Quaranteam - North West Ch. 14

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QT:NW continues the official Spin Off for the Quaranteam universe originally created by CorruptingPower. You do not need to have read the original series to enjoy this one, but you really do need to start with Chapters 1-4 (I really suggest you read the original though, it's great!). Fans of the original should be pleased to know CP has approved the story and the continuity.

In this chapter you can expect political movement, new toys, community check-ins and some new faces.

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"Alright, Black," the State Trooper Sergeant mumbled. "Come on. Meeting time."

The clanking of the keys in the cell doors was a metallic knife in my ears. I hadn't been able to get any sleep sitting in the cell in the back of the State Trooper outpost, and judging by the light beaming in from the window high on the wall it had to be mid-morning by now.

I'd sort of expected it, but the Stateys hadn't exactly come in soft on Kyla and I. They hadn't been overly rough either, but with multiple bodies on the property and a gun fight in a residential area, none of them were in the mood for leniency up front. The only thing that stopped me from being frustrated by the whole thing was that they hadn't gotten rough or handsy with Kyla in any way. We'd each gotten put into the back of a cruiser, and I'd sat there for about an hour as the Troopers started to process the scene and interview Mary. They were just starting to check the other houses on the block when Kyla and I were driven away.

We didn't get booked when we were brought in, which I took as a good thing. Instead I was brought back to the cells and Kyla was brought to an interrogation room - she'd claimed Diplomatic Immunity and rattled off an ID number, and I had a feeling the Troopers weren't sure what to do about that.

I groaned as I sat up on the rough wooden bench that I'd been laying on. Thankfully I'd been the only person in the cell so I'd felt safe enough to lower my mask as I tried to find the soldier zen to relax on cue. But it hadn't come, and now here I was with only a couple of hours of sleep in me and an adrenaline crash leaving me with a mild headache.

The Sergeant waved me through the cell door and led me out to the front. The station was small, just an outpost that housed a service bay for the Trooper's cars, a couple of meeting rooms and offices, and a break room. Most of the crime in the area was petty theft and vandalism, public intoxication and DUIs, and speeding. Or maybe it was more than that and I just didn't know about it. I was learning a lot about the shit people were willing to do to each other even out in what I considered the most beautiful place on earth.

Inside the cramped little conference room, the table was almost full already. Kyla was sitting next to Captain Bloomberg, who gave me a quick and analytical once-over to make sure I was alright. She looked like she was running low on sleep as well, and I wondered how fast Miriam had woken up her second-in-command to help deal with this. But she also looked sharp as hell in her military dress blues.

Also at the table was a State Trooper Captain who looked highly annoyed to be there, and the Sergeant followed me in. He had been in control of the scene - or as in control as one could be when there were only three troopers and four dead bodies.

"Mr Black," the Captain said. "Take a seat, let's get this over with." He was the kind of guy who probably played linebacker way back in his high school hay day but had slowly started heading to pasture. His gut hung over his belt and his moustache was silver and grey as his medical mask slipped down his chin.

I sat, knowing better than to speak without being asked a question. I still wasn't sure what the state of things were, so offering up any information freely could fuck up whatever Bloomberg was working on.

"Well, we're all here now," Captain Bloomberg said. Everyone was wearing a mask which made it harder to really get a read on her. "Sergeant, will you be suggesting to the ADA that charges should be filed?"

The Sergeant cleared his throat and sat forward. "Ah, no Ma'am," he said. "Our preliminary investigation and witness reports say Mr Black was acting in defence of another at their express request in a time when emergency services were unavailable, and his actions were against clear and present looters." He glanced at the Captain and then continued. "We are ruling our investigation closed at this time."

"Good," Laura nodded tersely and then turned to the Captain. "With that cleared up, the jurisdictional matter?"

"I still think if he wants-" the big man started, but Laura raised an eyebrow and he grumbled and seemed to change his mind. "We were already short-staffed in this area for the ground that needs covering, and I've lost half of my troopers already. Do whatever the fuck you want."

"Wonderful," Captain Bloomberg said dryly and then she picked up a book and held it towards me. "Put your hand on the bible."

I raised an eyebrow of my own but did so.

"Do you swear?" Laura asked me.

"I... do?" I answered.

