The Rain: The End by Marietta Standlee (good summer reads TXT) 📕

"With pleasure." I smiled.

I reached for my crutches and made an ungraceful exit, but I won. When in doubt, always attack, Colin told me. Offense is the best defense, Martin taught me a long time ago. And today, I used both of their wise words and won. I got the high commander so mad he forgot why I was in his office in the first place. He never got to debrief me.

To this day, I smile when I think about the exchange in his office. Thinking about it right now makes me all warm and fuzzy inside as I snuggle into my bed, forgetting for a moment how bored I am and how mad at the world for not being able to train until I fall asleep.

I wake up to somebody nuzzling my neck. With a smile, I reach around for Colin and pull him closer.

"Did you have a nice dream? You were smiling," he whispers into my ear.

My lips meet his in a hot kiss, and I sigh in happiness against his warm body.

I'm a little confused, when he pulls back. "We could do this," he looks at me pointedly and wiggles his eyebrows. "Or we could go on a little scouting trip."

Instantly awake, I sit up. "Scouting trip?"

He grins mischievously. "How is your leg?"

"It's fine. Really." I stretch it out towards him for inspection.

His fingers caress my calf, and a shiver goes through my body. I'm torn by the choices he's offering.

"Are you sure?" he asks, his voice seductively low.

I swallow hard; tingling spreads all over me in anticipation of him. But my mind is spinning, thinking about scouting. I need to get out of this room.

"Let me help you with your boots." He laughs and bends forward to retrieve them from underneath the bed. Regret is mirrored in his eyes as he puts the boots on my feet, but his lips are still curled into my favorite crooked smile.

"What are we scouting?" I want to know.

He laces my boots. "I'm not sure. You got a very cloak and dagger message on your secret tablet." He mouthes the word secret to not give anything away in case we are bugged.

Boots on and laced up, all that is left to do, is to attach various weapons to my body, while Colin watches me amused as I check myself in the mirror. "Need some lipstick, princess?"

"You wish." I shoot back.

I'm still not completely used to seeing my new image in the mirror. Since I was a kid, tormented by my best friends' older brother (hint Colin, cough, cough), I've always paid attention to my body to make sure I wouldn't gain the weight back, but it had never occurred to me to work out.

Now I'm not only lean but well-muscled. I can see my biceps poke out from under my sleeves; they aren't bulging by any stretch of the imagination, but they're well developed, as well as my stomach muscles, hidden underneath my black shirt.

Black leggings show off shapely legs and buttocks. Yes, I do like looking at myself in the mirror now. One little vanity I allow myself. I'm proud of what I've accomplished and what I turned my body into. Why shouldn't I?

Colin slaps my behind, "Let's go."

I should protest being treated that way, but honestly, my butt and myself enjoy his attention way too much.

Outside in the hallway, he pulls out my secret tablet and shows me Claire's message. "Check out hangar 87 at midnight."

I check the time. It's eleven forty-six, we need to hurry. Hand in hand, to not attract suspicion from the roaming Gorongiath guards, we move through the various hallways in a fast walk. During the last couple of months, we've become familiar with our surroundings and know exactly how to get to the hangars.

Since Claire indicated something clandestine is going to happen inside hangar 87, we're not taking the direct route, and neither are we taking the regular entries to the giant hangar system. Instead, we walk around the main building, towards the other side. Leaving the main housing area altogether and make our way to the hangars outside.

It doesn't take long to find the small door only the pilots use, leading straight to their locker rooms. That's where we're headed. Blending in with the darkness of the night in our black clothes, we walk with our backs to the wall as we find the first Gorongiath patrols moving around.

I've never seen guards around here. Granted, I've never been here at night, but from what I gathered from Briggs and some of her pilots, the hangars close up around eight in the evening, which means the giant gates should be closed as well. With surveillance cameras going 24/7, there should be no reason for guards, especially not the amount we're seeing.

Luck is on our side though, the guards' focus is the open area across from the hangars, not behind them, towards the wall. Colin taps a command into my secret tablet, and the small door opens with a soft click. Nervously I wait for the guards to take notice, but they didn't hear it over the loud engine noise coming from inside the hangar, carried out by the wind. Something big has landed.

Colin closes the door quietly behind us. The room we entered is lowly lit by the surrounding walls, enough for us to see by. I can make out benches and lockers inside the wall. I've never been to this part of the building, but it looks like all the other areas I've been to with their strangely vibrating walls.

Again, Colin enters something into the tablet, and two doors open inside the walls, which were completely disguised and indistinguishable from the wall before they opened, just like on the space station I was held on so long ago. By now, I've become accustomed to some of the aliens' technology. I'm not as in awe of it any longer like I was before.

One door leads to another room looking like a shower station, the other