17:45 Ritz Carlton Hotel

The hotel room was large and luxurious. The accoutrements the room had were a beautiful balcony, hot tub, and a fully stocked mini bar. John and Alice’s dress uniforms were spread across the room as if a bomb had exploded. It appeared that the couple wasted no time to attack one another once in the room. The couple were basking in the afterglow and cuddling with one another on the bed.

“You are a monster you know that.” Alice was smiling from ear to ear.

“Yeah, but I could say the same to you.”

Alice blushed; John wasn’t wrong. She had been every bit as aggressive in going after John as he to her. She too had noticed that they spend more and more time with one another, either in bed or not. Alice also continues to be more and more drawn to him. John was notoriously difficult to read at times, but she strongly suspected that her feelings were being reciprocated in kind.

“You know I hate to be that guy, but we need to get cleaned up for dinner.”

“Hmm, you know that shower is big enough for two...” She let that sentence hand as she got up off the bed.

John slapped her ass as she moved away from the bed. “Ok, quickie in the shower, then we clean up. Reservation is in forty-five minutes.”

Alice giggled as she ran into the bathroom and got the shower going. Some awkward positioning later and a fair amount of thrusting resulted in another round of pleasure was enjoyed by the young couple. Eventually they managed to separate themselves and got cleaned up.

John hopped out of the shower first and managed to get dressed and ready for their dinner reservation first. This wasn’t a big surprise, short hair and no makeup to put on speeds the process up significantly. Leading up to this date he had sent out several messages to contacts he about where he could get a classy suit.

The helpful, albeit expensive, information he received back resulted in the suit he was now wearing. It was a bespoke black pin stripe suit with a grey vest, white dress shirt and red tie that he commissioned a local tailor to make. John was standing in front of a mirror as was putting on his ‘dressy watch,’ a white gold Rolex Daytona with a shimmering blue dial. Technically a sports watch but that was as classy as he would get. John was fiddling with his tie to make it look straight.

Alice was finishing her makeup in the vanity. John wasn’t entirely honest when he said he knew fuck-all about high fashion, women’s fashion or hell even men’s fashion. He did know a fair number of things; he just didn’t care about them. Alice had told him that she went shopping with her mom a few weeks ago when she was in town visiting to get a nice lace corset cocktail dress from Alexander McQueen. He had determined that she was speaking gibberish to him.

When she exited the bathroom, John finally got to see Alice dressed to the nines in civilian formal wear. The dress had hints of a conservative nature but was also playful and seductive with a high cut slit. She was absolutely stunning in it. She noticed his eyes focused on her and spun around in front of him. The dress did a good job of hiding her ample cleavage. It also exposed most of her back.

“Damn, you’re beautiful. I’m at a loss for words.” John stammered. He was a confident individual, but Alice completely removed the words from his mouth.

“You look dashing too. But your tie is crooked.” She walked over and straightened it for him.

Her hair was moved over to the opposite side of the dress that had the strap on it. After she straightened the tie, he leaned in and gave her a kiss.

“Let’s be careful big guy. There is this dinner we’ve both been looking forward too. There’s plenty of time when we get back afterwards to do what I both suspect we desperately want to do again after seeing each other dress up.”

“So true.” John opened the door for Alice and then intertwined their arms as they walked toward the elevator.

“By the way, thanks for planning this weekend. This was exactly what we needed before hell week.”

“Truth be told I’ve been wanting to do this for a few weeks now, but our schedules have been kinda silly lately.” John shrugged.

There was some small talk between the couple while they waited for the elevator. Once it arrived the trip to the second floor seemed like it took forever. The elevator stopped eight times. One the last stop a couple younger kids got on wearing swimsuits.

“Wow, you’re so pretty.” The little girl said to Alice.

“Oh, why thank you. You are so sweet.” Alice’s southern accent, one that she tried really hard to conceal and only John knew about, came out here.

John started snorting quietly, the accent rarely came out and when it did it felt so odd to hear it. No one in their class would believe that Alice was a proper southern debutante. As the elevator finally got to the second floor the couple had to excuse themselves past a few people to get out. They took a right and headed towards the restaurant.

“Mind if I ask a question?” John needed to know the why behind the accent and her hiding her upbringing.

“My parents didn’t want me to go into the military. They wanted me to go to Harvard, Brown or Stanford. But I wanted to do what all but one of my brothers did and create my own story, not follow their plan for me. And as for the accent I hate how people immediately think people from the south are slow.”

