality slipped away from him.
##########
Harper watched with horror as Vee sauntered up to the crumbling building. She positioned herself provocatively at the door and knocked. Harper adjusted his coat commuicator into an open channel so he could hear what was going on. He subconsciously rubbed his rabbits foot between his fingers.
"Hey, whatta ya want?" came a rough voice as Harper adjusted his night vision goggles to see where the voice was coming from. At the door stood a tall thick greasy looking man with an automatic rifle slung haphazardly over his shoulder.
"I was wondering if anyone here was up for some fun. I've got some time to kill." She said sweeping her hair over her shoulder but Harper could have sworn he could hear her heartbeat pick up.
"It depends on what your up for...there seems to be a lot of us and only one of you." The dirty man said eyeing her chest and licking his lips.
"Sounds like my kinda party." She said and Harper grimaced. Didn't she know what was gonna happen to her in there?
"Well, right this way." The man said with a laugh closing the door behind him, leaving what ever happened next to Harper's imagination. He lowered his night vision goggles but continued to listen intently to his communicator.
"Hey look guys. We've got ourselves a party favor!" Yelled the man and grunts of sexual deprived men rang out through out the abandoned building.
"Dee how many did you say there were?" Harper said with worry.
"About 7-8...give or take 3 or 4" Dee said resting on his haunches waiting for her signal.
"We should go in there...7-8 guys is bad enough 10 is even worse...she's gonna get raped in there." Harper hissed at Dee and he just raised an amused eyebrow at Harper.
"She's a negotiator remember? It's what she does. Stop worrying." Dee said waving it off with a yawn and Harper couldn't believe his ears. They were gonna just let her get raped? Over the communicator they could hear her staggered breathing, they could hear her fear.
"Don't look so scared sweetheart...we ain't gonna hurt you to bad, just gonna make sure we all get a turn." A man rasped. The rest of Harper's team sat and waited playing tick-tack-toe in the snow laughing and taking swigs from unlabeled bottles as if nothing was going on but Harper couldn't just stand by and watch this happen. He squeezed his eyes shut when he heard a whimper and yelp. He couldn't take it. He jumped over the concrete wall and ran toward the building at full throttle.
"Shit Zee! what the fuck are you doin'!" Dee yelled over his communicator which stung Harpers ears.
"I'm getting her out of there." Harper said. He was surprised he reached the door without anyone noticing him. He guessed they were all too preoccupied. He touched the knob hesitantly with his gun charged and ready in his other hand. The door creaked open and Harper's eyes grew three sizes and all sound and purpose ceased to exist. The only thing in his world was the horrid scene before him where the smiling exquisite beauty he had shared conversation with just a few minuets earlier was being brutally manhandled and tied down by a horde of murderers.
##########
"VEE!!!!" Harper screamed suddenly scrambling to get free.
"Help me hold him down or he'll reopen his wounds!" Trance yelled and hands clamped down on harpers arms and legs.
"STOP! STOP! YOU'RE ANIMALS!"
"shhh zee, your home now on the andromeda where you can leave all of that behind." Vee whispered.
"You don't deserve it..." he continued to struggle becoming even more agitated when he couldn't find his weapon and Zee knew exactly what he was talking about and she struggled to gather her own panicking emotions. That was an incident that was never spoken of...never mentioned.
"No one deserves it Zee, and remember you saved me and now it's just you and me. Nobody else, but you and me." She said calmly. Her tone was sweet and Harper began to relax.
"I saved you..." Harper whispered while Trance took that moment to inject him with a sedative. Once again his world swirled and he found himself in another pivotal moment in his past.
##########
"You over stepped your boundaries on the last mission Zee" Came a smooth voice he was very familiar with. The voice of his savior and father. Tyr stood tall and bulky before him crotched slightly in position to attack. Harper mimicked his stance and they circled each other, there bare feet slapping the padded matt as sweat rolled off of every part of their bodies. Tyr had called Harper in for a practice session but Harper knew immediately that there was something else on Tyr's mind.
