Alliance of Shadows (Dead Six Series Book 3) by Larry Correia & Mike Kupari

Author:Larry Correia & Mike Kupari [Correia, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781476781853
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2016-10-04T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10: Poor Life Choices

VALENTINE

Paris

September 24th

The quiet moments in my life always turned out to be like a lull between storms. It made it that much harder to enjoy them, knowing that it was only a matter of time before everything went to hell again, but I tried my best.

Unable to sleep, I lay there in bed, staring up at the darkened ceiling, and wondering what would happen next. Ling was asleep next to me. She denied it, but she snored. I thought it was adorable.

Sleeping was the one time she looked at peace. Like me—like so many other people I knew—Ling had just seen too much. I rarely slept for more than five or six hours at a time. Ghosts haunted my dreams, and I saw dead faces almost every night. People I’d watched die, people I’d killed, people I couldn’t save, all blurred together, until they were hard to tell apart. I’d lost track of how many people I’d killed. There’d been so many, from the Skinner Brothers back in high school to the Battle of the Crossroads, everywhere I went I left a pile of corpses in my wake.

Some deserved it, others were just fighting for the other side, and some were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’d never been religious, but as I stared at that darkened ceiling I wondered if hell was a real place, and if I was truly damned.

Ling stirred and brushed the hair out of her eyes. “Can’t sleep?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

She snuggled up close to me, resting her head on my shoulder. “You didn’t. You’re not the only one who has a hard time sleeping. Just try to relax.”

Without any new leads, we had entered one of those dreaded lulls. There was nothing for us to do until we got something new, leaving the team with little to do but wait. Lorenzo was off grasping at straws, but Ariel was monitoring it. She insisted that there might be something worthwhile there, so we just let her do her thing and hoped for a break. Tailor was on standby in case I needed him, but until we had something solid to go on there wasn’t anything he could do, either.

“I’ve just got a bad feeling.”

“Are you actually worried about Lorenzo’s operation?” Ling asked.

“Maybe a little. I’m more worried about what happens if we fail.”

“We won’t.”

I yawned. Having Ling with me was terribly comforting, and not just because I was curled up with a beautiful, naked woman. She understood what was going through my mind. It was rare enough that I met someone who understood me at all, much less someone I could really relate to. I was damned lucky to have her and I knew it.

“Are you going to fall asleep on me?” Ling asked.

“I might actually get back to sleep, yeah.” I yawned again.

“I don’t think so,” she said. Before I could say anything else she climbed on top of me and kissed me. A moment later she pulled away from our embrace.

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