“Wow, so you’re a telepath too?”

“Smartass.” Alice grabbed his hand as they walked toward the restaurant. “You know, as much as Jessica gives Andern crap for being a smartass, you’ve got him beat by a fair margin.”

“To be fair, she gives him more crap for his lack of manners than him being a smart ass. I can’t deny that I’m more of a smartass then he is though. I’ve also been known to be suave and turn the charm on when I need too.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m just so damned attracted to you.” Alice smiled while she started blushing.

The couple got to the restaurant and the maître d at the door opened it for them. “Good evening. I’m Paul and will be your host for the evening. May I get a name for the reservation?”

“Evening. Thank you very much. Lief, party of 2, 19:00.”

“Military, officers I presume?” John nodded. “It’s always a pleasure to have officers in our armed forces to dine with us.”

“Well, officers in training I suppose. Right now, we’re just cadets. Soon though.” John smiled.

“Well in any case we thank you for your military service and patronage. Give me a moment to confirm your reservation.” The maître d scanned his list, then pressed the screen where the reservation was. “Ah yes, here it is. Jenny here will take you to your booth. Please follow her to your table.”

“Thank you, Jenny please lead on.” John said.

Alice pulled on John’s arm for him to lean down. “I could get used to this high-class service.”

“You and me both” John chuckled as they followed their host.

The two followed the host to their booth. John ordered a 2207 vintage bottle of Penfolds Shiraz for the two to enjoy and asked the waiter what meal would work best for the red wine. The nine-course tasting dinner was strongly recommended. This was the star of the menu and most of the dishes paired well with the red wine.

The first course was a simple looking salad that was surprisingly rich in flavors. The second course was an amuse bouche of crab and caviar. The best course up to this point had been the third course which was a seared quail breast served with a quail egg-based sauce. The fourth was a tuna tartare that had a surprising depth of flavor to it. The fifth course was A5 Wagyu tenderloin.

“I think I ate the best steak I’ve ever had in my life.” John was in love with his steak, certainly not the price, but the flavors and texture were amazing.

“We should be careful. I know I am already addicted to being wined and dined by you.” Alice was enjoying the meal every bit as much as John. “John, do you mind if I ask a personal question.”

“Fire away.” John looked like he was in ecstasy eating the steak.

“I notice you don’t talk much about your family, why is that?”

“My folks were killed in a pirate attack on Mendes 8 when I was seventeen or eighteen months old. There were four survivors in total. The navy sent some marines in and one of the medic’s adopted me. He was reassigned to Alpha Centauri Prime, and we lived there until I was six. Then moved to the Persephony system until I was eight. I didn’t really integrate into their family unit. I’m very thankful for everything they did for me, but it never felt like home to me. Then Intelligence found me. “

“I am so sorry, I didn’t know.”

“Don’t be, we all have our own unique history. You don’t know anything unless you ask the question.”

“So were the rumors true?”

“What rumors?”

“That you were there when Apex Garden happened?” Alice leaned in and whispered.

“I’m afraid that’s a question that I can’t talk about that here.”

Alice took note of John’s face. John’s expression tightened up like he was hiding something. Alice had been around him enough to know that pushing him wasn’t going to get any answers from him in that state. Alice decided she wasn’t going to push the subject.

“Sorry, I suppose I was overeager to get through the mystery of John Lief.”

John reached over and took one of her hands. “I give you my word, sooner or later there won’t be any mystery about me.”

Alice appreciated that. That was a sign he trusted her. But the reason he wasn’t talking about things wasn’t because he didn’t trust her. He wasn’t cleared to release that information. In the military, need to know was paramount. Talking about classified matters to people without a need to know was a good way to destroy one’s career. Ironically that didn’t seem to stop John from snooping at things above his paygrade any chance he had.

Just then the sixth course was delivered. Scallops topped by caviar, served over a buttery fish sauce and crème fraiche.

“Holy god, this is good.” John said as he took a bite of the delicate shellfish.

Just as they finished their meal, they could hear gunshots and shouting come from the lobby. The two immediately got to their feet.

“Fuck us.” John exclaimed as he got to his feet.

Fight or flight was a topic that was discussed at length in virtually all of their classes. John naturally went into fight mode by instinct. He reached out with his mind trying to locate where the hostiles were. Eight hostiles were in the lobby with another two moving through the kitchen. He took off his suit coat and laid it down next to Alice.

