“You were a good kid, like OS2 said, always willing to help people and eager to learn.” Katie offered her portion and then turned to Drew.
“I didn’t know you for long, and I’m sorry I didn’t protect you like I said I would. Looks like you’ll figure that God thing out before me.” Then he nodded and they all turned away from the bodies, leaving the orcs for whatever spiders or other scavengers came for them. No one had the heart to wade into the scattered body parts torn apart by the storm spell to look for their weapons.
Drew did take a last glance around. The ambush felt off to him somehow. It was executed perfectly, and the pincer attack would have killed them all if it weren’t for Katie’s wall spell. The question he had was, why? Was it because of his first storm spell? The only words that he had heard were ‘kill the red mages.’ Was that just good practice, or a response to the spells he’d cast? He frowned again, looking at the others, “We should use a different stairwell.” He ushered everyone to a branching hallway and away from the main elevators. Grabbing the rope for the cart, he pulled it behind him, the wheels bouncing over the bone shards that littered the floor.
The building was organized strangely, built into the side of a hill. The ‘ground floor’ was the highest floor, and they counted going down from there. They were currently on the third floor but going up meant being on top of the hill with more buildings surrounding them and no real way off the hill. There were exits on floors five, six, and seven that opened onto the parking structure and the road off base. The closest exit was on the sixth floor. The fifth- and seventh-floor exits would require traveling through the building either more to the west or east, as they exited on the slope of the hill. This was the main stairwell and allowed access to all nine floors of the building. The problem was that it was the only stairwell that went all the way up and down, and the rest of them only spanned three to four floors each.
They were currently headed towards the stairwell that would probably get them to the fifth floor. The problem was that Drew couldn’t remember if it went down all the way to the fifth floor, or if it only went to the fourth floor. Sarah was a mess, the knight was gone and on cooldown, the cart had been damaged by some of the stray projectiles, and Juan was dead.
He pushed that thought away, “Katie, can you make walls behind us? Block off pursuit?” She looked up at him and nodded.
“Oh yeah, good idea.” Her short chant created a 6-foot-tall barrier. It would take another casting to fully close the area off, so they waited the slow seconds before she could cast it again and then moved on, stopping three more times for Katie to erect barriers behind them.
They took a 90-degree turn in the hallway and Drew nodded Mitch towards the little breakroom on the side. “Let’s hole up there for a bit. We can raid the vending machine and get some rest.” Drew could keep them all awake forever with his refresh spell, but all of them needed some time to process Juan’s death. Katie erected a few more walls as they all entered the break room. They hadn’t seen any monsters since the Ambush. The air smelled stale with no wind or ventilation present to push fresh air in.
Sarah was curled up in one of the corners and Drew opted to give her as much space as possible. Abandoning the cart in the middle of the room, he sat in the opposite corner which also gave him a good line of sight on the entryway. Katie sat down next to him, leaning against his shoulder. A part of Drew’s mind told him that the contact should be weird; they had only known each other for a short time, after all. Instead, the comforting warmth on his shoulder reminded him of Zoey, and he slung his arm around Katie and pulled her closer.
“Well, that sucked.” She said softly.
Chapter Eleven — Interlude
Drew nodded his head. Not wanting to say anything, his fingers began the process of casting refresh, but the brunette recognized the cast and put a hand on top of Drew’s, effectively stopping the spell. “I just…can we just pretend everything is normal again for a few minutes?” Katie had turned slightly so she could look at his face as she asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, sure,” Drew responded, and Katie curled her fingers around his, leaning back into his shoulder.
“Where are you from?” Katie asked.
Drew answered with a quirked eyebrow. The question was so normal, it seemed incongruent with the current state of things. The habit of answering these small talk questions had become routine to him since arriving in DC a few years ago. “Boise, you?”
“I’m from a little town in Vermont you’ve probably never heard of. Wait, Idaho? How did you join the Coast Guard from Idaho?” Katie responded, looking over at Mitch and Sarah who were in the other corner. The other two weren’t talking, but Mitch was there for when Sarah was ready.
“It’s a weird story, actually. I had finished college and was sort of just drifting, I guess. I went on a road trip with a bunch of friends to the Bay Area. We were heading to the Point Reyes Lighthouse and we passed a sign saying, ‘Coast Guard training facility,’ and I thought… I could do that. About a year later I was the oldest guy in my boot camp company.” Drew shrugged.
Katie turned to look at him, “Wait, you joined the Coast Guard because of Petaluma? Are you crazy?”
Drew laughed softly, “No. I loved Petaluma. Horrible duty rotation aside, it was great being so close to Point Reyes. I must have gone out to Alamere Falls every other weekend the entire six months I was there.”
“You and I clearly had different A-school experiences.” Katie said with a grunt, “Man, do you remember how terrible the food was?” Her stomach rumbled in response, the thought of food reminding them both how long since it had been since they’d had a real meal.
“Yeah, I remember all the OSes getting off of watch, so they could do their normal school work while the rest of us that had been there twice as long had to clean the toilets after doing 8 hours of schooling,” Drew said with another chuckle, which earned the pair a glare from Mitch.
The glare cut off any reply Katie might have been about to make, and the two sat in comfortable silence. After ten minutes, Katie asked, “So, who is Zoey?”
Drew grunted slightly, “She’s my dog. I got her as soon as I moved to DC. She’s helped me deal with some stuff.”
Katie glanced at Drew again, a small smile on her mouth, “Well, I think I can deal with a dog as my competition.”
Drew quirked an eyebrow at her, “Competition?” Drew wasn’t exactly a lady killer; he spent most of his time playing video and board games or at the dog park. “Uh, yeah…no, she’s uhm, you know, she’s just my dog.” The realization of what Katie had said made the normally self-assured Drew stammer a bit.
Katie’s smile grew larger as Drew stumbled over his words, “Finally! There is some human under that machine face you’ve got going.” She laughed softly before resting her head on his shoulder, “You should really talk to Rothschild, you know. She’s going to need your approval.”
“My approval? Why would she need my approval? I’m just an IT2.” Drew latched onto the change of topic as a way of ignoring where the conversation had been going.
Katie blinked and pushed away from Drew again, “You don’t see it, do you?” She studied his face for a minute and then shook her head. Drew couldn’t help noticing how nice her hair was, and he had to mentally shake himself. This wasn’t the time to get twitterpated; they were still in the middle of a dungeon, during what was probably the apocalypse.
“See what?” Drew asked.
“Drew, you’re in charge here…none of us would have left that room if you hadn’t shown up. We’re all relying on your strength to get us out of here. The Ensign is going to need you to tell her that she didn’t just get Juan killed.” Katie’s voice was quiet to ensure that it didn’t carry far enough for Sarah to hear her.