Missed Your Lips

Lyrics in this chapter from VNV Nation's "Beloved", and not in anyway owned by me.

Chapter 12 – Resolution


“We were once young and blessed with wings.
No heights could keeps us from their reach,
no sacred place we did not soar…”


For me, the next few minutes were a complete blur. Thick arms picked me up off of the floor and carried me into the main room, and the man carrying me was apologizing the entire way. The same arms laid me across a table, and I stared up at the most bizarre ceiling I had ever seen. All I could see were women, twenty, maybe thirty. Their bodies blended into one another, twisting and turning, and each one of them was in some form of sordid position. Their mouths were open in a cry of silent ecstasy. In my addled mind, it really gave the club more personality.

I was left alone for a moment. To my side I could Jericho and Tank lowering Blitz to the neighboring table. When they realized he was too tall for one, Vince moved another table over, and together they got him situated as best they could. However, his arms and feet still hung from the sides. From my perspective, it looked quite awkward.

I reached out my arm, trying to grasp his hand. Each time I stretched, and his hand looked within reach, my chest would start to throb and I wouldn’t be able to breathe.

“Synna, honey, you have to stop moving,” scolded Steven. He was standing next to me with a handful of rags. He tossed a couple over his shoulder, then folded another and pressed it against my chest. “Jer, can you sit her up? We have to elevate her to slow the bleeding.”

Steven took my hand and held it to the compress, and as gently as he could, Jericho helped me up. I coughed with the change of position, and I was sure something liquid bubbled over my lips and down my chin.

I coughed more, and felt more liquid pour over my chin. “It hurts,” I said weakly.

“I know, sweetie,” Steven whispered in my ear. “We’ll get you help. I promise.”

I wanted to see how badly I had drooled on myself, but my vision was starting to get fuzzy. I was sure that I was starting to see more people in the room, at least more than what was in our group. One in particular caught my attention, and I pointed him out.

“I…I think I know that guy…”

~*~*~

The crunch of glass under boots drew the attention of every one in the room. Vince, Steven, and Tank turned around with guns raised in the air, all pointing at the man and his two subordinates who stood in the doorway.

The front man wore a uniform decorated with the bars that signified his rank as colonel. With a look of quiet contempt, he surveyed the room, quickly examining the amount of bodies strewn across the floor while completely ignoring the men who had him trained in their sights.

“Will you just look at this place? I don’t pay you people to destroy public property without proper orders first!” he yelled. He looked around to the room’s occupants, and his glare stopped when it reached Synna’s bleeding form.

“What the fuck is this? The merchandise is injured!” he said. “Who do I have to shoot for this?”

Vince and Steven stood still, keeping their weapons parallel to the floor and pointed at the colonel. Jericho kept his hand on the compress, making sure he had steady pressure against Synna’s chest. He didn’t flinch, but Tank looked his way, unsure of how to react.

The colonel watched the nonverbal communication between the brothers, then pulled a pistol from his belt and shot Tank in the shoulder. The bear of a man fell to the floor from the impact, and almost took one of Blitz’s tables with him.

Another shot rang off of the walls as Steven fired one off in the colonel’s direction, just missing his ear.

The colonel holstered his pistol and put his hands in the air. “Easy on the friendly fire, boys, it’s nothing personal. Just compensation for damaging my personal property.”

“I don’t call shooting one of my colleagues ‘friendly’,” said Vince with a voice low enough that only those close to him could hear it.

“Oh, the mercenary with a heart, how endearing,” the colonel remarked snidely. He shrugged off his trench coat and tossed it to one of the soldiers behind him. “You’ll think otherwise later. Plus it was only a hollow point. He’ll hardly notice the wound in a couple of days.

“However,” he said as he pointed toward Synna again, “that is a serious injury. He’s lucky I only shot him once. It’s going to cost a fortune to patch her up.”

He lazily strolled over to Blitz’s tables, and glanced over the injured man’s body. “So, this was her imprint of choice,” he said as if admiring him.

Steven looked over to Vince, not sure what to make of their situation. Vince lowered his gun slightly. “Who are you, exactly?”

“Exactly?” he repeated as he leaned further over Blitz’s body. “I’m Colonel Jack Bishop. I’m in charge of the Army’s 115th Infantry Division and 20th Tank Brigade. We’ve seen war on all major fronts over the last fifty years. But as far as you’re concerned, I’m the owner and caretaker of that doll in your possession.”

“You can’t have her,” said a faint voice. The colonel looked down to see Blitz’s eyes flutter open.

~*~*~

The man in uniform was closer to me now, and something was scratching at the back of my head. But my mind was jumbled, and when I thought I’d figured something out, I lost focus again.