“Stay here, don’t move and stay calm, we’ve got hostiles in the kitchen, I’m going to go deal with them.”

“What, how do you know that?” Alice was speaking to a ghost, she looked away for a second. John had burst into the kitchen.

Some noise could be faintly heard coming from the kitchen. A struggle was happening but no gunshots. So that’s a bonus. The doors to the restaurant were locked and reinforced because the panic button had been pressed. No one was getting in unless they blew up the doors.

No more than 60 seconds had passed. A gun was then placed down on the table startling Alice. She looked up to see John dropping the magazine on another gun and pulling the slide back slowly to see if a round was chambered.

“Motherfuckers got blood on my shirt and pants. Now I’m pissed. Take that one, you’re going to need it. I picked up one for me too.”

“Jesus Christ John, you scared the hell out of me.” She got up and was scanning him from head to toe, John had blood all over his vest and up the right side of this shirt.

“Not mine, don’t worry. Nice thing about a kitchen is there’s plenty of pointy and sharp things to improvise with. First guy got a cleaver to the face, the other guy made me work a little harder.” John had said this with a calm that was unnerving.

Alice was going to say something, but then a shaped charge destroyed the locking mechanism on the big doors. Almost everyone in the restaurant dove for the floor. Alice’s reaction was to flinch and cover her ears. John simply raised his gun and was getting ready to attack.

“Alright you rich fucks, toss your walle…”

John aimed at the robber in front of him and fired three quick rounds into the poor bastard that had started informing them they were being robbed. The first two shots hit him center mass, each hit a lung. The third shot hit the robber just to the right of his nose. He was dead before he hit the ground.

“Wally, what the fu...”

The other idiot came around from the host desk and saw his buddy crumpled on the ground in a pool of blood. He didn’t understand why before three more shots were fired. Two of the shots hit him in the chest and one went through his neck. The robber fell over dead atop the first robber who’s name was apparently Wally.

John looked at the booth next to the one he and Alice had been sitting in. “Apologies for the casings ruining your steak.”

The man was speechless.

John had reached out with his mind again and noticed there was a police presence massing at the freight doors.

‘Captain, Cadet Alice Robertson and the patrons and workers from the restaurant will be coming through that door shortly. Alice is armed and friendly, do not harm her.’

“Alice, get everyone to move through the kitchen and out the freight door back there. No enemy’s back there, police are expecting you.” John looked back to a very confused Alice. “I’ll explain later.”

Alice shrugged. She had to trust John; this was old hat to him. She said with a commanding voice.

“Everyone, I am Cadet Alice Robertson with the Navy, please move through the kitchen doors to the freight exit. I will follow everyone and make sure none of these robbers will do anything to you.” Alice looked back and John was a ghost in the wind.

Four down, six to go. These bastards just fucked up a perfectly good meal. A fifteen-hundred-dollar meal. They also fucked up a perfectly good romantic weekend. At least they were making this easy for John, they were split into teams of two. Eliminating two at a time was going to be notably easier than trying to take out all six at once. He was heading to the upscale bar down the hallway. For a place that should be substantially louder it was eerily quiet.

He noticed the same MO, locking mechanism was blown out from a small, shaped charge. This had the markings of substantial planning. Given what he had seen from the first four robbers that he ended it was clearly someone else’s plan. The asshole that set this scenario up hired a half assed crew to execute the plan and were running into a seriously pissed off former field agent.

“I’m not going to tell you again. Wallets and purses in the fucking bag, otherwise I’m going to fucking brain you.” The anonymous robber was yelling.

John had to hurry, he had thirteen rounds left. He didn’t know whether or not they’d follow through with their threats.

“Look old lady, if you don’t want me to kill your boytoy, the purse is going in the fucking bag.” The other robber was shaking down another couple.

John reached out with his mind. The patrons were all on the ground, the robbers were standing up. He was able to understand where everyone was in the room in a heartbeat. He had to move now. As he opened the door, he leveled his gun and triple tapped the one yelling at the older woman.

“Terry, what the fu…” The other robber turned around and saw John.

Bad guys who John has a bead on and pointing a gun at typically have life expectancies that can be measured in seconds. John put two rounds into his chest, the third round he squeezed off caught the poor bastard square between the eyes. By the time the third round had struct the second bad guy the first had fallen to the ground. John calmly walked over and rifled through the robbers belongings. He dropped the mag he was using and put in a fresh one he got from the very dead robber. And grabbed a spare for the road.

