Twenty

Staying just out of the lights she worked her way up, and around the collection of stone buildings slowly getting closer to the MP's brig. The main entrance to the east side was well lit and guarded by two armed men. That was not going to be a great option. Slowly she moved through the snow and brush along the north side looking for another way to get in.

All at once a dozen spotlights erupted onto her crouching against the stones.

"Well, son of a bitch!" an older man's jovial voice shouted at her. "You really did come for him. Bad news princess."

The man waved a shadowy hand snapping his fingers past one of the lights and two of them parted. Two young, stone-faced officers dragged a man into the light. Broken and bleeding they slumped him into the snow.

"The older man continued his taunt, "he's not in the best shape to run. But given this rescue attempt I think measures need to be taken to ensure the deserting traitor doesn't escape. Eh, boys?"

The officers dragged Ramirez to his knees where he slumped, spitting blood and staring into the snow. He took a quick glance up at her and she saw his mouth move, silently forming the word, "run." Carlos may have been drugged, beaten and near senseless, but like a cornered animal he fought. The gun was pressed to the back of his head and awaited the order.

The older man in charge began mocking her for her rescue attempt, as Carlos ducked to the right, grabbed the gun from one of the stone-faced and dropped four in quick succession before the others rallied. Amber followed suit, erupting with a dozen deadly fire shots at once. She was cold, tired, sore and most importantly, pissed.

Her eyes raged again, and she raised a hand above her head. A tornado of furious flame rose around her and Carlos. He had SAVED her; he carried her from a hell on earth and mended her broken body as a father. As if he was HER father. After all the time, and anger, and practice, and fights, and blood, and tears- she was here. He was here. Nothing she had done was good enough to protect herself and the only two people that had ever cared for her. Her right hand stayed high holding the inferno swirling around them, her left hand sliced through the air sending whips of molten earth spraying across the officers who were, she noticed, no longer stone-faced and expressionless.

Fireworks started all around the two. Carlos was lying in the water from the melted snow now, and she stood tall. She waved and slashed her hand around her, but for every soldier that fell, it seemed that, two more arrived. She was getting tired now, she was bleeding, and burnt, and… screaming? She was screaming. Melted bullets sprayed all over her body. The inferno melted them as they passed through and they clung, like tar, to her skin and ate through the unarmored parts of her clothing.

Burns don't heal. They blister, peel, scar, and never go away. Her beautiful skin was ruined. This realization sent her eyes flat red. She cut everything down around her and fried it hotter than hell. Then, she dropped. She dropped everything. The smoke rose around her, the earth steamed, stones exploded, and the air was the worst of all. The smell that surrounded her was of hot, burning, melting flesh and hair. Bullets exploded in the magazines of smoldering guns. All that was left was her, Carlos, and death.

Amber looked up through the smoke and her tears at Carlos' limp body lying face-down in the melted snow. Her arms and legs worked by themselves to bring her to his side. She rolled him over, feeling for a pulse, nothing.

"Oh, god." She yelled instantly sobbing.

Amber tipped his head back and blew into his mouth, filling his lungs with air from hers.

"Pump… one… two… pump" she counted silently, wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

A crowd of sleepy and scared teens stumbled, unbelieving towards the smoke. Everybody stood silent and wide-eyed at the scene they had awoken to. Hell ushered in through the morning mist and the dim light of a new-born day. At once they all understood that what they had been doing was simply playing at war. They knew nothing of combat, nothing of fear, loss, anger, regret and most devastating- powerlessness. No man ever returns home from war.

"Pump, pump, pump, pump. Stayin' alive, stayin' alive…" she continued sobbing through the CPR.

His head rolled loosely from her; spilling the deep, red, foamy mix of saliva and blood from his lips, to roll lazily down his cheek. Still she pumped and sang sadly, while her vision blurred again, stinging angrily with tears and smoke. Sweat rolled down her face and neck as tears dropped, unevenly, off her lashes. She sang and pumped Ramirez's chest until her arms refused to cooperate. She slumped onto the ground beside his body and lay in silent disbelief.

The sound around them started low, a breath, a breath followed by a gasp. The sobbing got louder and seeped through the layers of her composure, through her panic and hope. The cries slipped silently like a thief or a serpent in the night clear to her heart. Her soul sank slowly, and more tears flooded down her cheeks yanking her face into a pained scrunch of despair. Nicholas Halbert. S.S.C. Carlos Ramirez. Gone, but never, ever forgotten. The scars through her skin and heart would see to that.