A.N. Yes I'm alive. Surprising I know but hopefully the fact that we get some ArmyEmily perving time in this chapter makes up for it! Thanks for all the alerts and favourites- you guys are awesome! But do you know what's even more awesome? Reviews! So spread the New Year/Christmas/Hannukkah/other festival of your choice/just plain happy spirit around and drop and short review :D

Disclaimer: because we all know what I'd do if I owned Emily Fitch...

8.

A click. A spark. A small billow of smoke then the eerily still flame; it flickering from orange to blue as I brought it closer to my face.

A blew it out quickly then repeated my actions. Click, spark, smoke, flame, nothing.

Thinking deeply, I brought it closer to my face, watching the flame so hard it was like I was hoping an answer would appear in it, flickering slowly. I let go of the switch and watched it disappear again. This time when I clicked the flame on I held out a loose piece of hair, absent-mindedly running it through my fingers until I passed the flame over the ends, keen to see them flicker and shrivel.

"SHIT!" I yelled jumping up and blowing on my hair as the flicker I was expecting turned into a giant whoosh, consuming the piece of hair I was holding and leaving a foul smell once I had blown in out.

"What are you doing?" I knew that voice anywhere and I looked up from smouldering hair to meet her eyes; the brown depths not as accusing as yesterday, instead they were looking at me like I was crazy. I took one look at the singed piece of hair then my eyes flickered back to hers. Maybe I was.

"Not sure," I replied tersely and my mood dropped even further when, after a confused look at the lighter in my hand, Emily Fitch walked away.

Click, spark, smoke, flame, nothing.

I was too scared to look at her retreating figure because I was almost afraid at what my body would do without my minds permission. I clicked the lighter on and off a few more times before I became bored with it and threw it behind me, smirking as I heard some guy yelling. It didn't matter because I didn't care anymore, didn't care about anything except Emily and a plan that would get her back. Click, spark smoke, flame, nothing. Which is what I had at that moment; nothing.

I walked in a random direction...okay fine, I walked in the direction that Emily had just headed towards a large cluster of smelly cadets standing around what seemed to be a cup canteen. I was so confused and slightly apprehensive when I heard someone mention "team games" but my flash of red was in that group and smiling adorably at all the miserable sods trying to complete the task and I found I couldn't help myself.

With a shout from the officer, half the group left and I found myself being huddled in closer to the circle, closer to Emily which wasn't part of my still yet-to-be-thought plan but just as before I found that I couldn't stop and walk away.

"Get shoulder to shoulder with the person beside you," the guy supervising said, barely even turning to look around at what the unruly group was doing.

"Come on guys, get closer, I know we all smell but let's get this task done yeah?" a delectably husky voice said from beside me and I completely forgot why I had freaked out before, forgot everything except the way her voice had sounded That Night, her husky voice saying my name, begging. I needed a cold shower and soon, if the direction my thoughts were heading were any indication.

"Everyone shoulder to shoulder!" she said and my mind went fuzzy yet again; I didn't even know what the objective of this "team building" game was, all I knew was that I was so close to Emily, close enough for her scent to wash over me- not gross like most of the cadets on this camp but sweet and spicy. Her shoulder touched mine and even through our layers of clothing I felt my skin burning. I tried to breathe normally but I couldn't remember how and I tried to see if she was feeling at least a quarter of what I was but her so expressive eyes were staying away from me and as I finally got my heart to calm down she was gone with a flick of red. Oh, we had finished the team building activity and I had hardly even noticed.


Have you ever touched a weapon? If you have then you may know what I'm talking about; the rush. Sometimes it doesn't hit you until you see the perfect little hole in the target and sometimes it hits you as soon as you pick it up, feel the weight of it in your hands or even before then, maybe when you first see it. But it's always there; the rush.

I had shot a rifle before, only once and even though it was a year ago picking up the same weapon felt right and I instantly put it firmly in my grip. It was cool, heavy and just a little bit scary. The person beside me, someone from the real army indicated and I picked up the magazine, allowing myself a small smile before I jammed it in and checked the safety once again.

"LOAD" echoed through my head and I wiggled further into the dirt I was laying on.

"ACTION" the guy yelled out and with an only slightly shaky hand I cocked the weapon, struggling as I locked it in. The sound when it flicked forward might have been my favourite sound.

I couldn't help but glance to my left quickly before I lined up my shot. She was lying behind the weapon, one leg bent, her boot digging into the ground. Her bright red hair was messy, small pieces blowing in the wind and the concentration on her face was as adorable as it was fierce and I couldn't hold back a smile as I turned back to face my own rifle. She looked so freaking sexy behind the weapon, it was crazy.

"INSTANT" was called across the range and suddenly the air was full of bangs, loud even through two pairs of hearing protection. I quickly lined up my target and

Breathe in

Breath out

I pulled the trigger and the second before the bullet came whizzing out I felt the immense power of what was in my hand and I felt it; the rush. It was magnificent and I took the recoil with a smile as I saw the bullet actually hit the target. Okay so maybe I wasn't the best at aiming in the world.

I fired off my shots quickly, the feeling of the rifle in my arms, the recoil as it hits me never diminishing until I finally fired off my last shot, my face splitting into a giant grin. There are some things like that where you just can't keep the smile off your face.

