Battle Strong by Elizabeth McCready (have you read this book TXT) 📕

in his head and came up with many different scenarios before realizing how dumb he was. Ander and Beth are in love, but Noeh is in love with Beth, Beth doesn’t return that love, but they were best friends before coming here. He laughed to himself for a moment before Noeh came walking out of the tool room. For a moment, Quinn considered speaking to him, he decided against it in fear of being thought of as the team stalker. He waited until it was silent to peek around the corner and sneak back into the main aisle. He saw Beth moving towards Calypo’s stall. 

“Quinn, take this to Zandra.” Quinn jerked his head so fast that it caused a cramp in his neck.

“Yeah, okay.” Quinn took the bucket of feed and hustled into Zandra’s stall.

The bay mare greeted him with a little nicker and reached for the bucket of food. Quinn pushed her back as he entered her stall and dumped the food into her bin. 

*~*

She didn’t even know where she wanted to go, she just didn’t want to be around Noeh and didn’t want to wake Calypso. She walked out of the stall and found Quinn stroking Zandra’s muzzle, she smiled.

“I see you’ve made a friend.” She said leaning against the stall, still recovering her breath from the… incident with Noeh. 

“She’s really sweet when she’s not scaring the piss out of Pietre.” They laughed.

“I spent a lot of my time on farms at home.” She said, “But, I never saw any horses like these.”

“I never knew that about you.” He said with a particular interest.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she swallowed, “We’ve only known each other a few weeks.”

“Well, tell me more, let me into the mind of the wild Beth Donoway.” He smiled, hoping she’d spill some information about her drama.

“I don’t know really where to start.”

“Well, why are you here?”

“Okay, that’s interesting actually. I moved to Humes when I was young with my mother and sister. My father, well he passed away when I was a baby.” She pushed the guilt of the lie she had always told to the back of her mind. “When I was twelve, my sister was killed in a village raid from the Dumarians. It was hard on my mom and I. So I started training with --a friend, and my friend left out of the blue. Basically, I was hurt and a major wreck. So my entire life turned into a mission of revenge on Dumar and a way to rectify my own twisted feelings of abandonment.” She finished with fake enthusiasm and joy, as if the story was happy.

“That’s deep.”

“You could say that, what about you? Why are you a professional murderer?” She smirked.

“I certainly don’t have a backstory for it,” He said as he moved away from Zandra and leaned an elbow the half-door of the stall close to Beth. “I was raised on the border, son of a Command General and when given the option of the different societal orders, I followed my father’s footsteps.”

“I count that as a story, following your father’s footsteps is significant.”

“I guess, did you know anyone here prior?” He said, nonchalantly trying to pry some information out of her.

“Yes, I did.”

“Really? That’s apparently rare.”

“Well, I’m that one in a million that knew two people in base prior to arriving. Ander and Noeh, Ander and I grew up together and Noeh and I trained together in years three and four.”

“So you know them well?”

“Better than I know myself.”

“Does that make it any easier?”

“I don’t know if it would.” She paused thinking to just the past two days and how dramatic knowing those two had been. “I wouldn’t say it’s any easier, no. But, I can say that coming here knowing that I could trust them counted for something.” She choked on yet another lie.

“Sometimes it’s better to get to know new people instead of being stuck with the old ones, even if you did trust the old ones.” He smirked at her with a face she hadn’t seen on him before. She blushed faintly and turned away from him. 

“Attention soldiers. This is Command Squadron CS-47-602. Contact is requested with Anderson Rockwell, status year five, identification number 66101-T5-T9-A1 and Beth Donoway, status year four, identification number 66320-T4-T9-A1.”

“Anderson Rockwell 66101-T5-T9-A1. Contact accepted.” Ander called back, Beth walked out into the main aisle to join him.

“Beth Donoway 66320-T4-T9-A1. Contact accepted.”

“Redirecting to Command CS-47-801.” The artificial voice read. 

“Hello, this is command Lewisse Isherwood code CS894621 of CS-47-801. We have received word that the flooding on your base is level 7 on the emergency scale and is to be considered very dangerous, there is no way that I will risk this country’s six greatest upcoming soldiers. Units A3 and 4 will be sent to recover your sector in battle and will fall back once given orders to do so. The A2 through A9 armadas are still in commission. Battle will go on and you are expected to join once there is an opportunity. We will send aid, however the units are expected two days travel. Lieutenants, what is your status on supplies?”

“We are lacking, Commander. If we ration meals properly it may last a full day at most.” Beth said.

“I will see what we can send via air.” Lewisse said. “We will be in contact soon, and you should prepare yourselves for the devastation you may witness when you return. CS-47-801 contact terminated.” The speakers beeped three times before the static ended.

No one spoke for a few moments. It was uncomfortable to say the least.

“What kind of devastation? Why would you not elaborate after saying something like that?” Stievan said, Quinn stared at him pensively trying to decide if it was fear he sensed.