He turned and looked at me. “Actually yes I can,” he said. Unable to look up to him, I focused on Blitz’s prone form as he tried to push himself up from the table. “You see, without my assistance, she will surely die tonight.”

“I don’t want to die,” I whispered to no one in particular. It just seemed like the right thing to say.

The colonel pulled out a handkerchief from somewhere I couldn’t see, and gently dabbed my mouth and chin. When he was finished, he went to stuff it in his jacket, and I could see that the white fabric was stained a dark shade of red. Then he wrapped an arm around my back, and another under my knees. He lifted me up and cradled me against his chest. He felt so warm. I shivered.

Bishop turned around and leaned against the table, and I could see Blitz now sliding off of his table. He stood before us bleeding and naked, and I could still feel my heart skip a beat at the sight of him.

“What do you intend to do with her? Like father, like son?” Blitz said through gritted teeth. He was fighting his pain, but it appeared to be a losing battle.

“Absolutely not,” Bishop snorted in revulsion. “I prefer my women normal and natural. But if you prefer this one alive, I suggest you let my men take her to our facility immediately. She’s going into shock. If we don’t treat her soon, you’ll be burying her six feet under.”

Jericho stood next to him, and pushed the barrel of his pistol into the man’s side. “And that’s it? We just let you walk out of here with her?”

“You have no other option,” he said. “But I will remain here. I believe this gentleman and I have some things to discuss.”

I tried to look to my side, but my muscles were ignoring me and the room was getting darker. I couldn’t see Blitz anymore. I could barely feel the arms around me. But that wasn’t so bad, I couldn’t feel the cold anymore either.

Then a hand was on my face, and a thumb was tracing my lips. Synna, I want you to live.

I think I nodded.

Baby, you’re going to go with these men. They’re going to take care of you, ok? And I’ll be along shortly. You won’t be alone for long.

Ok.

Ok?

Yeah, see you in the morning. But no more of this…stuff from behind. I like to look into your eyes …when you…make…love to…me.

That’s fine, baby. In the morning, then. Go to sleep now. Everything will be all right in the morning. I promise.

~*~*~

Blitz was bent over a table while Steven was working a particularly large piece of glass from his leg. Vince came around with another bottle of whiskey. He poured one shot for the colonel, and drained the rest of the bottle down Blitz’s bleeding leg. His fingers were leaving indents in the table as he gripped the edges.

Bishop turned around and tipped his glass at Tank before he downed the shot. “Look, no hard feelings, man. It wasn’t entirely your fault that you shot her. She never did pay attention to her surroundings.”

Blitz gritted a yell between his teeth as the glass came free. “What would you know of her?” he asked, his pain not hiding his underlying contempt for the man.

Bishop grabbed the next bottle that Vince handed him and poured himself another shot. “She and I were childhood friends. We were both Army brats, and our fathers served together, so when one family was transferred, both were.

“Growing up, you couldn’t find one of us without the other. Family barbeques every Sunday afternoon, Tuesday movie nights, we even skated on Friday nights. We were still very young when things went wrong.

“I was scared for her when her father found out about her condition. Apparently he had some gambling debts to pay, so my father offered to cover her medical bills. But I had no idea that our fathers could be so devious. And what’s funny is I don’t think her father even knew what my father had in store. He just trusted him to do the right thing by her. Guess that’s what got him killed once his debts were paid.”

Vince had started wrapping Blitz’s back wounds when he turned and asked, “She had a condition?”

Simultaneously, Blitz and Bishop said, “Cancer.”

Then Bishop looked at him, “Wait, you knew?”

Blitz nodded as he raised his arms to help Vince with the bandages. “Yeah, she always had dreams about things that happened in the past. Rarely remembered them in the morning, but I heard her cries in the night. I heard her talking in her sleep, reliving all the horrifying things your father put her through.”

Bishop threw back another shot. “Yeah, my father was a bastard; I’ll be the first to admit it. And I couldn’t have been happier than on the day he died. He always said he did what he did because she and I belonged together, that he had to make sure she was worthy of his only son. That asshole and his ideals still disgust me.”

Steven pulled out the final piece of glass from Blitz’s leg and tossed it to the floor. He bent to his knees to start bandaging his legs. “So, what happens to her now? Does she have a choice in her future? Does Blitz?”

Bishop shrugged. “The doctors have to check on the cancer’s progress.”

“Wait, she still has it?” asked Blitz.

Bishop nodded. “Yeah, it was a bad deal back in the day. But these Army doctors, they know their stuff. If it hadn’t been for the cybernetic advances of the last thirty years, she’d have been dead a long time ago.

