| Subject: Mea Culpa 6 |
Author:
Rox
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 17:19:45 12/11/01 Tue
In reply to:
Rox
's message, "Mea Culpa (Sequel to Unto Death)" on 16:09:49 12/07/01 Fri
“How did she do?” Michael asked Walter, as he reached to inspect her last target.
“See for yourself.” Walter grinned, as he handed it to him. “I’d hate to be the guy that crosses her on a bad day.”
“Yes. She is much improved,” Michael commented mildly, setting aside the target.
“Why don’t you tell her that sometime?” Walter said, shaking his head. “The kid’s tried hard to please you, you know.”
Michael lifted a skeptical eyebrow but made no reply, so Walter continued his lecture.
“Oh, and don’t tell me you haven’t noticed her making goo-goo eyes at you!” Walter returned with good-natured sarcasm and folded his arms.
“You have one thing right. She’s a kid.” Michael frowned.
“Oh, come on -- so she redecorated her room a little… ” Walter argued in her defense.
“She spray-painted graffiti… ”
“And I suppose that will bring Section One to its knees?” Walter gave a look of mock dismay.
“She has no discipline!”
It was Walter’s turn to frown. “Michael, you’re beginning to sound like Ops -- and that scares the bejesus out of me.” He picked up Nikita’s shredded target like a proud father and left Michael to reflect on Nikita alone.
* * *
“Drop!” Michael ordered from the platform above her.
“No!” Nikita struggled desperately to get a better grip on the rope that was stretched between the two towers, but the full pack on her back was weighing her down. She looked down at the water 40 feet below her and made another frantic attempt to kick one leg over the rope above her head.
“Nikita! Cross your ankles and let go of the rope. Look up and keep your hands over your head when you fall, or you’ll…” Michael didn’t have a chance to finish. Nikita lost her grip, let out a shriek and fell sideways into the water. “Damn.” He said beneath his breath and dove in after her.
While Michael’s body split the water like a knife, Nikita hit it like a sack of rocks, knocking her senseless and injuring one of the divers in the water. He followed her down to the bottom of the lake, tugging at the wet, entangling straps of the heavy pack as he struggled to free her of it and pull her to the surface at the same time.
When he got her to the surface, one of the divers had made it to their side and helped Michael boost Nikita’s limp body onto the shore. “Get a medic,” Michael told the diver with a calmness he didn’t feel.
Nikita’s pale face was nearly blue. Michael rolled her on her stomach and pushed some of the water out of her lungs before rolling her over and beginning mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. In a moment Nikita began to cough and vomit up water. Michael held her as she coughed, shivered and cried.
“I can’t do this,” she wailed as she threw up another mouthful of water.
Michael let go of her as the medics arrived. “Take her,” he said grimly, then he bent near her and looked her right in the eye, “You can do it. And you will do it!” His voice was silky soft and deadly serious.
Nikita’s expression was half hurt, half furious, as the medics lifted her to a waiting stretcher. She watched Michael run his hands over his head to smooth the water out of his hair, as he sauntered away to instruct the next trainee.
“If I died, he could care less!” She hissed between tears.
“Sorry, but you’re wrong.” Mowen, one of the trainers, knelt down and handed her a towel to wipe her face. “He’s trying to teach you to survive. You have to be prepared for anything on a mission. If you can’t hack it -- if you wash out of survival training… ” Mowen pressed his lips together, as he rubbed a second towel through her hair. He wasn’t sure he should have started the conversation.
“If I can’t hack it, what?” She snapped at him.
“You’re canceled,” he finished grimly.
“I’m dead either way, is that what you’re telling me?”
“Not dead, if you listen to him and do what he says,” Mowen said with irritation. “It’s your choice.”
* * *
When they had arrived at the survival camp, Nikita had been amused. It was almost like she imagined summer camp might have been, had she ever been allowed to go. There was a lake, hiking trails, even cabins. True it was a little rough, but as she sat on her bunk and looked at the sun setting low into a fiery grave of orange and hot pink, she was oddly content. She lay back on the simple cot and sighed. It was early and she was tired, but pleasantly so. She closed her eyes and was instantly asleep.