"She didn't deserve to be treated that way, I couldn't stand by and watch her be...be soiled." Harper said and Tyr nodded slowly then lunged at the smaller man. Harper flipped back and slid between the bigger mans legs and tried to sweep him off his feet from behind but Tyr jumped into the air and came down hard, slashed Harper's shirt with is bonespurs. Harper grimaced as a small red line appeared on his now exposed chest. Tyr smiled down at his young son and offered his hand which Harper took with a grin he only let his father see. They fell back into their stances and circled once again.
"It is not your place to decide whether someone under my ultimate command is deserving of there treatment. Do not misunderstand your place." Tyr said blocking Harper's punches and kicks but smiling at the speed and accuracy of his fledglings awesome skill.
"I made a command decision. There were too many men for her to distract all at once, it would have ended in her losing her life and us losing the mark." Harper said calmly but Tyr grabbed him by the wrists and looked into the pale boys eyes.
"It's more then that, I know you Zee, I know everything about you and I won't let you stand here for even a moment and let you lie to me, I know the difference between duty and lust. You risked your life to save a woman you don't even know, an action of a fool." Harper turned away and wrenched his hands away from Tyr which got him an angry growl.
"Her code name is Vee, meaning that she's very high ranking and we can't afford to lose her. Why is it with a ranking as high as hers that she has the lowly task of being a negotiator? Is it because she is a women?" Harper said and Tyr laughed.
"If I had such prejudice I would have left the scrawny, malnutrition human I had found in the gutter where he lay. I have no prejudice against her gender, but she is good at what she does and I have capitalized on her talents."
"Wouldn't she be a better assassin with her talents, instead of a whore." Harper said through clinched teeth, anger pooling into his eyes.
"Are you challenging me child?." Tyr said stiffly, flexing his bone spurs and squinting his eyes. Harper quickly hushed and turned his head away from the angry eyes of his surrogate father. Harper didn't step back like he usually would under that tone and glare, he still stood toe to toe with the big neitzchean and Tyr took note of his defiance and knew this issue wasn't over. Tyr stepped to the side and grabbed his towel and tossed it over his shoulder and smoothly walked toward the door.
"I gave a little man with no hope for survival a chance and he surprised me by turned out to be the best in two years of training. So I'll offer you two years to train Vee and make her the . If after two years she impresses me then she'll be given full status and will become equal to her male counterparts, but if she doesn't impress me then she will return to her duties as negotiator and all ties between the two of you will be severed forever." Tyr said smoothly sweeping his long locs out of his face, his wide back still facing Harper who was still studying the floor.
"Love is a wasted emotion Zee, and has no place here." Tyr said in a tone he only used with Harper, a fatherly double edged tone that held a hint of warning and a hint of care.
"If love has no place here then neither does loyalty, because for anyone to be truly loyal they must have some love in their heart." Harper said to Tyr's back and silence filled the sparring room. Tyr turned his head to the smaller man looking over his shoulder with a small smirk on his face.
"Very well said." Tyr said and stepped out leaving Harper standing quietly in the center of the huge mat.
"2 years..." Harper said and smiled. His father had given her a chance...
##########
"Yeah you did, you saved me..." Vee said watching his eyes droop and then finally close. She let out a loud sigh. Her eyes filled with worry. She watched his eyes shift back and forth under his lids and knew he was dreaming, more then likely about her. The room was quiet as everyone looked down at the sleeping hit man. Vee pulled up a chair and sat next to Harper and so did a blond haired women, while the purple enigma checked on Dylan's stats."
"Your name is Beka right?" Vee said over the constant beep of Harper's heart monitor.
"That's me, Beka Valentine." Beka said quietly, here eyes never leaving Harpers young face.
"I can tell that you care for him very much, Dylan told me he had a family up here but I didn't expect to see so much love shared so openly...it's refreshing." Vee said staring off into the distance, reminiscing about old times. Beka's reached back with her mind and plucking out all the reasons why she loved Seamus Zelazney Harper, all the reasons why he was her sole reason to live...
