Strong heart

Two hours later the group met again in the party organized to celebrate the return of the ' heroes '.

In fact, Lina hadn't been able to hide the battle that happened, the night before, since the noises of the gunshots were too loud, which made that both the citizens and the refugees who lived near the place where was the fight couldn't sleep the rest of the night. The citizens of Stainfall were quite worried but still less than the refugees who came recently and not for the same reasons.

For the case of the formers, Jamal had the habit of carrying his battles silently which meant that most of the time they were not aware of the large majority of his fights, therefore, that situation was quite unusual for them.

Some of them dared to come out and to go seeking some answers from Lina, so during the rest of the night the woman has been making use of all her energy to circulate among the people to explain to them that a group of outlaws, particularly violent, was trying to cross the barrier, but there was nothing to worry since Natasha and Jamal were there to protect them all. She even added that their friends from the other cities were there to help so that she could relax the entire mass of people and at the same time reassure the refugees and give them the hope that they would be able to see their friends and relatives once again.

The idea worked a little bit too well as the people there unexpectedly become too much excited and even decided to go wake up the rest of the citizens to prepare to welcome all those brave people who had chosen to fight in order to protect them all.

Lina initially thought that they would be more scared since two years ago, anything that happened at night was not considered to be good news. People got afraid and would avoid coming outside during the night, however, for some reasons that night, Lina found his townspeople being particularly bold as they were coming from the houses and residences a bit too casual. Even the refugees, who got influenced by the safe atmosphere of Stainfall just for a week now, seemed to try to overcome their fear by using the general excitement as a catalyst.

Soon, the euphoria was so great that Lina couldn't possibly contain them and even found herself carried by all that excitement. She wanted to believe that the man she loved and Natasha whom she loved like a sister, would come back to her, alive and in one piece. The result was that all the people stayed awake the rest of the night standing on the streets of the city waiting for their heroes to appear.

Some of them proposed to organize a party to celebrate the event and even volunteered to prepare it.

•••

" Hello everyone! " Lina shouted while waving her hand when she saw her new friends escorted by Matteo walking towards them; Jamal, Natasha, and she.

" Hey " they responded altogether. " How is our life savior doing now? Are you feeling better? " Volga asked Natasha joyfully when they finally gathered up.

The young woman smiled, " I'm not injured hopefully, I just need to fill my belly with as much food as I can and I will be totally fine ".

" Seems like we are sharing the same thoughts, " Carla said before she approached her and wrapped her arm around hers, " I'm starving you can't even imagine it ".

" Yes, but please leave some space for the dessert Lina will make especially for you, " Natasha told her with a grin, making her remember about the bet she had lost earlier.

When Carla dared to take a peek at the beautiful lady standing right next to Jamal, and whom Natasha was referring to, she winked at her while raising a thumbs up, " Nat' has told me that you did a great job to help her get rid of those monsters and that you deserved a gift. Don't worry I make you eat the most succulent cake you ever ate in your life ".

" Or maybe the last, " Natasha murmured to her, teasingly.

Carla's turned pale as she was swallowing heavily her saliva, she grabbed Natasha's arm tighter, " please spare me, I'm the one who carried you all that time you were unconscious, you should show some gratitude ".

Natasha smacked her tongue while shaking her head, " it doesn't work like that since you have agreed to the conditions of the challenge you have to honor your name and accept the consequences ". She shook a little before she pulled her where the festivities had already begun, " don't stress, it will be alright ".

" You're coming with us? " Jamal proposed to the rest of the group.

" Oh yes! " Nelson suddenly remembered something. He turned towards him and began, " I forgot to ask you what should we do about the goods we have brought from- "

Lina stopped him with a groan, she released Jamal's arm before she went to grab both his hand and Sania's. She pulled them towards the center of the square while scolding him, " we are in a celebration party and here we are supposed to enjoy, so interdiction to talk about boring stuff like what you were about to say ".

" But it's something important- " Nelson tried to argue.

" More important than the fact that you didn't even peek at Sania's boobs even once, despite the indecent way she's wearing her shirt for you? I don't think so, " Lina answered herself without letting Nelson the time to be surprised or leaving Sania the time to blush. " I'm sure you didn't get a proper date since she had confessed her love for you, did you? " She turned to look at them, maybe expecting to hear an answer.

The couple just glanced at each other timidly without saying a word and almost immediately, Lina exclaimed " I knew it! So now, you will use this occasion to enjoy your time as a couple of lovers officially, because holding hands while shooting at a group of undead doesn't count as a cute moment between lovers, do you hear me? "

She stopped walking and waited for them to nod to her before she released them, she put Sania's hand into Nelson's, tied the last buttons of Sania's shirt while murmuring to her, " he has lost his chance so don't let him get distracted by these two beauties now, " she pushed their backs lightly while telling them, " here you go, see you in few hours after you would have made each other cum at least two times, " and she sighed proudly while staring at them as they were going off.

" Are you satisfied now? " Jamal said after he stopped next to her.

" Yes a little bit, but I will be completely satisfied once I finish. It's your turn, Matteo and Dana! " she sang as she was turning around, but she got immediately surprised when she realized that both youngsters were missing.