“I’m not sure.” Ander said. “But we will be prepared for anything.”

*~*

That night Quinn, Stievan, Pietre and Noeh went to sleep in the hayloft before the horses had even been fed. Beth had spent the majority of her day in and out of Calypso’s stall and cleaning the stables with the limited resources she had. She did have a few moments sparring with Quinn, his idea was to keep their minds and reflexes fresh in order to be ready for whatever they would face in battle. 

Beth walked into the feed room, only to find Ander staring hopelessly at the feed chart, looking from it and to the bins.

“How did you automatically know which feed was which?” he asked, stumped.

Beth laughed, “I fed the horses in Humes sometimes, I learned quickly.”

She put a hand out gesturing for the chart, and Ander handed it over with a smile on his face and gathered the buckets for Beth.

“Where is everyone?” He asked.

“They are already in the loft, and I’m almost positive I heard snoring so Quinn is asleep.” she replied with a smirk on her face.

“Of course, they are.” Ander said with a chuckle. “Are you okay?”

The question caught her off guard, nothing she had done in those few minutes would suggest that something is wrong, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You had a nightmare last night, I just want to make sure that whatever is haunting you while you sleep isn’t a problem when you are awake.” The manner in which he was speaking was so genuine. But the memory of the night prior ripped into her memory.

“It’s not a problem.” She said, looking him in the eyes. “Thank you for that by the way.”

She forced herself to look away to hide the red forming on her cheeks, a smile was his only response. He picked up a few of the buckets of feed and walked out into the main hall while Beth filled the remaining buckets. She could hear the horses’ excitement as they stomped their feet and nickered for Ander to bring them their food. Once all the horses were content with food, Ander and Beth went back into the office. 

“I think we need some sort of plan for when we get out of here.” Beth said.

“We do. But who knows how well we can devise a plan when we don’t even know what’s going to be different. We don’t know when this flood with dissipate, we don’t know what kind of ‘devastation’ we will be finding, and we certainly don’t know what kind of advantage they will have over us.” Ander said, his voice sounding tired and depleted.

“We don’t need to worry about that now, the other teams have over 500 to 1,000 soldiers per unit. They will take care of battle. How about we just think about food. How much do we have?”

“Well, Noeh was able to get a bag full of fruit. But Pietre found it so now it’s not full. We have enough to last us until tomorrow, maybe tomorrow night. We can only hope that they will send the supplies before then.” Ander said running a hand through his hair.

“Water?” Beth asked, rubbing her eyes.

“Plenty, there are canteens filled to the brim, and we still have access to two hoses. And if it gets low there’s a never ending supply coming from the sky, I’m sure we could figure a way to clean it.” Ander watched Beth, she looked exhausted. “Maybe you should get some rest.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Well, no use in staying up now.” He said gesturing to the door.

“Ander?” Beth asked her face red, he looked back to her. “I don’t want to be around him.” 

Ander nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

Once he was out the door, Beth ran her hands through her hair. She had no idea how she would ever tell Ander what she was feeling, or what had happened between her and Noeh. She didn’t want it to happen, but she didn’t stop him at first. She was so confused, for so many years Noeh was just her friend, her confidant, she never thought he’d had feelings for her. She certainly didn’t have any for him, not even when he kissed her. She wished he hadn’t done that. She wished she would’ve pulled away sooner, she should have. But she didn’t. She did give him one hell of a punch, though. If one thing was for sure, she wanted to be nowhere near Noeh for the time being. She didn’t want to think about what he said, what he did. She told him, she told him she cared for Ander. And he kissed her? She couldn’t stand that he did that.

“Are you okay?” Ander asked, Beth snapped out of her daze to realize there was a tear sliding down her cheek, and saw a pile of horse blankets on the floor. “Why are you upset?” he asked moving to her and putting a hand on her arm. 

“Ander, I have something to tell you, and you aren’t going to like it.”

*~*

He blinked. He moved. He ran. He yelled. And if it weren’t for Beth, he would’ve killed Noeh. 

“What were you thinking?” He yelled in Noeh’s face, “What part of your demented brain thinks that what you did is okay?” He knew nothing of the conversation they had, Beth had been careful not to reveal that, nonetheless, he was fuming.

“Your the one to talk asshat!” Noeh yelled back, the others started to stir awake.

“Don’t even start! You let her be taken, Noeh, you let her be abused by those men, what part of you thought it was even remotely okay to lay a hand, much less your lips on her?” He shouted furiously. “You are to stay away from her, do you hear me? Do not come near her until she is ready to speak to you.” Ander barked, he collected himself and turned to Beth who was pulling his arm back asking him to stop.

“Let’s just go, okay? I’m okay.” He closed his eyes, and thought of what it would mean if he stayed, so he put a hand on her back and followed her down the stairs, turning back to see the anger on Noeh’s face.

*~* 

Beth woke the next two mornings alone in one of the extra