"He's like a brother to me, when I lost him...I couldn't go on, he is the only family I have left...but I kept the hope of finding him alive and here he is...right here." She said squeezing his hand and holding back the tears. Vee's mood changed quickly and Beka noticed.
"What?" Beka said trying to look Vee in the eye but she kept turning away.
"Trance said he'll be alright, he was just delirious from the blood loss." She said hoping to reassure Vee when it was Vee trying to find a way to reassure Beka.
"Dylan didn't have the chance to tell you about Zee." Vee said moving a stray piece of hair off his forehead. His cheeks were red with fever but she would rather see the red then the pale white of before.
"Zee? You mean about Harper." Beka said with a little edge in her voice. She was very territorial about what was hers and Vee knew that her overbearing, possessiveness might soon prove to be a problem but she let it pass.
"Yes, about harper...he's, he's changed a lot and I don't want you to expect too much." Vee said and Beka's eyes flashed with anger and resentment
"And who are you?" Beka sneered
"I'm his wife." Vee said staring at her and Beka's eyes widened as they surveyed the strong willed ebony women before her. Beka's anger slowly melted away 'his wife' she mouthed as her gaze landed on Harper's peaceful face.
"There's something else that you need to know." Vee said looking into Beka's wavering eyes. She knew that this would crush her the most, knowing that she had found what she had been searching for, for 5 years only to find that all that was left was the shell of the man she once knew and loved. Her brother now replaced with a trained killer.
"Harper has no memory beyond 4 years ago. I'm sorry Beka but when he wakes up he'll be seeing you for the first time." Vee said and Beka just stared, her face unreadable.
"Dylan's coming around." Trance said breaking the silence and turning around only to see Beka's retreating back as the med lab doors closed behind her.
TBC
Jenben, I'm glad your liking Vee ( I wanted to make a strong female character but not one that's flawless or a "marysue".
Chapter 5: The Negotiator
Harper could sense frantic commotion all around him. His ears picked up a women's voice barking orders but he couldn't place a face. There was a thick ozone of smoke and smog but he was to weak to cough.
"Oh my god! Harper can you hear me! Harper!" he heard as shivering hands held his face. He opened his eyes and blinked trying to clear the blur to no avail. Before him kneeled a blond woman with radiant blue eyes. She looked worried and the first thing that came to his mind was 'mother' but she was too young to be his mother, which confused him. She ran her hands over his face and through his hair with tears in her eyes and an expression of happy anguish. Her mouth moved but her words were to slow and distorted for him to understand.
"Hang in there ok! Please!" she said unable to take her hands off of him for even a second, afraid that he'd just disappear and she'd wake up from whatever dream this was, alone and without him once again. She wrestled with the seat belt and finally unlocked it making Harper teeter forward and she steadied him. His eyes began to close again and she noticed that her hand was in something warm and sticky. She pulled it back to find it coated in dark thick blood, she then noticed the large pool of blood collecting behind the chair. She gasped and looked at his paling face in horror.
"Stay with me!" she cried out but the darkness began to engulf him, his vision doubled and he suddenly found himself in a different time and place.
#########
Harper stood quietly in an empty parking lot leaning against his newest creation, his big shiny black car. Something he had made out the history books but had altered and tweaked it for his own purposes. It was a quiet night void of any snow flurries so for once he could actually see the moon clearly, sitting bright and heavy against the dark velvet sky. It was only his third mission and already he had gotten the code name Zee, meaning he was the best of the best, but even with his highly decelerated title he was still nerves. He still felt new and uncomfortable in his surroundings but he hid it well. The crunch of snow alerted him to someone's presence and he instinctively gripped his holstered guns. He turned to see a shapely figure walking his way and he relaxed. Tyr had told him he was picking up what he called a "negotiator" but he had assumed it would have been a man, but judging by the switch of it's hips and the gracefulness of it's strides he realized that he had assumed wrong. The cloaked figure finally walked up to the car and studied it for a while before acknowledging him.