"Thanks," I said to the guy next to me and as I looked at him I was shocked to see that he was very young and good looking. Much nicer than most of the little cadets anyway and I was shocked not because he was there but because I hadn't noticed before when I was talking to him and even though I had finally noticed then that he was good looking I wasn't thinking about him that way, I wasn't even flirting with him. Instead my head drifted to the left, the undeniable pull from the girl next to me overpowering anything this guy could have given me.

"She's a good shooter," I heard the guy say and I let a brief smile flicker across my face in response. I couldn't see if she had even hit her target but the way her body looked stretched out on the ground, the way I could see her subtle muscles through her loose camos and the way she seemed to move her body with the rifle like it was an extension of her made it easy for me to agree. I just hoped that the guy next to me wasn't thinking the same kind of thoughts that I was.

She took forever lining up her shots, even from where I was laying I could see her steady her breathing perfectly, her tiny frame moving up and down before stilling then, bang! She would shoot and my breathing would hitch at the look on her face, so determined and sexy, and then she would start breathing again.

I didn't want to admit it but it was then that I recovered my breathing too.

I was too busy watching the way her leg would tense and dig deeper into the ground to notice that she had turned her head to glance at me until it was too late. I was busted big time but strangely enough her eyes didn't convey the anger that they had earlier today but a completely different look. It was so intense that I couldn't stop or even comprehend the way my chest felt all funny and what felt like all the blood in my body rushed south. I was suddenly ravenous for her.

But then she turned back to face the target and fired three shots in quick succession, not timing her breathing, not making sure it was perfectly aligned and not being perfectly. I wasn't sure which shooting technique was hotter; precise, perfect and deadly Emily or wild and uncontrollable Emily. My stomach clenched as I imagined that last one and it seemed that my body had made up that decision for me.

"You can get up now," the guy next to me said and I blushed at the thoughts I was having right next to this guy and smiled tightly at him as I left. Either I needed to clear these kind of thoughts from my head or I needed to find some half-decent looking cadet guy to shag them out.

That last option was immediately crossed off my list as I walked out of the range directly behind Emily, her camouflaged pants just tight enough for me to get a perfect view of her ass. There would be no random cadet guy, I needed to get Emily.


We were on the bus ride home and it struck me how incredibly aware I had become. Not of everything, or the small insignificant joys life brings you- let me pause to barf- but of the fiery red-head that had thrown out any definitions I had previously had about myself.

I couldn't tell you a single thing about the guy beside me or what he and his loser friends were saying but I could tell you that Emily was two rows in front of me and one seat to the left. I could tell you that she had taken her hat off so that her hair became a beacon in amongst the greens and browns in the minibus and I could tell you that she was talking to a dark haired girl in a way that was making my blood boil. Why was she even talking to that girl? What would they have to say to each other and besides that girl was a total bimbo and she probably couldn't even string two sentences together.

Okay so I had never actually seen this girl let alone spoken to her but what was Emily doing talking to her!

Then it also struck me how insane I was behaving and I tore my murderous gaze from the dark girl and tried to act like a normal human being again but it really wasn't going to work when Emily Fitch was smiling like that at someone who wasn't me and letting someone who wasn't me play with her hair and flirting with someone who wasn't me. The bus ride seemed to take eternity.

"You will get off the bus from front to rear and form up, then you will go back to your hootchies and collect your shower gear then form back up in the same spot. You have two minutes, is this understood?"

I processed the information quickly. Shower. With Emily Fitch. And then I groaned because I wondered if the universe was getting a kick out of all my sexual frustration. I mumbled my understanding along with everyone else.

"I said IS THIS UNDERSTOOD?"

"SIR!"

I wasn't focussing because I could feel Emily's stare on my back as I ran up to my...our hootchie and it wasn't until I had nearly all my stuff in the small plastic bag that she crawled in beside me.

Awkwardness.

The hootchie was filled with it and I felt it pressing down from every side, surrounding the two of us in this nice little awkward bubble and it felt like it was slowly cutting off our oxygen supply. And enjoying it. Had the air always been this thick? But then I thought back to the other night and how thick and hot it had been inside the hootchie and I wondered if that was the case with everyone's or only because of Emily Fitch. Maybe she had super hootchie powers.

I took in a giant gulp of cool unawkward air when I got out and made my way back down to the bus. Before I had wanted more than anything to be near Emily Fitch but now I was terrified I wouldn't be able to breathe and so I sped up, hoping to put as much space between us as possible. But just like all my best laid plans, she ruined it.

"Naomi, wait up!" and it had felt like forever since I'd heard her rough, husky voice and it felt like an anvil had dropped in my stomach when I heard her call out my name that way. She didn't even have to try because everything she did was just that sexy. Focus Naomi! I stopped walking and turned back to look at her and I was transported back to when we trekked down here the last time, shower bags swinging around our knees. But then I didn't even know her name, then I hadn't kissed her and I hadn't gone and screwed up royally. Then she had just been this beautiful elusive girl with fiery hair and she brought with her a whole tonne of weird feeling in my stomach. Now though she was Emily. A word which over the last few days had grown to encompass everything; every feeling, every action, every image that had ingrained itself in my mind.

It shined so brightly as the sun caught fire to it and I had thought before that her hair couldn't get more red but here it was now glowing and I paused, almost forgetting to breathe. She was gorgeous.

"Hurry up," I yelled at her, surprising myself with the strength of my voice and although it was brief and not nearly as big as I had seen it before, Emily Fitch gave me a smile and I shoved the final nail in my coffin. I knew there was no going back now.


Remember that happy and giving spirit ;D and know that next chapter we have yet another shower scene. I'm excited are you?

Jules