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  SANCTUARY

  Bloodlines: Book 1

  CHAPTER 1

  Private Jones stood in formation, the mist from her breath mixing with that of the rest of her battle-buddies. The sun had yet to rise but the faint glow on the horizon, like low embers in the dark fire pit that was the shadowy landscape, said it was not far off. With an effort she managed to suppress a yawn, the sensation having been triggered when she noticed someone in line opening her mouth wide enough to crack the jaw. It was a good thing she had because just at that moment the Drill Sergeant joined them. Even something as small and innocuous as a yawn could single you out. In boot camp, one did not want to be singled out. One did not want to be, yet that seemed to be forever her fate.

  “My god it is good to be in the Army on a fine morning such as this!” The Sergeant bellowed. “Isn't that right ladies?”

  “Yes, Sergeant!” They all replied in unison.

  “You cold Waterson?” He asked mockingly when someone in line shivered. “Well, I have just the thing to warm you up.” He added, just as mockingly. “The Hill awaits! Under 12 minutes and you are free until midday. If not, I can surely find something for you all to do.”

  Several people in line chanced a pernicious glance in her direction but she ignored them.

  “What are you waiting for?” He asked in overly confused tones. “I started my watch when I first started speaking.”

  At his words, everyone started running.

  “Thanks again, Jones.” Someone behind her whispered just before she was bumped into hard enough to knock her down. She didn't bother looking to see who had done it. It didn't matter. It was not as if she would tell anyone. Everyone hated her enough as it was. Well, almost everyone.

  “You're too nice Jones,” Green commented as she helped her to her feet. “You have to stick up for yourself.”

  “Would just cause more trouble.” She said with a smile that never touched her eyes.

  “Why do they always pick on you? You weren't last. In fact, I don't think you have ever come in last.” She added.

  “I haven't.” She verified. “But every time we don't make time, I am one of those responsible. They remember that.” Jones replied sadly.

  Green looked as if she would say more but she spoke up quickly.

  “Thank you but you shouldn't be talking to me right now. No sense in us both being outcasts.”

  “I wish one of these bitches would try that on me!” Green remarked with enough heat to spark dry grass.

  Jones only continued to stare at her until she nodded and walked off.

  She ate alone that evening in the mess. Not out of self-pity but anger. In fact, she had been invited to 2 separate tables, with Green and with the 2 girls Jimenez and Kirkland who had finished after her. She had declined both. She did not want to hear anything from anyone, including Green’s attempts to cheer her up. And she especially did not want to join the pity party that was the other table. Besides, she was self-aware enough to realize that as angry as she was, it would be a mistake to socialize with others.

  And boy was she angry. She understood why everyone was so pissed at her. She did not finish the hill in under 12 minutes so no one got their free half day. That was the way of the Army. You failed or succeeded as a team. But what about when some moron screwed up by fraternizing with the males or did not make formations on time? They all got punished for that as well but the perpetrators never got the ire of the group like she did for coming in a minute after the allotted time. And the punishments were usually more severe for all of them for the stuff she had no part in.

  Before coming to boot camp, she had considered her phone a petty thing, she had hardly used it. Now though, it was a true privilege in every sense of the word. The few times they had lost the right to use them felt as if she had been cut off from the world. Thinking about it made her so angry she couldn't even eat. She imagined that if the emotion was visible to the naked eye, it would be coming off of her body like steam. With a sigh, she dumped her tray and left the mess.

  She heard their heavy footsteps well before their words and turned to confront them.

  “I had to clean the toilets because of you, you little bitch,” Shouted Sakowski, the foremost bully of her company. She was accompanied by her usual trio of sheep at her back.

  She had managed to get on the bad side of the tall and thick bodied woman on the very first day when she had mistaken the soldier for a man. She had called out to her for all to hear and many had laughed. Their relationship had only gotten worse since. She had apologized profusely but it had made no difference. Looking at the woman now with her buzz cut and broad shoulders, she was honestly surprised it didn't happen more often.

  “I think you know by now what happens to losers who ruin things for everyone Jones,” Someone said in the back but she never took her eyes from the leader.

  She stood before them defiantly. She had never run before and wouldn't start now.

  The punch knocked her down and she stared up at the woman as if she had suddenly sprouted butterfly wings from the sides of her large pointy nose. Sakowski must not have liked her expression because she took a threatening step forward.

  “What is going on here Privates?” Came a male voice.

  “Nothing Sergeant,” The bully stated without missing a beat as she assumed parade rest with her sycophants.

  The Drill Sergeant looked at her.

  “I just tripped on a cordless phone,” She lied, even managing a self-deprecating chuckle. “They just came to see if I was OK.”

  She stretched out a hand and Sakowski took it reluctantly and pulled her to her feet. She eyed her quizzically as she did but Jones continued to act as if nothing at all really had occurred. Deep inside, however, her thoughts were a confusing jumble. Had she really seen what she thought she had?