"Zee?" a sweet voice said from under her dark hood. Her voice was sweet yet stern and focused.
"That's me, you must be the negotiator." He said and she nodded.
"You can call me Vee." She said and Harper cocked his head to the side inquisitively.
"Vee? You're pretty high on the list. You must be good." He said while continuing to leisurely lean against his car.
"I do alright, your pretty high yourself. You must be the best." She said idly.
"I do alright." He said and she smirked. He smiled back and silence fell between the two.
"Shall we?" He said walking around to his side of the car. He opened it and jumped in and she did the same. He started the engine and the car awoke rumbling underneath them. He sped away toward there objective.
"You got a full debriefing of the mission right?"
"Yes I did, I understand how important this is. You shouldn't worry about my part of this mission; I'm good at what I do." She said lowering her hood. Harper couldn't help but gaze in awe at her beauty, her smooth chocolate skin, her full plump lips and alluring eyes. Her hair fell about her slender shoulders in ringlets and Harper had to use all his strength and integrity not to loudly inhale her scent and run his hands down her unblemished skin.
"What do you call this thing?" She said running her hands over the dashboard and tapping two red furry dice that hung on the rearview mirror.
"It's a car." He said nonchalantly.
"You should give it a better name." She said wrinkling her nose at the name 'car'.
"Like what?" He said with amusement.
"I don't know...how about Nancy."
"Nancy? Why Nancy?"
"I don't know, just always seemed like a good name to me." She said with a shrug and Harper looked at her for awhile trying to figure the exquisite women out. She seemed happy to talk to him and genuinely surprised every time he responded back to her.
"That name is growing on me...I think I like it." He said getting a smile from his beautiful passenger. The dice she had tapped finally stopped one had three dots and the other had four.
"Seven, that's a lucky number you know."
"You believe in luck?"
"We are playing a game of chance everyday...the luck of the draw, either you win or you die." She said and Harper nodded, he had only met this woman 20 minuets ago and she already had him completely captivated and utterly fascinated. Vee looked back at the dice and smiled.
"Today it seems like something good is gonna happen, Luck is on my side." She said and caught Harper looking down at something white and fluffy that hung around his neck, she had no idea what it was but if he wore it so close to his heart then it must have been important. The rest of the drive was quiet while they exchanged awkward glances and smiles. They finally made it to their destination and they both climbed out of the car to join 4 men crouching behind a short concrete wall facing a small seemingly abandoned building.
"What's it lookin' like?" Harper said immediately taking his leadership role.
"We've got movement inside, I estimate 7-8 armed men. The Mark is inside we have confirmation on that. I've wired explosives around the perimeter of the building to cause one hell of a fireworks show." Dee said continuing to look through his night vision binoculars and chew on a bright piece of wire. He finally looked away and frowned at Vee but she just ignored the frown.
"I'm gonna use your car to prepare..." Vee said and Harper raised his eyebrow but didn't protest. Prepare? She walked away toward his car and Harper couldn't help but watch her switch away. Dee leaned over to Harper and whispered.
"You can look all you want but I wouldn't touch." Dee said with a wicked grin that warped into a frown. Vee disappeared into Harper's car and he diverted his attention to Dee.
"You tap that and who knows what you might come up with." Dee laughed switching the wire from one side of his mouth to the other with his tongue.
"What do you mean?" Harper said completely clueless.
"She's a negotiator Zee, I guess Tyr didn't tell you about what she does huh? Well, let me tell it to ya like this. She goes in, and her idea of negotiating is to get them all hot and bothered so they'll drop their trousers and well you know..." Dee said nudging him with his elbow with a wink and a smirk.