“Get up!”
“Hmm, what?” Nikita was startled awake. It was dark, but the horizon was still faintly gold. She realized she couldn’t have been asleep for very long.
“I said, get up!” It was Michael’s voice and his grip on her wrist, jerking her to a sitting position. It was too dark to see his face, but she knew that silhouette, and she knew that voice.
“Let go!” Nikita tried to pull free, but Michael grabbed her other hand and dragged her off the cot and onto her feet.
“Come with me,” he said in a tone that warned that he would not brook any argument.
“Let me at least put my shoes on… ” She argued, trying to twist free.
“You won’t need them,” he answered, pulling her out the cabin door into the cool evening air. She suddenly noticed that he was barefoot as well.
“Where are we going?” Nikita asked, finally giving in and following him.
Michael didn’t answer, but the location was soon evident.
“After you,” he said with more threat than politeness in his voice.
Nikita looked at the ladder that reached 40 feet above them and cringed.
Nikita had her pride, and Michael knew it was one of her “buttons.” When all else failed, he pushed it. “Are you afraid?” he asked knowingly.
She didn’t answer. Instead she grabbed the nearest rung on the ladder and began to climb. Michael followed her a moment later.
Nikita looked down into the inky depths below, but was unable to see the surface of the water. She hung there, terrified, on a rope stretched between the two wooden towers, 40 feet over the lake. Her hands were beginning to cramp from the tight hold she had on the rope.
“Hang on, I’m coming out,” Michael called to her.
Although she couldn’t see him very well, she knew the exact moment he moved towards her. The vibrations threatened to shake her loose.
“I’m going to fall!” She screeched in panic. “Stop it!”
“Of course you’re going to fall,” Michael commented, suddenly at her side. “But only when I tell you to and only how I tell you to.” He swung his body so that he was facing her, his hands holding on to the rope near hers. Nikita realized he was bare-chested and wearing only some type of long pants -- jeans, most likely.
“Michael, please!” Nikita was regretting her earlier bravado.
“Shut up and listen!” He wrapped his legs around her waist to give her a little support. “When I tell you, I want you to look up, cross your legs at your ankles, and let go of the rope. You will fall straight in the water -- don’t be tempted to look down. You’ll seem to fall for a long time, but don’t look down. If you do, you’ll have a repeat of this afternoon. Do you understand?”
“Yes!” She hissed back.
“I’ll be dropping with you on the count of three. Drop before me, and I may land on you. Drop after me, and you’ll hit me, and I won’t be able to help you. We drop together -- on three --understand?”
“I’m getting tired,” she complained.
"Then we go now, ” Michael said, removing his legs, “head up, ankles crossed -- one, two, three!”
Nikita fell and fell and fell. Just as she hit the surface of the lake, she felt Michael grab her wrist. He held on to her all the way to the sandy bottom of the lake, felt him push upwards, and pull her to the surface.
She coughed a little, and Michael put one arm around her while he swam to the shore with the other. “Are you all right?” His soft voice stood out against the silence of the summer evening.
“I’ve been better… ” She said, but Michael could hear a hint of satisfaction in her voice. She reached out and wrapped her arms around his neck, just as they could touch bottom again.
Standing in the shoulder-deep water, Michael was a little disconcerted when Nikita also wrapped her legs around his waist and leaned into him. To keep himself from falling forward, he instinctively slipped his arms beneath her to hold her up.
“Mmm,” she said coyly, “the water’s nice, isn’t it?”
“Nikita, the lesson is over.” Michael continued walking towards shore.
“Then why don’t you teach me something else then?” She whispered against his ear, before playfully nipping it.
Michael, the machine, was coolly indifferent; Michael, the man, was intrigued with the pebbled tips of her breasts grazing his chest through her wet T-shirt.
“We have to get back,” he said, stepping out of the water.
Nikita took that as her cue to release him, but not before she wiggled a little against his body as she slid ever-so-slowly down it.
Michael was shocked -- not at Nikita’s actions, but at his body’s enthusiastic response. He was suddenly hard as stone, and what was worse, Nikita knew it and was doing her level best to capitalize on her advantage…
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 