“Thank you thank you thank you. I thought we were dead.” A patron was exclaiming.

John commanded in a booming voice. “Everyone, go out through the service door in the back, head left toward the kitchen. There’s a freight door will be at the back of the kitchen. You’ll be safe there.” John turned around and left the room.

The patrons were confused but wasted no time in exiting the bar through the employee only areas. They didn’t know whether he was a grim reaper or their savior, but more than anything they wanted to get to safety.

John reached out to his mind, he found Alice speaking with a police captain.

‘Alice, bar patrons coming, let the police know more friendlies are coming.’

John was on the move again. There were only four more hostiles to eliminate. Two were trying to get into the jewelry and watch store on the main floor. They weren’t an immediate concern. The other two were on the move and appeared to be heading to the second floor from the pool area. This was perfect, they’d walk by where John was shortly.

The stairs to the pool were just down the hallway from the bar. John had already left the bar and headed to the small nook to the left of the archway. That was his hidey-hole, now he had to wait for the two roaming robbers to come by.

“T, what the fuck is going on, those assholes aren’t saying anything up there. And I heard gunfire too.”

“Fuck if I know, but if anyone got brave, I’m going to put a cap in someone’s ass.” The robbers were far too cocky about their little stunt here.

The two jogged through the arch heading to the bar or restaurant. They didn’t notice the dapper and bloody grim reaper that closed in behind them. John took a step forward, leveled the gun as they walked by on the one closest to him and squeezed off two rounds into the back of his skull. He shifted his aim to the left robber and pulled the trigger, jam. “Fuck” John exclaimed, dropping the gun and pulling out his knife from his vest.

He was on the hapless robber before they knew what was going on. John managed to stab him in the bicep of his gun arm once and knocked the gun out of his hand. He kneed the robber in the gut, pulled out the knife and finished the fight by driving the knife through his neck.

“Who the he…” he was gurgling too much blood to finish his sentence as his life was ending.

“Useless fucking guns these jackasses brought.” John spat out the words.

He walked over to and picked up the gun he had been using. He racked the slide to clear the jam and load another round. He dropped the mag and took a full one from the vest of one of the robbers he just killed.

“At least they were all using the same model gun.”

He turned around and ran down the stairs the robbers just came from. He ran by the pool and saw people huddled in the corner. They were safe, no time to help them now. He reached out with his mind once more and noticed the last two were still in the jewelry store. He once again reached out to Alice.

‘Eight down, two to go. Situation will be clear shortly.’

The last two robbers were making so damn much noise they had no clue that death incarnate had silently entered the store. John knew they were near the safe but didn’t know the exact location. But the layout of the store suggested it was on far side of the room he was facing. He still cleared the room cautiously just to make sure the mastermind of this hot mess of a robbery didn’t hire someone that was trained to close their mind to telepaths.

John got closer to the back wall where there was an entry way to the back room. No one hiding out here. He peaked into the room and saw the two robbers fire up the drill again, now was the time. He stepped out and squeezed the trigger eight times. Seven rounds hit the pair with the lone miss hitting the safe which sent sending copper and lead shrapnel all over the side walls. Situation resolved.

John tossed the gun and the spare mag and walked to the front desk. He reached out with his mind and asked the police SWAT team to enter the hotel, a friendly was at the front desk. They complied hesitantly but entered the hotel.

“Navy Cadet here, robbers have been delt with. And stop pointing those fucking guns at me, I’m friendly.”

A swat officer ran over to him with a submachine gun pointing in his general direction. The Police captain that was with Alice was giving a description of John over the radio as the swat officers moved closer to John.

“Do you need assistance; you have blood all over you.”

“This ain’t my blood. Ten deceased in the hotel. There’s two descendants in the restaurant, bar, kitchen, hallway outside the bar and the jewelry store safe.”

“You took out all of them?” The swat officer and his commanding officer were stunned.

“Yeah, seven have gunshot wounds, one’s got a cleaver stuck in his face, another one nearly got decapitated by a kitchen knife, and said knife is sticking through his heart. Last one has a knife stuck in his neck. I would appreciate the knife in the last guy be returned to me in the near future.”

The swat commander was on the two-way radio with a police captain. “Right, captain is telling me the other cadet is safe and sound.”

“Whew, what a fucking shit show of a night. What do you think the odds are they are going to comp that meal?” John laughed as the adrenaline was beginning to wear off and John was feeling fatigued.