"Then she gives the signal... We storm in while their pants are around their ankles and whack 'em while they are off guard" Dee said turning up his nose in disgust. Harpers eyes widened and then saddened as he saw Vee step out of the car. She wore the same black cloak that hung just below her knees. It rippled slightly in the wind and Harper knew that she didn't have any clothes on underneath and his heart skipped a beat. Now he knew why she was so excited to talk to him before, these guys never gave her any respect because they thought of her as a whore; he must have been the first person to ever just take the time to talk to her, to treat her like a human being.
"So to put it bluntly, almost every mark we've ever whacked has had a piece of that ass, so look but don't touch." Dee whispered in a hurry as she walked up. Harper looked up at Vee's face but she had once again hidden it in her cloak.
"I'm ready." She said in her usual stoic and strong voice but inside Harper could tell there was a very scared and vulnerable women crying inside of her.
"Let's do this." Dee said and Vee nodded. She stepped up over the concrete wall that concealed the rest of the team and marched down toward the building.
##########
"Don't you dare leave me again Harper! Not after we just found you!" he could hear a voice and his eyes opened again snapping him back to reality. There were lights above moving, or was he moving and the lights staying still? He wasn't sure. His whole body felt numb and the blond women smiled down at him with cherry lips.
"I can't believe it, my Harper is back, my Harper is back." She said rubbing his hair, her other hand covering her mouth as her eyes wavered. They entered a large room and finally the lights stopped and he didn't feel so nauseas anymore.
"Beka, I need you to monitor Dylan's life signs." Came a tiny child like voice. Beka looked as if she didn't' want to part and the smooth voice outside of harpers field of vision spoke again.
"Beka I understand your need to stay by his side, but they are both dying and I only have 2 hands....please." Beka looked down at Harper one more time before letting go.
"Hang in there sport, I'm counting on you." She said kissing his forehead and then hurrying over to Dylan. Suddenly something Harper had only seen in his dreams stepped into his view and he smiled in disbelief.
"You're real...purple" he said deliriously.
"Yes, I'm real...now I need you to just relax. Everything will be ok." She said with a wide grin and eyes that seemed to glimmer just for him. She grabbed some swabs and began to clean his wound as his eyes rolled back once again and reality slipped away from him.
##########
Harper watched with horror as Vee sauntered up to the crumbling building. She positioned herself provocatively at the door and knocked. Harper adjusted his coat commuicator into an open channel so he could hear what was going on. He subconsciously rubbed his rabbits foot between his fingers.
"Hey, whatta ya want?" came a rough voice as Harper adjusted his night vision goggles to see where the voice was coming from. At the door stood a tall thick greasy looking man with an automatic rifle slung haphazardly over his shoulder.
"I was wondering if anyone here was up for some fun. I've got some time to kill." She said sweeping her hair over her shoulder but Harper could have sworn he could hear her heartbeat pick up.
"It depends on what your up for...there seems to be a lot of us and only one of you." The dirty man said eyeing her chest and licking his lips.
"Sounds like my kinda party." She said and Harper grimaced. Didn't she know what was gonna happen to her in there?
"Well, right this way." The man said with a laugh closing the door behind him, leaving what ever happened next to Harper's imagination. He lowered his night vision goggles but continued to listen intently to his communicator.
"Hey look guys. We've got ourselves a party favor!" Yelled the man and grunts of sexual deprived men rang out through out the abandoned building.
"Dee how many did you say there were?" Harper said with worry.
"About 7-8...give or take 3 or 4" Dee said resting on his haunches waiting for her signal.
"We should go in there...7-8 guys is bad enough 10 is even worse...she's gonna get raped in there." Harper hissed at Dee and he just raised an amused eyebrow at Harper.
"She's a negotiator remember? It's what she does. Stop worrying." Dee said waving it off with a yawn and Harper couldn't believe his ears. They were gonna just let her get raped? Over the communicator they could hear her staggered breathing, they could hear her fear.