  When the woman had moved to strike her, it was as if the entire process was protracted, as if she were moving underwater. No, as if she had been neck deep in syrup, and not the cheap stuff either. As if she were trying to swim in thick and rich, gourmet molasses. She could have moved out of the way of the punch as easily as snapping her finger but she was so surprised at what she was seeing, she had never thought to do so.

  Even the other women seemed to have been frozen in time. The whole peculiar ordeal lasted only a second, a second that seemed endless to her. Abruptly, like a pricked bubble, everything returned to normal and she found herself on the ground, her cheek burning in pain.

  She walked back to the bunks, not quite sure if she was going insane. It had been such a long day, not to mention weird as heck and with P.T. tests in the morning, she really wanted to sleep. She even contemplated skipping a shower but she had smelled too many flaming wings over the last 8 weeks to risk adding that to her list of failures in boot camp.

  Out of all the things she had been worried about before joining the Army, she would have never thought that the hygiene of her battle buddies and flatulence would have been the worst parts of her stay. But many girls did not bathe properly and the resulting B.O., combined with girls repeatedly farting in an enclosed space was sometimes too much to bear. Before coming here, she had not known people could pass gas so often and without a lick of embarrassment. It just boggled her mind.

  She was hopeful that maybe she was finally getting to some of her tormentors, perhaps earning a little respect in their eyes by not snitching but when she returned from her shower, she found a nice cow pat on her bunk. She hoped it had come from a cow. With these women, you could never know.

  She heard a curse and looked over to see Jimenez trying vainly to clear her own bed of feces.

  “At least I was not the only one,” She murmured sourly.

&n
bsp; Desiree smiled to herself as she leaned to one side so that her left leg dangled a few inches off the ground. She then proceeded to shake the limb as if she were trying to dislodge ants or some other ill-tempered insect from the appendage. She did the same with the other leg, completing the ritual she had seen professional runners do on TV. She wasn't sure if the odd move actually helped but she figured she needed to do something while she waited and besides, it looked cool when the athletes did the idiosyncratic stretch.

  Her eyes roamed over the faces of the other women of Fort Sill boot camp who had yet to pass. She saw everything from fear to excitement on those faces. While this was not the last opportunity they would have to pass the 2-mile run, time was running out and they all knew it.

  Jones felt nothing but confidence and she was sure it showed on her face. She had missed the mark by a mere 7 seconds on her last attempt. Just 7 seconds! But the U.S. Army did not play games. In the time since that narrow miss, the Army had run the entire squad ragged. This included a 5k forced March in full gear and that was nothing because the Army made soldiers, not sissies.

  Everything below her waist was still sore, there was no denying that but she also felt stronger than she did during her last attempt. She could practically feel the strength and stamina that had been added to her body since then. Oh, she was extremely confident… eager even. Jones would make this 2-mile run her Bitch today!

  With the sound of the gun, she was off. She didn't see the other runners or the onlookers, she only saw the track under her feet and the goal in her head. It seemed that even God was on her side. The weather was perfect and each breath filled her lungs with the sweet, clean Oklahoma morning air, giving her body pulses of energy with each intake.

  When the finish line was in sight, she smiled. She knew she was doing great on time. She had left the other women far behind, just as she had left thoughts of Sakowski and her cronies. Graduation was just 50 yards or so away but she would not let up. She felt in her heart that she had time to spare but she had been wrong before. Lord knows that she had been wrong before so she pushed herself to the limit. Nothing would stop her, not her condescending Drill Sergeant, her cruel battle buddies or her own self-doubt. She would graduate from boot camp and move on with her training. Nothing would stop… that was when she heard it. It was a popping sound that addled her wits but she had no time to contemplate its origin because suddenly the ground was coming up to meet her.

  She grunted as she hit the ground hard, the impact pushing the air from her lungs. She stared about in puzzlement, her mind seeming to move like warm caramel as she tried to figure out what went wrong. She shook her head angrily. Nothing would stand in her way.

  She pushed off with her hands and tried to rise but her left leg would not obey her commands. It hung uselessly and at an odd angle. She tried to stand several more times before reality finally sank in. Her leg was broken, broken like her dreams of graduation.

  Her eyes filled with tears, not from pain but frustration. It appeared that her tendency to self-sabotage had manifested itself once more. Her dad was coming in 10 days. If she did not graduate, she could not see him. The Army and more precisely, her Drill Sergeant had made it very clear… only those that graduate would have the 2-day leave to visit with friends and family. She also just needed to get out of here, if even for only a day or two. She needed a break!

  Despite herself, her thoughts continued to drift back to her father. How embarrassing! He had driven so far to see his daughter, now all for nothing. All because of her. He would be so disappointed in her. That sentiment was multiplied exponentially in how she now viewed herself, however. Irrational as it was, she could not help but blame herself. As she lay there in a half daze, despondency threatened to drag her down into a bottomless pit of self-loathing and inadequacy.

  Suddenly something deep inside her kindled to life. It felt as if a fire had been lit deep in her chest. The warmth of it, the energy of it spread through her like someone had tipped over the first domino of an elaborate setup, centered in her fast beating heart. They fell in a pattern through her entire body as if they covered her skeleton. No, as if they had been mapped across her entire circulatory system. As each of the infinite number of dominoes fell, a tiny bit of her self-doubt seemed to evaporate until the last one fell, scattering all negative thoughts to the winds while simultaneously giving her body an unrelenting desire to move.