" They ran away at the second you took off your sight of them " Jamal let her know while plunging his hands in his pockets.

She shrugged and sighed before she took his arm and wrapped it around her waist while holding his tight. " Shall we now have our double date, " she said to the last couple remaining. Don and Volga had glanced at each other amused before they gladly accepted her invitation.

The party had been set in a way that it looked more like a carnival than a party. There could be found people making a show of their various and unexpected talents, whatever it was in the domain of street arts, like a newcomer named Andre who teamed up with another man named Carl to create a masterpiece graffiti of the city of Stainfall. They said wanted to show how they see that city which became their new home now.

Then, there was a shooting tournament in which many targets were set in various places along a path of 50 meters and in which one had to use a paintball rifle to touch as many targets as possible in the smallest lapse of time given. Volga won it easily since Jamal was forbidden to participate.

Nest, they did a competition of dodgeball where the team composed of Jamal, Andre, Pam, Sania, and the little Karen won against the team composed of Natasha, Carla, Volga, Sam, and Brad in the final, and so many other activities.

Instead of a big banquet where everyone would have sit and eat together like they had gotten used in the other cities, there were stands of food where the various restaurateurs made use of that occasion to make the names of their businesses be known by the new residents Stainfall had welcomed, so people could go serve themselves some free meals and other desserts.

However, they were not the only ones to use that party to make some publicity, owners of different types of businesses were offering the same services to attract more customers. Since the last speech of Lina, people were motivated to restart their new lives, far from the fear and the terror of these last periods of their time.

Jamal had spent half of his time introducing Lina and Natasha to his new friends from the other cities and like most of the time, Lina had left them a memorable impression. But the other half of the time, the couple would wander in the crowd hand in hand enjoying being together once again.

" Are you in love with him? " Carla asked Natasha as they were walking behind the couple.

Natasha turned abruptly her head after she almost choked herself, surprised by that sudden question, however, she managed to contain herself before giving a reply, " what are you saying? "

" I figured out since you didn't stop staring at them during almost the entire day, moreover, you had the same expression as I used to have when I stared at Nelson and Sania, " Carla said with a calm tone almost melancholic, " like something you want but you know that you can't get it ".

" You love Nelson? "

" I used to think that we had a special relationship since I grew up by his side and he somehow took care of me when I was younger, but I realized recently that he was just fulfilling the wish of the one who saved my life. The truth is that he has never seen me as a woman but more as the daughter he never had ".

" It seems like the more I know about you and the more I realize how similar we are, " Natasha said while releasing a sigh before she began to open her heart to Carla. " Similarly to you, I grew up by Jamal's side admiring him and loving how cool and amazing he was whatever the situation he was in, and before I realized it, I began to love him as a person, however, by then it was already too late, he had already found his soulmate while he continued to see me as the little sister ".

" Didn't you make him notice your feelings? " she asked.

" One of the traits of his personality I admire the most is his loyalty. He knows me too well to not have noticed those feelings but in his heart, there is only one woman, Lina, and whenever that subject would be brought up, he would always ignore it so that to not hurt my feelings... but he doesn't know that the more he does that the more I want him ".

" Did you ever try to have him? " Carla replied more curious than before.

Natasha shook her head immediately, " Lina is like a sister to me, I will never do something susceptible to hurt her like that ".

Carla stared at this woman and started to realized how her heart was enduring so much painful trial every day but never betrayed her. [ That is also one of the reasons she's so stronger than me ] Carla had to admit before making the promise to forge her heart to be as strong as hers. She pushed her, friendly, by her shoulder " you, too, are very loyal. I think you deserve him too ".

An hour later, the carnival progressively came to an end as some people started to evacuate the place while another part, however, stayed to clean the mess left behind.

Lina approached Nelson and Sania while they were sweeping pieces of paper, confetti, and other dirt in a part of the court. She seized the broom they had on their hands and told them with an angry tone, " what are you still doing here? "

" We are helping to clean... " they responded while wondering why was she mad.

" Are you kidding, it's actually my job to clean. You, go find a bed where you can take care of each other. Why do you think I asked Matteo to show your residences in advance? Stop messing around and hurry up to go show your love for each other! " she scolded while already pushing them to leave.

She, then, directed her attention to Volga and Donald. " You too, I don't want to see you until tomorrow, you will be soon married so you better start training for your wedding night ". Volga ran towards Lina to put a kiss on her cheek before she went to grab Don's hand and pull him to leave the place.

" Brad, you too, go find your girl, she needs you by her side more than we do here ".

The man started to know her a little bit more since the first day he came to that city so he didn't even try to argue and quickly got out.

She finally landed her sight on Natasha and Carla, her lips extended slowly in a smirk but before she could say anything both women shouted that we would stay to help and quickly closed the discussion making the few people who were still there laugh.

They soon finish cleaning and Jamal walked toward Matteo and Dana with two bottles of fruit juice in his hands, he handed one to each of them before he focused his attention on the young girl. " I heard that you wanted to meet me ".

The girl didn't answer but just shivered, and thus, Jamal decided to not rush her either as he thought that, giving the complexity of her situation, the better would be to wait to be somewhere adequate where she would be ready to talk. He turned around and told her, " come with us, it seems like we have very much to say ".