"Great," she said. "By the power invested in me, I hereby appoint you the new, duly elected County Sheriff for Black County. Congratulations."

"What is going on?" I asked.

"I don't know how, but somehow there is a new, tiny county in the state located right outside of Jewell," the Trooper Captain said. "And apparently there was an election this morning for the position of County Sheriff and that's now you."

I opened my mouth behind my mask and then clicked it shut and blinked. "What?"

"Now that that's out of the way," Captain Bloomberg pushed on. "Jurisdiction, Captain?"

The Captain took in a breath and blew it out slowly into his mask, clearly exasperated. "Sheriff Black, we will extend you jurisdictional courtesy in the town of Jewell and the surrounding area so that you may handle emergencies which our office may have a delayed response to. In return, we hope you could help with some of the community-related duties our officers are having a hard time keeping up with."

I looked at Laura and Kyla, who both nodded. "Sure, Captain," I said. "I'd be happy to help with that."

"Great. Wonderful," the Trooper Captain grunted and turned to Laura. "We done here? I've got about a hundred other things that are more important than this piling up on my desk."

"Thanks so much for your help, Captain," Laura said and I could hear the patronizing customer service smile hidden behind her mask.

The Captain grumbled something to himself and stood up, squeezing his way out of the small room and slamming the front door of the station on his way out.

"Am I needed for anything else, Ma'am?" the Sergeant asked. "He's not wrong, we have a lot going on and my guys could use me out there."

"Just the return of Sheriff Black's firearms and other property," Laura said.

"Ma'am, those are going to be in evidence-"

"Just the return of Sheriff Black's firearms and other property," Laura said again, a little sterner.

"Ah, uh, yes Ma'am," the Sergeant said and stood. On his way out I could hear him muttering about not knowing how to do the paperwork for all of this.

"Alright," I said once he was gone and we were alone. "What the hell is going on?"

"The Colonel thought it would be prudent to expedite some political paperwork for the community," Captain Bloomberg said. "Black County became official at 8:01 AM this morning, and at 9:01 AM a verbal election was held of all current residents of the county. Your election was unanimous with the 78% turnout."

"I can tell you're having fun with this," I said.

"What, me? Having fun running roughshod over all sorts of legal and possibly constitutional issues? I'm an officer of the court and of the United States Airforce. I wouldn't ever dream of havingfun," Captain Bloomberg said.

"She's having way too much fun," Kyla said.

"OK, what does this actually mean though?" I asked.

"As much as you want it to," Laura said, cutting to the chase. "The community that's going to be built on your land was always going to become its own county because that was going to help with jurisdictional governance issues. In reality, the entire county is going to remain under the federal jurisdiction of the Air Force so there isn't a need for any county political or infrastructure systems. But Miriam seems to think that if we don't make you some kind of official you're going to keep getting into shit that I need to dig you out of, so I came up with giving you a badge and letting you do whatever it is you're going to do. You're still the contracted security for the site, which encompasses the entirety of Black County, but with that agreement with the State Troopers you just made you can go looking for all the trouble your heart desires."

"This is insane," I said.

"And yet it's happening," Kyla said.

"Just don't do something stupid enough that someone files a complaint against you," Laura said. "We'll get you a badge and some more equipment under the guise of your security work, and you can fly under the radar and help whoever you're going to help. Or, I'm just putting this out there, you could try keeping your head down and not making my life quite so fucking interesting so that I can handle the two and a half feet of legal paperwork that is currently forming a new leaning tower of Pisa on my desk."

"Thank you, Captain," I said.

"You're welcome, Sheriff," she said with an audible smirk.

The Trooper Sergeant came back and met us at the front desk with all of my firearms, including the 1911 in its hardcase that had been pulled from my truck. Unfortunately, the truck itself had gotten towed since it had multiple bullet holes through the windows and front end.

"Don't worry about it," Laura assured me. "Miriam is going to take care of you."

"But I liked my truck," I said.

"She'll take care of you," Laura said again.

Outside the station we piled into the blacked-out sedan Laura had apparently driven down in, and she was going to give us a ride back home before heading back to Portland. I took a moment before getting in the car, and after setting the firearms in the trunk, to wrap up Kyla in my arms and kiss her tenderly.