"Don't look so scared sweetheart...we ain't gonna hurt you to bad, just gonna make sure we all get a turn." A man rasped. The rest of Harper's team sat and waited playing tick-tack-toe in the snow laughing and taking swigs from unlabeled bottles as if nothing was going on but Harper couldn't just stand by and watch this happen. He squeezed his eyes shut when he heard a whimper and yelp. He couldn't take it. He jumped over the concrete wall and ran toward the building at full throttle.
"Shit Zee! what the fuck are you doin'!" Dee yelled over his communicator which stung Harpers ears.
"I'm getting her out of there." Harper said. He was surprised he reached the door without anyone noticing him. He guessed they were all too preoccupied. He touched the knob hesitantly with his gun charged and ready in his other hand. The door creaked open and Harper's eyes grew three sizes and all sound and purpose ceased to exist. The only thing in his world was the horrid scene before him where the smiling exquisite beauty he had shared conversation with just a few minuets earlier was being brutally manhandled and tied down by a horde of murderers.
##########
"VEE!!!!" Harper screamed suddenly scrambling to get free.
"Help me hold him down or he'll reopen his wounds!" Trance yelled and hands clamped down on harpers arms and legs.
"STOP! STOP! YOU'RE ANIMALS!"
"shhh zee, your home now on the andromeda where you can leave all of that behind." Vee whispered.
"You don't deserve it..." he continued to struggle becoming even more agitated when he couldn't find his weapon and Zee knew exactly what he was talking about and she struggled to gather her own panicking emotions. That was an incident that was never spoken of...never mentioned.
"No one deserves it Zee, and remember you saved me and now it's just you and me. Nobody else, but you and me." She said calmly. Her tone was sweet and Harper began to relax.
"I saved you..." Harper whispered while Trance took that moment to inject him with a sedative. Once again his world swirled and he found himself in another pivotal moment in his past.
##########
"You over stepped your boundaries on the last mission Zee" Came a smooth voice he was very familiar with. The voice of his savior and father. Tyr stood tall and bulky before him crotched slightly in position to attack. Harper mimicked his stance and they circled each other, there bare feet slapping the padded matt as sweat rolled off of every part of their bodies. Tyr had called Harper in for a practice session but Harper knew immediately that there was something else on Tyr's mind.
"She didn't deserve to be treated that way, I couldn't stand by and watch her be...be soiled." Harper said and Tyr nodded slowly then lunged at the smaller man. Harper flipped back and slid between the bigger mans legs and tried to sweep him off his feet from behind but Tyr jumped into the air and came down hard, slashed Harper's shirt with is bonespurs. Harper grimaced as a small red line appeared on his now exposed chest. Tyr smiled down at his young son and offered his hand which Harper took with a grin he only let his father see. They fell back into their stances and circled once again.
"It is not your place to decide whether someone under my ultimate command is deserving of there treatment. Do not misunderstand your place." Tyr said blocking Harper's punches and kicks but smiling at the speed and accuracy of his fledglings awesome skill.
"I made a command decision. There were too many men for her to distract all at once, it would have ended in her losing her life and us losing the mark." Harper said calmly but Tyr grabbed him by the wrists and looked into the pale boys eyes.
"It's more then that, I know you Zee, I know everything about you and I won't let you stand here for even a moment and let you lie to me, I know the difference between duty and lust. You risked your life to save a woman you don't even know, an action of a fool." Harper turned away and wrenched his hands away from Tyr which got him an angry growl.
"Her code name is Vee, meaning that she's very high ranking and we can't afford to lose her. Why is it with a ranking as high as hers that she has the lowly task of being a negotiator? Is it because she is a women?" Harper said and Tyr laughed.
"If I had such prejudice I would have left the scrawny, malnutrition human I had found in the gutter where he lay. I have no prejudice against her gender, but she is good at what she does and I have capitalized on her talents."
"Wouldn't she be a better assassin with her talents, instead of a whore." Harper said through clinched teeth, anger pooling into his eyes.
