Edward Crichton - To Crown a Caesar

He hesitated for a moment as he glanced towards a blown out portion of the wall. I traced his look but could discern nothing of note, except that we had been moved down to the first floor of the villa.

“What?” I asked.

“Bordeaux is MIA. The first thing he did after the last Praetorian went down was to radio Madrina. When she didn’t answer, he checked the UAV feed.” He paused again with a shake of his head. “The GPS beacon we gave her indicated she’s just outside and not moving. She must have come to investigate during our little nap earlier. Bordeaux ran that way.” He raised a hand to indicate the direction he’d turned his attention to earlier.

Another loose end, but he’d be back after he found her. “What about everyone else?”

“Everyone else has cuts, scrapes, scratches, and a few knife wounds, but you’re the worst.” He paused once again. “Of course.”

I smiled. It did always seem like I managed to get myself hurt more often than naught.

“What about Agrippina?”

“She’s gone. Scurried her tight little butt out of here like a cockroach. I was able to find this though,” he said, holding up what I knew must have been the orb wrapped in a black cloth.

“At least this mission wasn’t a total wash,” Wang said sarcastically as he stitched me up. “But we should look for Varus. If he was here, he may have survived the explosion and be in need of medical attention.”

My chin dropped against my chest at the thought of poor Varus. I knew what the others did not; that he was already dead, probably buried somewhere here in the rubble. We owed it to him to find his body.

“What about the other orb?” I asked

“Unknown,” Santino said, before swiftly pulling back the orb as if something important finally dawned on him. “By the way, how did you know to reset the timer on Bordeaux’s bomb?”

I coughed. “Let’s just get everyone situated before we get into that.”

He nodded and I looked at Wang. He was completely focused on his procedure and was already finishing up the stitches on my side. I barely even noticed.

“Move him forward, Helena,” he ordered.

She did as she was told, pushing me away from her so that Wang could wrap my chest up with a few rolls of gauze. After a few wraps around my shoulder, he dug into Santino’s bag and pulled out a spare black T-shirt a size too small to add extra pressure. Once he and Helena managed to get it on me, they both helped me up, and Wang handed me a sling and Helena and Santino shirts of their own.

Santino took his immediately, but Helena looked at it stupidly before looking down at her naked upper body, perhaps realizing for the first time how exposed she was, and she sheepishly moved to cover herself with her arms. She readily accepted the shirt Wang held out in front of him, who had in turn looked away to offer her some privacy.

I ignored them both, my head swimming as I steadied myself on my own. I must have lost more blood than I’d thought.

But it looks like I’ll live.

It looks like we’ll all live.

Thank God.

Once Helena secured her shirt over her torso, she took the sling from me and pulled it over my head and maneuvered my arm into it. She then gripped me by my other arm and helped move me closer to the rest of the group. She led me to a slab of rock and sat me down. I winced as I sat, but I was glad to be off my feet. She brushed my cheek with a hand and leaned in to kiss me, a single happy tear sliding down her cheek. She wiped it away and moved to help Titus as well.

It was then that a shirtless Bordeaux came rushing into the room, an unconscious or dead, Madrina in his arms. He threw a disgusted look at me as he passed by, calling for Wang as he set his wife down gingerly on a large, flat piece of concrete. He knelt by her, uselessly mopping her hair from her face instead of helping Titus. Wang went to see what he could do for her while everyone else continued to extract Titus from the rubble.

I watched the endeavor. Gaius and Marcus already had a piece of an iron pole working as a fulcrum beneath the slab while Vincent tried to clear obstructions with his only hand. But every time they tried to move it, Titus cried out in pain. Luckily once Santino joined in, they were able to lift the slab just high enough for Helena to pull him out. Gaius and Marcus politely pushed her aside, lifted the boy, and carried him next to me.

Wang noticed Titus’ removal, said a quick word to Bordeaux, and moved to look at the young Roman’s leg. Bordeaux angrily followed Wang’s departure until he remembered my presence. I made eye contact with him and gave him a supportive nod, but his response was the last thing I expected. His eyes blazed intensely, all the fury over his wife’s injury now directed solely at me. He sprang to his feet and moved in my direction, his hands balled into fists.

If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought he meant me physical harm.

I’d never seen such anger in the man before, especially not directed at me. He was normally so gentle despite his size that we always joked he was just a big kitten. But now, it was like watching Bill Bixby transform into Lou Ferrigno on one of the greatest TV shows ever created.

His large body bounded to where I sat in less than two seconds as I watched in wide-eyed terror. He reached out and grabbed the collar of my shirt, his right hand rearing back behind his head, ready to strike.

“You!” He roared, attracting the attention of the others. “First you tell me to reset the timer!? Then to trust you!? Look what happened to my wife!”

I squeezed my eyes and looked away, bracing myself for the punch I knew would probably take my head from my shoulders. Luckily it never landed. Helena leapt onto his arm before he could take a swing at me, but all she could do was hold on like a child dangling on a playground monkey bars set. Even still, he almost managed to throw it all the same. Santino also tried to get between me and my attacker, but Bordeaux seemed intent on killing me. He shrugged Helena off like she was a rag doll and pushed Santino to the ground. It took the combined efforts of Marcus, Gaius, Santino, and Helena to stop him from crushing me.

Once they pushed him far enough away from me, Vincent stepped in to glare at him.

“What the hell are you doing, Lieutenant?!” He yelled.

It wasn’t the voice of a friend or father figure, but of our old commanding officer. Captain Vincent was demanding why one of his men had just tried to strike a fellow officer.

That calmed Bordeaux down.

But only a little.

“He told me to trust him,” he yelled. “Said thirty five minutes would be enough time. I would have set it for an hour. This may never have happened!” He finished his point by jabbing a finger at his unconscious wife.

Wang turned his head to face the raging Frenchman, setting Titus’ leg as he did so.

“She’s just unconscious, Jeanne. Her vitals are good. She’ll be fine.”

Bordeaux was now taking tremendous deep breaths, his veins pulsing like a blowfish. He stared at me, but I tried to hold his gaze coolly. He was suffering from a post combat adrenaline rush. Nothing gets the blood flowing like fighting for your life, but if he wasn’t careful, he could wear himself out into a coma if he didn’t get his heart rate under control. It wasn’t a foreign concept to soldiers, sometimes leading to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Vincent put his only remaining hand on Bordeaux shoulder. A very trusting gesture considering his disability.

“Calm down,” he said. “Everything’s fine. All of us are still alive. That’s the only thing that matters.”

Bordeaux shifted his attention away from me and down at him. Vincent held his stare like a rock and after a few moments, Bordeaux finally calmed his breathing and settled down. He moved back towards Madrina, sat beside her, and held her hand. No one else moved for a few seconds after that, everyone still in shock and awe at not only the battle, but Bordeaux’s explosion.