“Dude, I’d be giving you a fucking medal and free meals for life if it were up to me.” One of the officers patted John on the shoulder.

“Right, well I’m gonna go do the boyfriend thing and make sure she’s alright. One y’all care to lead the way?”

The SWAT officers said they couldn’t, but they’d get a couple of police officers to escort him. John walked away from several SWAT team members towards his presumed escorts. They were in stunned disbelief.

“Jesus, if the Navy is training mother fuckers like him, the Alliance does stand a chance if they start shit.” They then collected themselves and moved into the hotel.

It took John a few minutes to walk through the mass of police and other first responders in the hotel. The pair of officers were kind enough to escort him, away from the prying eyes of the media that began entering the hotel to the back area where all the restaurant and bar patrons. Alice was there talking with the Police captain.

“I don’t know who your boyfriend is but he’s a god damn hero young lady. Hell, you are too. Everyone here owes their lives to your quick thinking.” He looked over and saw a well-dressed young man and two of his officers. “Speak of the devil.”

Alice turned around, saw John and jumped into his arms. She started crying.

He held her tightly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you the whole time. You did great. There’s no shame in what you’re feeling. That was a scary as hell situation.”

Captain Aakre walked over to the couple. “Son, hell of a job in there. We’ve already received orders to keep you away from the media. We’ll need an official statement at some point.”

“My pleasure. I’m sure JAG officers will be getting our statements this evening; they’ll release our statements to you as soon as it’s possible to do so.”

John noticed Alice wasn’t crying anymore. She was wearing his suit coat.

“I. I. How?”

“I’ll explain everything to you soon. I mean it, you did great. You passed your first trial by fire like a boss. Nothing else the Navy can throw at you will touch this.”

The bar and restaurant were not going to be open anytime soon. Neither was the jewelry stone. The bodies were being bagged and removed, and cleaners began working on the enormous mess the robbers, and a rather gung-ho cadet made. The hotel was removed from lockdown and people were allowed to return to their rooms.

John headed into the bar and swiped a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon before heading back to their room. Once there they changed into some gym clothes. The front desk was called, and they were among many patrons that had requested dry cleaning be done. They opened up the patio door and sat down on a surprisingly comfortable loveseat. John poured them each a healthy poor of an amazing whiskey. He offered Alice a cigar and they both sat their enjoying a drink and smoking an aged Cuban Cohiba.

John broke the tension after he poured them a second round. “Man, that shit show was a complete buzzkill.”

Alice walked over to the other chair on the patio and dragged it over. “You’re a telepath, that much I know for sure. Your also deadly accurate with a gun, which I knew, but couple that with your fitness and the nonsense you did throughout basic you weren’t just a normal field agent were you.”

John was going to interrupt her.

“No, let me continue. There’s no way you weren’t involved on the Apex Garden case. It’s probably classified, but with your skillset there’s no way you weren’t part of it. How, how the hell could you do all of that? It makes no sense to me. You run into the kitchen to take on two armed assailants bare handed. You come out with not a scratch on you then gun down two more like it was nothing.”

Alice gulped down what was in her glass. Her hands were shaking as she was trying to pour some more.

John held her hands and looked at her.

“What I’m about to tell you is between us. No one else can know. And it’ll ruin your life if anyone finds out what I’m going to tell you. I will make sure no one does anything to you for what I’m about to say. And we need to slow our roll with this stuff.” He was pointing at the bottle of terribly expensive whiskey.

“I was a field agent for three years. And I was a special agent for the year prior to boot camp. I was at Apex Garden when it happened. I was in the thick of it. I was part of the group that killed ten of the eighteen involved. I also have an eidetic memory, so I can with perfect recall remember everything. Including what I saw there. Every single time I have pulled the trigger I can remember everything, tastes, smells, the looks on their face, how my clothing felt on my body. EVERYTHING.”

John ignored the advice he just said and took a drink and a drag on the cigar.

“Every time I’ve had sex, jerked off, every book I’ve read, every movie I watched. Literally everything I have experienced since I was about four or five, I can remember with perfectly acuity.”

“That has to be horrible to remember all of those awful things. How can you have managed all of that?” Alice interrupted. John was not an emotional guy. Now she knew why. How could he, his highs and lows would drive most people crazy.

“The key, well for me anyways, is that I don’t block things out, but I don’t try to remember specific situations. It’s why I don’t like talking about Apex Garden. I remember everything that happened there, and then everything I did bringing those that fled to justice.”

