12 Minutes (#2 in Military series)

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

"Shoot him! Reynolds! Shoot him!" A noise seemed to shout at her from every direction, their voice jumbled in her head.

The young man stood ahead from her. He had been running when he heard the voice too and turned, his chest and falling heavily as saw her.

Training her rifle on him, Jules felt a flood of hatred and anger towards this man so that pulling the trigger took little effort.

She watched the bullet strike him between the shoulder blades as he turned to run away; the force throwing his arms out to the side as he fell on his front.

As she walked over, Jules could see that he was still breathing. His fingers were clutching at the dusty earth as his cheek rested flat against the ground, his eyes wide and looking out from the corners up at her.

His lips moved against the sand, trying to speak but Jules could not understand and she did not care.

Removing a handgun from a holster strapped to her thigh, Jules pressed her boot upon the man's back and bore down.

The man let out a wail of pain which made the corner of Jules's lips twitch in satisfaction as she emptied a clip of ammunition into the base of the man's skull.

His eyes were pure white as the blood began to gush from the front of his body and pool around his face.

She began to re-holster her weapon when she felt the ground shift beneath her boots just before an explosion tore through a building behind her.

Spinning around, Jules's chest was gripped with a sudden and overwhelming fear as she watched a cloud of fire and smoke tear through the central building in the compound.

"No," She took a step forward, raising an arm to protect her face from the falling ash and debris, in shock, "No, he can't-"

Opening her eyes in shock, Julia sat up and looked all around her.

She let out a small breath of relief when she found that they were still in the compound, the mid-morning sun drifting in through the window.

Spinning her legs over the side of the crate she had fallen asleep on, Julia sat and thought about her dream.

Had it been a dream? It felt too damn real for a dream, so a memory then perhaps?

But Julia could not imagine why she would feel so much hatred for a man that she would empty a clip into the back of their head, almost separating it from their body in the process.

A shiver ran through her spine as she closed her eyes and could see it as if it was right in front of her when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

Whipping her head around in shock, she saw Marc raise his hand from her shoulder and watch her with concern.

"Are you alright?" He asked.

Did she tell him? If it was a memory then perhaps he would know about what happened but then that would mean telling him what she had done.

Julia looked away in shame, "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Okay," Marc said slowly, clearly not believing her, "Well, I brought you something to eat which wasn't in a packet." He held out a square metal tin for her with a fork against the side.

She looked at him with renewed eagerness as she took the mess tin by the handle and looked inside at the real food, "Where did you find all this?"

"There was a fully stocked kitchen in the other building," Marc explained as he walked around and came to sit beside her, "I say 'was' because Carlos has found it now."