Disclaimer: Still do not own Charmed.
Wow, the response from you readers (reviewers) wasgreat! Thank you very much and I will keep up the good work and complete this story in a timely matter.
Chapter 2:
"So what happened next?" asked Chris.
"Let's see, where was I? Oh yeah Lorenzo's mother and sisters had just been killed by mortar shells. The town where Lorenzo lived was full of kids just like him, orphaned. Furthermore, the day I showed up in the town, their was 34 kids and 1 adult."
"Wow."
"Yeah, and I was shocked. I showed up about a week after Lorenzo lose his family. In that time, Lorenzo had organized the other kids into a small army of freedom fighters. They were waiting for the enemy to return."
"Wait they were just kids," said Chris.
"Yeah and they had more bravery than I had ever seen."
"Why was that?"
"Cause they had lost everything and had nothing to lose," said Leo sadly.
"So what did you do? I mean did you try to talk them out of out of fighting?"
"Yes of course I did, but they weren't even listening to me. Even though they were kids, they had already seen more and been through more than most kids their age."
"I think I can understand that."
"Yeah, I'm sure you do."
Chris smiled slightly, "They had no choice but to stay and fight. They had nothing left to lose."
"Exactly, you do get it."
"So how bad did these kids get there butts kicked?"
"Well, they didn't, they knew they needed guns so they rowed boats out to the middle of the lake and dove down with nets to drag up what the guns the enemy had thrown on there. They were lucky, the guns weren't that rusty."
"So it was that easy?"
"Well, not exactly, it almost ended before it began…
Flash
Lorenzo, Vincent, and Claudio made up one soccer team; Dante, Pepe, and Roberto made up the other. They were playing in the large cobblestone square just across from the main railroad. They had needed a release from the war. The sun was at their backs and they were relishing the joys of their national pastime.
Leo pulled his jeep into the square and inched up slowly to where the kids were playing soccer. His eyes looked at the ground and his heart leaped in his throat.
"Stop moving!" he shouted as he got out of the jeep. "All of you just stop moving and stay still!"
Lorenzo kicked the ball to Claudio and turned to look at Leo, "Keep playing, and ignore him!"
Leo ran closer to the group of boys, reaching for the gun clipped in his holster, "I said stay still!" he said firing his weapon into the air.
Lorenzo and the others stopped, Lorenzo stepped toward Leo, "What we do and what we don't do is none of your business American, let us finish our game!"
"You're playing in a minefield!" shouted Leo.
The boys froze at the sound of the words, Lorenzo looked down and just beneath the dirt, and he saw them: landmines!
Leo got to his knees and filled his hands with a small amount of pebbles. He threw one pebble at a time against the cobblestone, watching intently as they landed.
"What are you doing?" asked Claudio.
"Mines are laid down in patterns," answered Leo, "Once you figure out the pattern, you at least can tell where they are. That is the easy part."
Leo tossed four more pebbles into the piazza ground before he heard the clanging sound he needed. The noise came just to the left of Pepe's foot, "There's one."
He crouched down and tossed out a half-dozen more pebbles. Leo stood as soon as a pebble found it's second target, this time it was two inches from Claudio's right foot, "I'll get that one out first," he said as he stepped gingerly around the boys, "Then work my way across until I can dig enough of them out to get you guys out of there."
Leo leaned down on the cobblestone, his face inches from the partially buried mine, with a knife in his hand. Lorenzo climbed over next to him with a small knife in hand. Leo smiled and said, "I'm beginning to think that none of you really understand English."
"You're going to need help," said Lorenzo.
"We'll need somewhere to store these when we get them freed, we can use them against the enemy."
"So you're going to help us?"
"Yeah, if it's all right with you sir," Leo said with respect.
Lorenzo smiled for the first time since the day his family died.
End Flash
"So this Lorenzo, he had your respect," said Chris.
"Yeah, he did. I mean I was a corpsman, a doctor in the Army. I was trained to heal people, the old fashion way before I became an Elder. However, after I met Lorenzo and his band of freedom fighters, I became a soldier…
Flash
Lorenzo looked down at Leo's right hand, the one that was now reaching for the base of the mine and saw the tremble, the twitching up to his wrist, "Is it nerves that makes you tremble like that?"
"No," Leo said, with a wry smile. "And it's not coffee either. It's fear. If I make one mistake, we'll all die."
Lorenzo took a deep breathe and made the sign of the cross. He watched Leo place both his hands under the base, his fingers searching with great care for any trip wire or mechanism. "It feels clean," he said, "The wires buried right under the lid."
"What else is there to do?"
"Nothing, except lift it out," said Leo. He gripped the base of the mine, shut his eyes, and gave the mine a tug, lifting it out of the ground. He heard nothing, but silence. He rested his head on the ground and took a deep breathe.
"Gracias Dio," whispered Lorenzo.
Leo asked, "What does that mean?"
"Thank you God," he smiled.
Lorenzo and Claudio helped Leo to his feet, the mine clutched against his chest, "How many of these things to you think are planted?" he asked Lorenzo.
"Three, four hundred maybe," Lorenzo said. "The enemy put them everywhere they could think of."
"So can we," said Leo.
"You mean dig them up and use them against the enemy?"
"If you want a shot at them," said Leo. "You take everything they give you and give it back," he smiled.
End Flash
All right, ending it here and getting busy with my next chapter. The third chapter will be long and the final chapter to this story. I love reviews, so please leave me one!