“Basically, they’ll have to patch her up first, and recreate any parts she needs from her own cells that they keep in stock. Then they’ll need to check on the cancer. If it’s advanced further, they’ll need to operate. And if they operate, they’ll have to reset her again.

“Luckily for the both of you, you’re cybernetic,” he said, pointing at Blitz, “and she’s imprinted onto you. A back-up copy of her memories is stored somewhere in your body. Whenever you reactivate her, her memory will come back, and she’ll be back to the girl you know.”

“What about her other conditions?” asked Steven.

Bishop shook his head. “Unfortunately, those are flaws in the brain’s programming. Her ardor will always be there, and her need to feed that particular appetite will never go away. That’s why she was the prototype. The doctors and scientists learned from what they did wrong, and put that knowledge into creating dolls that did it right. But, from what I’ve observed, I believe her lover is perfectly capable of keeping up with her.”

The room fell into silence as Vince and Steven finished their work on Blitz. Vince had managed to go upstairs to get him some clothes. In the meantime, Jericho and Tank gathered around and said their goodbyes by shaking hands and giving salutes. Then Vince left and came back with one more bottle of whiskey before he set off to start cleaning up, leaving Blitz and Steven alone with the colonel.

Blitz took a shot before he asked, “How do I find her again?”

Bishop set down his shot glass, and walked away to fish around in his coat. “Look, man, the hospital is on a secret base. You know I can’t give you the location. But I can give you this.”

He grabbed something from his pocket and tossed it to Steven. “It’s a GPS tracker. If you’re as close as I think you are, you’d have noticed the implant in the back of her head. When all is said and done, it will be turned back on. Just follow the tracker. But you have to remember, she may not be as you last saw her.”

Steven attached the unit to his belt. “I’ll go gather my gear.”

Neither man said a word as the young man left the room. Bishop poured another shot for Blitz before he spoke again.

“You’re not her type,” he said, matter-of-factly. “And you’re too damn old.”

Blitz inclined his head, not denying the colonel’s words. “When we found the two of you in the bookstore, I had a moment of total envy. At the time, I only understood what my father drilled into my head from a young age, that she was supposed to be mine. He had saved her life so that I would never be alone, like him. My only thought was that I had to get her away from you. So I purposely led you to believe the worst about the situation.

“Then I was at the hospital when they said they were going to have to remove half of her brain. She was terrified, and all she did was cry out for you. I realized my folly when I saw her again after the surgery. The Cynthia that I knew and loved was gone. Her brain had been reset again.”

Blitz snorted. “So, that’s her real name?”

“Yeah, it inspired my father’s provocative little name change. But, I guess it’s what you know her as now.

“Look, you might be an old roughneck, but you’ve done right by her. She has her faults and her flaws, but you’ve stuck with her. And not just you, but the guys on your team have helped out too. That’s more than she ever could have expected from her original intent.”

Bishop left his side to grab his coat and flung it over his shoulder. “I don’t want to have to track her down again, Blaine. She’s a valuable commodity, and an old friend. Next time I contact you, it will be on friendly terms.”

He turned around and offered his hand to Blitz. He took it in his firm grasp and shook it. “So that’s it.”

Bishop walked toward the door, toward the sound of a vehicle starting up. “That’s it. You know what to do from here.”

~*~*~

“It's so quiet I can hear my thoughts touching every second
that I spent waiting for you.
Circumstances afford me no second chance to tell you
how much I've missed you…”

~*~*~

One year later,

“You sure you don’t want me to drive? I can go all night.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure the ladies at the club just love you for that.”

“Look, I’m just saying that you look like shit. You want her first new memory of you to involve you falling asleep on her?”

“When I want your input, I’ll ask for it. Now, how much longer do I have to drive?”

~*~*~

“My beloved do you know when the warm wind comes again
another year will start to pass.
And please don't ask me why I'm here,
something deeper brought me than a need to remember…”

~*~*~

The truck pulled up to the small roadside diner. Three straight days of driving had brought them to this tiny oasis in the middle of a desert. The sign out front proudly advertised that the diner was the last stop for gas and food for the next two-hundred miles.

As the sun set on the western horizon, the diner’s neon lights came on. Blitz could easily see that parking wasn’t an issue. There were no cars out front, and only two on the side of the building, probably belonging to the workers. The windows were tinted to keep the desert sun’s glare to a minimum, so they could barely see who was inside.

Blitz gripped the steering wheel tightly. His hands had started to sweat. His heart raced. Could he do this? What if it wasn’t her? What if the colonel had lied? What if it didn’t work? Was there a limit to how many times it could work? What if she hadn’t survived?