“I didn’t mean too, I’m so sorry.”

He took her hands again and squeezed them gently. “Don’t be, you couldn’t have known. I’m not angry with you. It is what it is. And lastly, I’m officially an L4’ish telepath. But that part is kept under seal. They don’t know the extent of my abilities, and honestly, I’m not going to give them a shot at figuring that out. An agreement was made that so long as I didn’t do anything illegal, such as convince Jessica to stop being a lesbian and hook up with Andern, then the Navy wouldn’t force the subject.”

That little bit of brevity was what Alice needed. Her emotions were all over the damn place and now this dumbass was making jokes. “As mean and wrong as that would be, Andern would be over the moon if that were to happen. He has it bad for her.”

“Between you me and the wall, I don’t think she’s as fully lesbian as she thinks she is. She’s attracted to him. But who knows whether or not she’ll ever act on that attraction? My money is on the negative. And before you ask, she’s broadcasting that loud and clear for any telepath to read.”

“Does killing ever get easier?”

“Yes, and that’s the scary part about the job. And one of the reasons why I’m here and not still in intelligence.” John had another drink and drag of his cigar.

The hotel phone rang. He put down his drink and cigar and walked into the room and answered it. He grabbed the largest two glasses in the room and filled them with water. John handed one to Alice when he got back on the balcony.

“Who was that?”

“JAG, they are coming up to take our statement. No more bourbon till they leave.”

The pair of JAG officers entered the room a couple minutes later. Alice gave her statement in the room with one. John on the balcony with the other. They spent about thirty minutes taking notes. They thanked them for the time and apologized for the inconvenience. Alice was sitting down on the patio when John’s phone rang.

“Lief here, you’re on speaker sir, encrypted and you’re in the presence of Cadet Alice Robertson.”

Director LeCroix was on the phone. “Apologies for this evening. Sounded like the two of you were right in the middle of a hurricane of troubles. JAG just left I presume?”

“Yes sir, we gave them our statements.”

“Am I correct in presuming you’ve debriefed Cadet Robertson?”

“Yes, and those little details aren’t going to be in their official statement they send to the police so no need to scrub it. Though I’m sure y’all will want to review it anyways.”

“Of course, we’ll have to do that. We’re also investigating who set that job up. It clearly wasn’t...”

John interrupted “my money is on one of the mafia families here. They are the only ones ballsy enough to set something like that up. But it looks like they hired out a group of malcontent jackasses that weren’t pros.”

“Agreed. Cadet Robertson, was there anything that you noticed that appeared off that you didn’t mention to the JAG officers?”

“Sir, the man with the cleaver embedded in his skull, which was absolutely awful to have seen. He had a tattoo on his neck that I remember seeing when I was younger. I think it was in Mobile. It was a snake or dragon like thing.”

“Interesting, thank you Cadet. I’ve taken enough of your time. I’ll be in contact if it’s necessary.”

The call disconnected. John turned his tablet off and tossed it into the room. He was done with other people for the night. There was only one person he wanted to focus his efforts on. Alice sat down on the loveseat and hugged John.

“I want to be like this for a while.” She was hugging him tightly, it was borderline uncomfortably tight but John wasn’t going to say anything.

“Yeah, you deserved to be spoiled for a while. Alice, you will also want to speak to the base psychologist. It’s not a sign of weakness, they can and will help you sort all this shit out that happened tonight.”

“Thank you for saving me and being here for me now.”

It didn’t take long for Alice to fall asleep. He carried her into bed and tucked her under the covers. John walked back out to the patio and poured himself a drink and relit the cigar that had gone cold.

“That was a Grade A clusterfuck tonight.” John shook his head.

He was outside for another hour and a half. He hadn’t come completely clean with her, but he figured that was alright. She knew or at least had worked out most of the details herself.

Eventually when the cigar was almost finished, he stood up and flicked the cigar over the ledge. He grabbed the railing with both hands and looked out at the bay below. Thankfully no civilians were killed in the attack this evening.

John shook his head in disgust. This was supposed to be a romantic evening. Instead, it turned into a bloodbath. Why was he ground zero for shitstorms to occur? He wouldn’t have an answer for that now, maybe ever, but it was time to sleep. Hopefully his girlfriend wasn’t permanently scarred from his actions today. He tossed his shirt on the ground and crawled into bed. He drifted off to the nether moments after his head hit the pillow.