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Authors: Kaitlyn O'Connor
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bed would probably be their second guess if it wasn’t the first.
Racing to the clothing locker, she popped the door open, gauged the size of the shelves and decided she could just squeeze into the bottom area. Grabbing the clothing from it, she had already tossed them over her shoulder before it dawned on her the scattered clothes would be a dead giveaway. Snatching them up again, she looked around a little wildly and finally threw them under the bunk. She scraped the hide off of her arms and shins climbing into the cubby hole at the bottom of the clothing locker, and it was a miserably tight fit besides, but she managed to get in to it.
Closing the door behind her was even harder. Persistence paid off, though. Cramped as she was, she had no difficulty retaining body heat. Despite the shock and fright that had her shivering, she began to grow warm fairly quickly. She couldn’t hear the fracas from inside the locker—not nearly as well anyway—but she counted that as a good thing, covering her ears with her hands for good measure. The moment she did that, it completely drowned out everything except her heart beat, which was pounding like tribal war drums.
She was too scared at first to even consider what had happened with anything approaching cognitive thought. She couldn’t get the violent images out of her mind, though. Over and over, like a damaged vid that kept hitting a bad spot and replaying everything before, her mind vividly recreated Jerico’s fist slamming into Gabriel’s face, Gabriel flying backwards across the dining table, Jerico flying backwards across the room and the expression on Gideon’s face that promised even more fist slinging. Closing her eyes only seemed to make it worse, though how that could be the case when she was trapped in the dark already she couldn’t imagine.
She’d thought for certain she’d enraged Jerico by being so snippy and sarcastic. Well, she supposed she had. She shuddered. She wasn’t sure if it was the violence itself or the horror she felt that men that big were strong enough to sling each other around that had her shaking like a leaf. Both, she decided.
It wasn’t as if she had never seen violence. She’d seen the end results of it many times when she’d interned. She’d seen a lot of actual violence, but as a spectator staring at news clips or entertainment vids, not real life right on top of her violence.
The door of the locker opened abruptly. Bronte squeezed her eyes more tightly shut. After a moment though, when the door didn’t close again, she opened one eye a crack to see what was going on.
Gideon was crouched on the floor, studying her. Bronte stared back at him with a mixture of embarrassment, distrust, and fear. Jerico and Gabriel joined him, peering at her with expressions she found impossible to interpret.
All three men were breathing deeply from exertion, their hair wild and their faces battered and bleeding. After staring at her for several moments, the three exchanged accusing glares.
“Do not even think about it,” Gideon said in a low, warning growl when Jerico and Gabriel bristled at one another. The two men turned to glare at him, but they subsided.
“Soldiers get rowdy when they have been too long from action,” Gideon offered.
Bronte stared at him. Apparently he recalled that they had seen ‘action’ only the day before when both Jerico and Gabriel had been shot escaping with her. “It was a long flight to Earth,” he added uncomfortably.
He blew out a breath of irritation and turned to glare at the two in question. “Go and clean up the mess and repair the damage to the mid-section.”
Neither man looked terribly pleased by the order, but they shot to their feet, saluted, and left. “Are you hurt?”
Bronte thought that over, but the only injuries she could claim were self-inflicted when she was trying to get away from the fight. When he asked, she felt twinges, bruising from slamming into everything in her path in
Racing to the clothing locker, she popped the door open, gauged the size of the shelves and decided she could just squeeze into the bottom area. Grabbing the clothing from it, she had already tossed them over her shoulder before it dawned on her the scattered clothes would be a dead giveaway. Snatching them up again, she looked around a little wildly and finally threw them under the bunk. She scraped the hide off of her arms and shins climbing into the cubby hole at the bottom of the clothing locker, and it was a miserably tight fit besides, but she managed to get in to it.
Closing the door behind her was even harder. Persistence paid off, though. Cramped as she was, she had no difficulty retaining body heat. Despite the shock and fright that had her shivering, she began to grow warm fairly quickly. She couldn’t hear the fracas from inside the locker—not nearly as well anyway—but she counted that as a good thing, covering her ears with her hands for good measure. The moment she did that, it completely drowned out everything except her heart beat, which was pounding like tribal war drums.
She was too scared at first to even consider what had happened with anything approaching cognitive thought. She couldn’t get the violent images out of her mind, though. Over and over, like a damaged vid that kept hitting a bad spot and replaying everything before, her mind vividly recreated Jerico’s fist slamming into Gabriel’s face, Gabriel flying backwards across the dining table, Jerico flying backwards across the room and the expression on Gideon’s face that promised even more fist slinging. Closing her eyes only seemed to make it worse, though how that could be the case when she was trapped in the dark already she couldn’t imagine.
She’d thought for certain she’d enraged Jerico by being so snippy and sarcastic. Well, she supposed she had. She shuddered. She wasn’t sure if it was the violence itself or the horror she felt that men that big were strong enough to sling each other around that had her shaking like a leaf. Both, she decided.
It wasn’t as if she had never seen violence. She’d seen the end results of it many times when she’d interned. She’d seen a lot of actual violence, but as a spectator staring at news clips or entertainment vids, not real life right on top of her violence.
The door of the locker opened abruptly. Bronte squeezed her eyes more tightly shut. After a moment though, when the door didn’t close again, she opened one eye a crack to see what was going on.
Gideon was crouched on the floor, studying her. Bronte stared back at him with a mixture of embarrassment, distrust, and fear. Jerico and Gabriel joined him, peering at her with expressions she found impossible to interpret.
All three men were breathing deeply from exertion, their hair wild and their faces battered and bleeding. After staring at her for several moments, the three exchanged accusing glares.
“Do not even think about it,” Gideon said in a low, warning growl when Jerico and Gabriel bristled at one another. The two men turned to glare at him, but they subsided.
“Soldiers get rowdy when they have been too long from action,” Gideon offered.
Bronte stared at him. Apparently he recalled that they had seen ‘action’ only the day before when both Jerico and Gabriel had been shot escaping with her. “It was a long flight to Earth,” he added uncomfortably.
He blew out a breath of irritation and turned to glare at the two in question. “Go and clean up the mess and repair the damage to the mid-section.”
Neither man looked terribly pleased by the order, but they shot to their feet, saluted, and left. “Are you hurt?”
Bronte thought that over, but the only injuries she could claim were self-inflicted when she was trying to get away from the fight. When he asked, she felt twinges, bruising from slamming into everything in her path in
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