Steven put a steady hand on his shoulder. “You ok?”

Blitz shook his head, and brushed his hand through his hair. Between the two of them sat the GPS unit. It was beeping incessantly, letting them know they had arrived at their destination.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. And her smiling face was there waiting to greet him, as it always did. Every night for the last year he had gone to sleep with her in his mind, reliving every memory he could conjure. He didn’t want to forget one moment of their time together. The last time had been especially brief, not even two weeks. It seemed so short compared to the first time they met, and the subsequent years that followed.

And what if she was still sick? Would their time be even more brief this time around? He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her again. But compared to this last year without her, this was a risk he was willing to take.

“You know, the first step is to get out of the truck,” Steven said as he grabbed the door’s handle and slid out.

Now or never, Blitz thought. He looked through the diner’s front window again, and swore he saw a woman walk past. And for just a moment, he felt his heart skip.

Together, he and Steven stepped into the diner. Looking around, they saw empty booths lining the windowed wall, and empty stools situated around the food bar.

“Just take a seat wherever! I’ll be right there!” yelled a feminine voice.

Neither man moved. The voice had them both rooted to the floor. An older man peeked through the ticket window.

“You boys lost? Hungry?”

Steven was the first to respond. “Yes sir, the bar all right?”

The man he assumed was the cook nodded. “Sure, I’ll fire up the grill for ya! Cynthia, put on a fresh pot, would ya?”

A small woman came barreling out of the restroom, and in the process of tying her apron behind her back, ran into Steven. He reached out to steady her when it looked like she might fall backward.

She looked up at him with innocent eyes. “Oh my Goddess, I’m so sorry! I didn’t even see you there!”

Steven just laughed. “No harm done. My friend and I would sure love some of that coffee, though.”

“Yes, sir!” she said as she quickly walked around him and lifted the door at the end of the bar. She ran water into an empty pot, then poured it into the machine and turned it on. “Should be just a couple of minutes. Anything I can get for you while you wait?”

Steven took a seat at the bar, and grabbed a menu from behind the napkin holder. “Hmmm, got any of the apple pie left?”

“Oh, we’ve always got apple pie ready,” she said with a wink. Then she looked over at Blitz. “What about you, strong and silent?”

Blitz had remained quiet during the entire exchange between her and Steven. He was riveted by the sight of her. Her hair was much shorter, almost pixyish, which meant she’d had surgery again. But from the glow of her smile, he knew she had no idea. And the look in her eyes, it gave him pause. He could see her in there, just like the last time. He knew all he had to do was make the first move.

“Got a decent patty melt?” he asked as he took a seat next to his companion.

“Oh, to die for!” she said as she set out two coffee cups before reaching for the full pot. As she poured, she asked, “So, what brings the two of you out here at this time of day?”

“Cindy, leave them boys alone. Pie’s up.”

The small woman moved to the ticket window and picked up the small plate of apple pie. Then she moved further down the counter to a short freezer. Grabbing a scooper, she slapped a large scoop of vanilla ice cream onto the steaming pie.

“There,” she said proudly. “Can’t have apple pie without ice cream.”

Over the next two hours, Steven chatted it up with Cindy and the cook named Ed. They told stories. They told jokes. Cindy regaled her days in college, and Ed just groaned. Apparently Ed had been trying to teach her French, but said all she could say was “Parlez-vous français?” And the entire time, Blitz said not one word. He only listened to her stories, knowing inside that they were just memories implanted by doctors at some base hospital.

Then her shift came to an end.

“Cindy, I’m off in another hour, why don’t you just wait until then so I can walk you home?”

“And just sit here and wait when I can be home in fifteen minutes?” she said as she removed her apron and hung it on a rack behind the register. She smoothed out her aqua dress before grabbing her purse from under the counter. “I’ll be fine, Ed. There’s nothing out there except coyotes, and according to you, I’m too skinny to even be their scraps.”

Steven and Blitz glanced at each other, and Steven nodded in quiet understanding. Blitz stood up.

“If you don’t mind an old soldier’s company, I’d be happy to see you home,” he said.

The three of them heard something heavy fall to the kitchen floor, and Ed was peering through the ticket window.

“Absolutely not.”

“Ed!” Cindy said, stomping her foot. “I will be fine. These boys have been nothing but gentlemanly.”

Ed came out from behind the kitchen wall. Cindy walked back through the bar door, and was headed to Blitz’s side. “You don’t know nothing about them, Cynthia. He could be one of those serial killers we see on TV!”

Steven just laughed. “No sir, we’re nothing like that. Just two colleagues on a road trip to rescue a close friend from some trouble, that’s all.”