  The first pull was unconscious but soon she was dragging herself towards the finish line with a will. Nothing would stop her... nothing! That was when she heard the cheers. And each exultant cry from the crowd pushed her onward, propelling her to her goal like angelic wings. Before she knew it she was crossing the finish line. That was when the pain, forgotten in her trance-like and single-minded desire to cross the finish line, ignited in her like the Olympic Ceremonial Torch.

  CHAPTER 2

  Jones opened her eyes a crack and let in a sliver of stinging light. She closed them again reflexively before forcing them open all the way. She was in a bed with an IV attached to her arm. She turned her head to survey more of her surroundings and felt groggy, lethargic but more so in her mind than her body. Drugs.

  She was in the Gimp, the area set aside for the injured and those who were leaving the fort for whatever reason. Will I have to leave? She wasn't awake more than 5 minutes before her battle-buddy Green peaked around the curtain that was the only attempt at privacy for her makeshift room.

  “How are you feeling?” Green asked hesitantly as she stepped closer and sat at the foot of the cot. Jones noticed that her eyes kept fluttering to her leg underneath the pristine white sheets that were her bed covers.

  “Well enough I suppose,” She replied. Her voice sounding low and weak to her own ears. She saw doubt cloud her friend's features. She made an effort to strengthen her voice.

  “No seriously, I’m fine,” She forced a smile. “Doesn't even hurt.”

  Of course, that was a bold-faced lie. It hurt like a son of a bitch.

  Green nodded slowly but didn't look convinced.

  Her only real friend at boot camp was smart, gorgeous and proud enough for any 10 people. She was of mixed heritage. Her father was an African American opera singer of all things and her mother a nurse from the Philippines. Green passed each of her P.T. attempts her very first try and with ease. She had a perfect score of 300 in the physical portion of boot camp in fact. She was tough as nails, a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a self-described “Black Lives Matter” advocate. But for all that, she was a Softie at heart. Jones knew that her concern was genuine.

  A scuff of boots announced her Drill Sergeant a second before he came into view. Green was on her feet and at parade rest in the blink of an eye.

  “It took 8 weeks, but you finally earned my respect Jones,” The Drill Sergeant stated in a monotone. He then nodded vaguely in her friend's direction. “Green.”

  And with that, he was off as quickly as he had come.

  She shared a reserved smile with her friend as they both shook their heads. They shot the shit for a short while before duties carried Green away and the monotony that was her life over the next 9 days began.

  Jones decided that the news could have been worse. Broken Tibia. 3 months recovery. 3 months in limbo. It could have been much worse. She found herself saying that a lot over the next few days but the litany did little to assuage her feelings that her entire stay so far in the Army had been an utter disaster. But she had done her very best. She had given her all and managed to pass. That knowledge was the main thing that got her through the next week and change.

  Over the last 8 weeks, the Army had instilled in her a strong sense of efficiency. That cheesy military Commercial stating that their soldiers did more by 9 am than most people did all day was not far from the mark. In the army you got shit done. Tiresome? Yes. Fulfilling? Hell yes!

  So, going from the fast-paced, ordered and constructive life of boot camp, to the drugged sloth-paced, impotent, and uninspiring exis
tence that was her next 9 days was almost more than she could bear.

  Her time was spent on her cot, either in a hospital or in the Gimp, staring at the walls and occasionally watching daytime television. The programming was so horrendous that she found herself mostly watching cartoons. The poorly drawn and animated characters seemed more mature than the so-called reality television shows that by her estimation had nothing at all to do with reality. After 5 minutes of watching a house full of women yell incoherently at one another made her feel as if she had irreparably lost several points to her IQ.

  And then there was the pain of course. Just sitting down became a chore. She figured she no longer accustomed to lazing about anymore, so not only did she have the throbbing pain in her leg to contend with, her butt seemed to fall asleep constantly and aggravate her to no end.

  While in the hospital she got her pain medication any time she needed them. But when she was in the Gimp she could only take them every six hours and that was not always enough. Heck, she was even having problems using the restroom, and not because of recent restriction in mobility. She had not gone #2 since the whole thing began. The stool softeners they gave her were helping about as much as wishing. That is to say, not at all. But as with all things, be they good or bad, the 9 days of hell came to an end.

  Jones hobbled on her crutches as fast as she could. Seeing her father was doubly sweet. She desperately missed her dad, and… AND, she would finally be able to do something that actually had a chance to get her synapses firing.

  Jones smiled when she saw him. The smile he gave her in return warmed her heart. She gave him a hug. Her broken leg and crutches made it less than she wanted though. She wanted to squeeze him so hard that he would barely escape injury himself but she had to settle for making it a long one instead of fierce.

  He had not changed at all. Not that she really thought 2 ½ months would have changed him much. But he looked absolutely no different.