"Are you challenging me child?." Tyr said stiffly, flexing his bone spurs and squinting his eyes. Harper quickly hushed and turned his head away from the angry eyes of his surrogate father. Harper didn't step back like he usually would under that tone and glare, he still stood toe to toe with the big neitzchean and Tyr took note of his defiance and knew this issue wasn't over. Tyr stepped to the side and grabbed his towel and tossed it over his shoulder and smoothly walked toward the door.
"I gave a little man with no hope for survival a chance and he surprised me by turned out to be the best in two years of training. So I'll offer you two years to train Vee and make her the . If after two years she impresses me then she'll be given full status and will become equal to her male counterparts, but if she doesn't impress me then she will return to her duties as negotiator and all ties between the two of you will be severed forever." Tyr said smoothly sweeping his long locs out of his face, his wide back still facing Harper who was still studying the floor.
"Love is a wasted emotion Zee, and has no place here." Tyr said in a tone he only used with Harper, a fatherly double edged tone that held a hint of warning and a hint of care.
"If love has no place here then neither does loyalty, because for anyone to be truly loyal they must have some love in their heart." Harper said to Tyr's back and silence filled the sparring room. Tyr turned his head to the smaller man looking over his shoulder with a small smirk on his face.
"Very well said." Tyr said and stepped out leaving Harper standing quietly in the center of the huge mat.
"2 years..." Harper said and smiled. His father had given her a chance...
##########
"Yeah you did, you saved me..." Vee said watching his eyes droop and then finally close. She let out a loud sigh. Her eyes filled with worry. She watched his eyes shift back and forth under his lids and knew he was dreaming, more then likely about her. The room was quiet as everyone looked down at the sleeping hit man. Vee pulled up a chair and sat next to Harper and so did a blond haired women, while the purple enigma checked on Dylan's stats."
"Your name is Beka right?" Vee said over the constant beep of Harper's heart monitor.
"That's me, Beka Valentine." Beka said quietly, here eyes never leaving Harpers young face.
"I can tell that you care for him very much, Dylan told me he had a family up here but I didn't expect to see so much love shared so openly...it's refreshing." Vee said staring off into the distance, reminiscing about old times. Beka's reached back with her mind and plucking out all the reasons why she loved Seamus Zelazney Harper, all the reasons why he was her sole reason to live...
"He's like a brother to me, when I lost him...I couldn't go on, he is the only family I have left...but I kept the hope of finding him alive and here he is...right here." She said squeezing his hand and holding back the tears. Vee's mood changed quickly and Beka noticed.
"What?" Beka said trying to look Vee in the eye but she kept turning away.
"Trance said he'll be alright, he was just delirious from the blood loss." She said hoping to reassure Vee when it was Vee trying to find a way to reassure Beka.
"Dylan didn't have the chance to tell you about Zee." Vee said moving a stray piece of hair off his forehead. His cheeks were red with fever but she would rather see the red then the pale white of before.
"Zee? You mean about Harper." Beka said with a little edge in her voice. She was very territorial about what was hers and Vee knew that her overbearing, possessiveness might soon prove to be a problem but she let it pass.
"Yes, about harper...he's, he's changed a lot and I don't want you to expect too much." Vee said and Beka's eyes flashed with anger and resentment
"And who are you?" Beka sneered
"I'm his wife." Vee said staring at her and Beka's eyes widened as they surveyed the strong willed ebony women before her. Beka's anger slowly melted away 'his wife' she mouthed as her gaze landed on Harper's peaceful face.
"There's something else that you need to know." Vee said looking into Beka's wavering eyes. She knew that this would crush her the most, knowing that she had found what she had been searching for, for 5 years only to find that all that was left was the shell of the man she once knew and loved. Her brother now replaced with a trained killer.
"Harper has no memory beyond 4 years ago. I'm sorry Beka but when he wakes up he'll be seeing you for the first time." Vee said and Beka just stared, her face unreadable.
"Dylan's coming around." Trance said breaking the silence and turning around only to see Beka's retreating back as the med lab doors closed behind her.
TBC