Ed waved him off. “Then I suggest you boys hit the road. We’ve kept you long enough.”

Blitz shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir, but I couldn’t live with myself if she walked home alone and something happened to her, and I could have been there to stop it.”

Cindy was pulling on her jacket. “Ed, I’ll call you from the house phone so you’ll know I’m alive, all right?”

The three of them looked at the old man. Ed just shook his head, and went back into the kitchen. Cindy was already through the front door, and Steven smiled at Blitz before he followed her into the darkness.

~*~*~

“My beloved, do you know how many times I stared at clouds
thinking that I saw you there.
These are feelings that do not pass so easily
I can't forget what we claimed was ours.”

~*~*~

They walked silently for a few minutes before Cynthia broke the silence. “So is that true? You guys are going to help a friend?”

Blitz looked up to the sky. He had forgotten how clear the skies were in the desert night. There were more stars than he could pretend to count. “Yes. She got herself into some trouble with some bad guys, so we have to go to her rescue.”

There was a stutter in her step. “She?” she asked.

Blitz didn’t miss the question. She was curious about him. “Yes, she has a way of…attracting the wrong crowd.”

She continued on. “Wow, lucky girl,” she said before catching herself. “Oh, I don’t mean lucky about the trouble. It’s just, well, she’s lucky to have friends like the two of you to help her out.”

Then they fell into silence again. In the distance, they could hear coyotes howling and they could see a faint row of streetlights framing a small neighborhood. There was a wood plank fence just outside the first row of houses. Blitz climbed over it easily, but Cindy didn’t swing her foot over correctly. She lost her balance and fell backward. And Blitz was there to catch her before she fell into a cactus.

Careful.

He set her on her feet, and she gave him a curious look as she wiped her hands on her skirt. “Did you say something?”

When he didn’t respond, she shrugged it off and headed toward the street. They walked another block before she stopped in front of a small red-paneled house with a chain link fence.

“Well, this is me. I’ll be fine from here if you want to go back to your friend.”

Blitz stepped forward to unlock the fence gate. “A gentleman walks a lady to her doorstep.”

She obliged, and walked through the gate. Blitz closed it behind him. He followed her up the front steps as she fished through her purse for her keys. As she approached, the light turned on above the front door, and in the light’s yellow glow, Blitz could see a two-seat patio set on one side of the porch and a white swing on the other.

He turned when he heard the front door open. “Look, would you like some lemonade before you walk back to the diner? It’s not much of a thank you, but you must be thirst after that walk.”

Blitz just smiled as he held the door open for her. “That would be nice. Don’t forget to call your boss.”

“Oh yeah!” she said as if she’d forgot all about him. “Just stay here, I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

Blitz stood at the edge of the stairs and looked into the sky again. This was his chance. He couldn’t walk away from her again.

Down the way, he saw headlights turn onto the street and head his direction. As it passed a lamp, Blitz could see it was his truck. Steven stopped two houses down, and parked on the side of the road and turned off the headlights.

Inside, he could hear her fussing with her boss. He was glad she had someone in this life to fuss over her. No matter what life she was in, it seemed ‘scatterbrain’ was just a part of who she would always be.

The door opened behind him, and she came out carrying a tray with two glasses and a pitcher of lemonade. She poured both glasses, and handed him one. He took it graciously, and downed the glass. The bitterness of the liquid burned his mouth, but he hastily put out his glass for a refill.

“Glad to see someone likes it as tart as I do,” she said, happy to oblige.

Cindy watched as he drank the second glass. She was in awe of the man’s beauty. His hair was such a light blonde that it was almost white. His face was stern, but she could see laugh lines around his mouth. She was almost jealous of their friend. She wanted someone like him to come to her rescue, and take her out of this nowhere town.

Blitz set the glass back on the tray, and bowed his head in thanks. She gave him a pleasing smile in return. “Well, I won’t keep you from your friend any longer. You have a damsel to rescue,” she said, trying not to sound disappointed.

With another skip of his heartbeat, Blitz turned away from her and started down the stairs. But Cindy caught him by the hand, and he turned around. The two of them were eye to eye.

She tried not to stutter over her words. “If you guys come back this way, will you stop by again?”

Blitz looked down at their joined hands, and smiled up at her. Cindy blushed and tried to pull it away, but Blitz held tight. He reached his free hand up to brush away a strand of hair that had caught in her eyelash. Cindy leaned into his touch and sighed. She stared into his steely eyes, and saw peace there.

And before she could stop herself, she was leaning forward and kissing him on the lips.



That's it! Thank you for reading this story I started forever ago. Hopefully I can finish my other series! Look for me again in the future!