"Thank you again for last night," I said quietly to her.

"You don't need to thank me," she said.

"Yes, I do," I insisted. "You risked your life, and let me risk mine. You took life as well, which I know you're feeling right now. So I need you to hear me when I say thank you, and I meant what I said. I'm falling in love with you, more and more."

She hugged me back, but with her fingers clutching the sides of my shirt tightly. "You're welcome," she said softly.

On the ride, now that we'd gotten our phones back, Kyla began texting back home while I called Mary. She was happy to hear things were working out, though I didn't go into details about how exactly that had happened. Her little girl Charlie seemed to have forgotten the whole thing almost immediately, but Thomas was asking lots of questions and she was having a hard time answering them. She'd also found out that many of her neighbours were missing - the police told her that it was difficult to tell because of the looting, but some likely left the area to be somewhere else during quarantine. Others, though, were just gone. And she'd witnessed a delivery truck of some sort come by that morning, and it had picked up the bodies of the men we had killed along with a half dozen other body bags from more of the houses on the block.

That made me flinch. The diseases weren't just in the city or confined to the outbreak on the site. It was in my town, for sure and for real.

I told Mary that I would come by in a day or two to assure Thomas, and that I'd try and fix what I could of her front lawn where I'd probably torn up the grass. She, of course, said I didn't need to do that and I told her it was no trouble.

"What did I say about keeping your head down?" Laura asked as I hung up the call.

"What?" I asked. "I'm just offering to fix her front lawn."

"And soon you'll be running a soup kitchen on the site and setting up a pet rescue," Laura grumbled. "You have a serious hero complex, Black."

"You're not even the first person to tell me that in the last twenty-four hours," I said. "I'm just doing the right thing."

Kyla leaned forward from the back seat, reaching for my hand. "Harri, sometimes that's the same thing."

I sighed and rolled my eyes, but inside I felt my heart beat a little harder. It was nice to know a woman I was falling for, and another one I respected, saw me in that kind of light. Even if Captain Bloomberg was making it more of an accusation.

When we got back to the site and the compound we saw that there was another one of the National Guard cleanup crews working away on the office buildings, sanitizing the place and recovering what they could of records and documents. As Laura pulled up in front of the compound she put the car in park and turned to me. "Now that it's official, I'm sure the Colonel is going to organize a delivery of equipment for you sometime this afternoon or tomorrow. Just do me a favour and try not to go overboard. Or get into situations where you need to call her in the middle of the night again. She was happy to help, but it doesn't look good if that sort of thing keeps happening and it's my job to keep her clean, alright?"

"I know," I said. "And I'm sorry for the trouble..."

"But it had to be done," Laura nodded. "Just do me a favour and text Miriam a picture of the kids you saved so I know what I did all this for. And throw in a nudey of that hot chick from last time for good measure if you can."

Kyla snorted, and I shook my head. "The kids I can do, but a picture of Dani is a bit much."

"She'll do a topless one for sure," Kyla said. "Don't worry, Captain. I got you."

That made Laura bark a laugh and actually crack a smile.

Everyone was coming out of the compound at this point to welcome us back, and Laura ended up needing to wait for all the hugs and kisses and backslaps to happen before I could get to the trunk and retrieve the firearms. As I shut the trunk I got a view of Dani lifting her shirt and pressing her boobs to the driver's side window as she giggled and Kyla smirked with an 'I'll do you one better' kind of expression on her face. When Dani pulled back she saw me looking with wide eyes and she took a moment to wiggle her boobs at me with her tongue sticking out at the corner of her lips in a silly expression before putting them away.

They were really great tits.

Kyla and I got a 'welcome back from jail' party, which the girls had planned once Erica had gotten an update call from Miriam about what was going on. I had no idea when the two of them had traded numbers, but it was the kind of thing that I was learning to just roll with at that point. My girls in particular rewarded my heroics after lunch with a game of 'Whose mouth is this?' back in the RV as they blindfolded me and proceeded to kiss, lick, and eventually blow me. Even Kyla participated despite her usual avoidance of our group sexual dynamics, laughing along with the others.

It was later in the afternoon when I took a ride out on the ATV with Erica up to the spring pool that I allowed myself to finally feel the crushing pressure in my chest and shoulders.

"Just let it out, babe," Erica crooned as she held my head in her lap and stroked her fingers through my hair. We were both fully clothed still, sitting next to the babbling spring.

"I can't," I said. "I- I don't know why." I could feel the tears somewhere behind my eyes. The immense weight of what I'd done again. It had been seven years since I'd left the service, and almost seven and a half since the last time I had taken a life. It wasn't any easier now than it was back then.

"Just try," Erica whispered. "Cry. Scream. Yell. Hit the ground. Do something. You can't hold it in."

I rolled onto my hands and knees and crawled the few steps to the spring pond and shoved my head under the cold water, laying on my stomach over the little rocky rim that one of my ancestors had built up. And then I screamed into the water. 'Shouted' would have been more manly, but I screamed. And I screamed. I emptied my lungs into those cooling, peaceful waters and yanked my head out, sucking in a huge breath and dropping right back in. I did that a couple of times, then flopped back away from the water as my chest heaved trying to catch my breath and I clutched at the grass and dirt with my hands.

"Shhh," Erica soothed me, coming to me without a care for the water and cradling my head to her bosom. "Shhh."

When I was feeling 'better,' which was hard to judge, we rode back without having had sex. It might have been the first time that we'd gone out and not at least snuck in a quickie since we'd gotten together. But it wasn't the time, not with the mental state I was in.

And when we got back, Erica sent me to cuddle with Ivy and she took Kyla out on the ATV, just the two of them.

Ensconced in the back of the RV with Ivy, my little Quebecoise lover hummed some sort of a wordless lullaby to me as she brushed out my tangled hair slowly, and then gave my scalp a soft massage. And when she was done she had me lie down and she laid down on top of me, her slight form like a weighted blanket as she hugged me softly.

"Mon amour, I wish I knew what I could say to make it better," she whispered to me in the darkness.

"I know, Ive," I whispered back, my hands resting on her back.

"I- I want to do more for you," she said quietly. "Erica, she is so strong. And Vanessa has her work. And now Kyla, she is your partner in crime in these things. I don't know where I fit in, Harrison. And I-" she cut herself off, burrowing her face in my chest.

"This is perfect, ma dulcinée," I said. "You're perfect."

"No I'm not," she said.

"Are we really going to argue about this?" I asked.

"Yes, we are," she said, and then rolled off of me and sat on the bed next to me with her legs crossed under her, taking one of my hands in both of hers. "Harri, we have not talked about my past. Not a lot. I'm not this perfect girl you see me as. I am not..."

"You are everything you need to be," I said.

"But I'm not, Harrison," Ivy said. "I have never felt like this before. All my life, I have lived without regrets. But now that I have you, I regret- I regret so much."

"Ive, what are you talking about?" I asked, sitting up and encouraging her to straddle my lap, getting even closer so we could talk while holding each other.

"I'm not a good person," Ivy whispered, resting her head against my shoulder so she wasn't looking me in the eye. "Even now, I am making this about me somehow when I want to be comforting you."

"Ivy," I said sternly, making her look up at me because of the tone, but she found my eyes soft and caring. "Ivy," I said again, softer now that she was looking at me. "You could tell me you went through a cannibalism phase and I would still think the you with me now, the one who gives her heart so fully and pours her love on me unconditionally, the Ivy I am in love with, is a good person."

"Then why do I feel so guilty?" she asked, tears in her eyes.

"What do you feel guilty about?" I asked.

"Stripping," she said. "Letting other men see me the way only you should have. Being promiscuous with boys in high school when I thought it didn't mean anything. I wish I could give you the gift of being my one and only like the priest used to talk about in bible school. I wish I could be pure for you, because I feel like I don't deserve you. I don't deserve how good you are, and how courageous, and beautiful."

"Stop," I whispered, pressing my forehead to hers. "Ivy, stop. I don't want some pure little virgin. Erica, Vanessa and Kyla all have pasts too. I want you, Ivy. I want you. The you that is here with me, with all the ups and downs that you've gone through to get here. I love every little scar, and every tattoo, and every thing about you, because they make you who you are. And fuck that priest and making you feel guilty. Tell me his name and I'll give him a piece of my mind."