I pant in panic when Zeek’s giant body hits the ground with a loud thud. “Oh my God!”

I rush to his side and get down on my knees. I don’t know why I thought there was something I could do. A bullet to the head usually has no cure. I turn him over and my hands shake when I reach for his face.

I barely knew this man and he may have been an arrogant ass, but no one deserves to be shot in the back. Especially by one of his own teammates. “Who shoots one of their own?” I ask maneuvering the body onto my lap.

“For fuck sakes Winch. MOVE!” I scream, but he doesn’t even acknowledge me. He didn’t even react when the gun had been fired. “What did you do to Winch?” I ask finally connecting some dots.

“I just asked Edge to kindly instruct Sargent Winchester to ignore us for a few minutes until told otherwise.”

“You mean you had Edge drug him.” I correct.

“Nope.” Gerald chirps. “Edge can be very persuasive.” He moves to put the gun back in the holder but stops and looks thoughtful. “Well, it’s more of a special power. It’s quite enviable.”

“You’re mad, aren’t you?” I turned my head back to the unmoving Winch. “Winch, please!” I exclaim.

“Don’t worry about him. He is perfectly safe.”

I don’t know what to do. I have this man’s brains on my skirt and my friend is catatonic. I was terrified out of my mind. “Now she gets it.” I smooth gravelly voice travels to my ears.

I look down at my lap and two gray eyes are bloodshot, smiling and fucking wide open, looking right at me. I push him off me and scream so loud I expected someone to come barging in, but no one moved.

“Get in here!” I yell to the guards standing at the front of the doors.

“Fucking asshole motherfucker.” Edge curses while struggling to get to his feet. He shakes his head and pats his ears like he is trying to get liquid out of his ears. “You promised you wouldn’t aim for my head anymore.”

“Why do you care where I shoot you? You still get back up.” Gerald announced lightly walking towards me bending low and handing me his gun.

“Why are you giving me that?” I ask horrified that my tone was trembling. “What the fuck did you do to Winch? How are you even standing?” I stand up and move towards him, but Edge grabs my forearm. I grimace from the strength he uses to lock me in. “I don’t know what kind of sick jokes this is, but you let Winch go right now.” I growl in Edges face as close as I could get anyway.

He stares at for a few moments and once again he sniffs me. “Stop that!” I yell and I clench my fist.

“Punching me won’t do you any good.” He says softly. I yank on my arm again, but I can’t get him to let go. It felt like my arm was stuck under rumble. He was clenching my arm so hard I was expecting any second now to hear the familiar crack from the bone breaking.

Who even were these two? The gun was clearly a fake, but the way the life left Edge’s eyes was real. You can’t fake dying. I have seen it one too many times. At this point I was willing to believe he could stop breathing at will. I could smell the blood in the air. His face was covered in now dry blood and the bits of brain still clinging to his hair admittedly looks very realistic.

“Ow.” Edge mutters. With his free hand he reaches up and around the back of his head. He starts rooting around at the center of his head and I almost vomit when I hear squishing sound. His legs starts to make a weird jerking movement and Edge was holding in his grunts of pain. When his eyes and lips started to twitch and move like someone was pulling at them, something in me broke. He was really messing with his brain. Nope, he was just a good actor. Don’t fall for it.

A low relieved sigh escapes his lips and I heard a weird squishing noise again. Edge brings a bullet into his field of vision and drops the bloodied piece of metal to the ground and my eyes follow it all the way down.

“How is she doing?” Gerald asks Edge.

“Not worried about me?” Edge asks with an annoyed tone.

“I don’t have to worry about you. That’s the point.”

“I smell fear on her, but I got to admit her heart rate hasn’t jumped even a single beat and trust me when I say it tried.”

“Impressive Corporal Chávez. One more test if you would indulge us.”

“Fuck your test. Let Winch go!” The hand around my arm loosened.

“I hate this part.” Edge mumbles sadly.

“Even more than getting shot in the head?” Gerald humors.

“Who are you?” I ask the man holding me.

Edge stares at me for a few seconds and he lets go of my arm gently. “I usually get asked what I am instead of who. Thank you for that.”

“I think you have noticed by now that Edge isn’t normal.”

The heart that I had tried to keep under control just started to jackhammer in my chest. This was starting to feel like one of those supernatural movies. Similar, to that stupid movie about that vampire that sparkled and the girl just casually falls for him. What made this situation feel even more similar to those movies and countless romance novels I had devoured over the years was that this man looked like every guy on the cover. Tall, muscular dark, mysterious, rugged and boringly one dimensional.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I knew exactly where this situation was aiming for and my gut was telling me that it was semi plausible. Yet, my brain was telling me that it wasn’t true. That the fact that Edge’s eyes started to glow and bright vibrant lilac was all a trick. His impossible strength was in my mind and the way Gerald had just smeared my uniform in his brains and blood was all fake.

“You guys are sick.” My eyes turn to poor Winch and his blank expression. “Please let him go. He was months away from retiring.” I plead.

“He means that much to you?” Gerald asks menacingly. My heart dropped when I saw him casually look at Winch.

“You stay the fuck away from him.”

“Edge, change of plan.” Edge takes a step closer to me and lifts my chin up towards him.

“What are you doing?” I ask Edge and he lightly strokes my hair. The act itself was gentle, but those supernatural glowing eyes were still on me.

“I want to get this over with. Tell me already you sadist.” Edge growls over his shoulder.

“Tell her to shoot Winch.” My legs almost give out.

“Fuck you!” I struggle against the hand holding me and when he doesn’t let go, I start to panic.

“You really are a sick man.” Edge says with a grunt of disgust. “No.” His answer was absolute and I look up at him. “Not with that gun.” He growls.

“Tell her, Edge.” Gerald orders and his entire frame freezes. Edge looks at me and I shake my head.

“Don’t.” I beg.

“I am sorry.” He pulls me flush against him and locks my arms by my side. I instantly close my eyes and I hear an annoyed sigh.

“Open your eyes.” Edge orders.

“So whatever trick you used you need to be looking into my eyes to do it. Good to know.”

With that piece of information my adrenaline spikes and I get my heart under control. I raise my knee which he had forgotten about and with all my pent-up rage from this encounter I ram it hard between his knees.

“Fuck!” Edge screeches in a high pitch voice. With my eyes closed I was unbalanced when he let me go. “My dick.” He whimpers.

When I stupidly think it was safe, I open my eyes feeling victorious, I instantly knew I had messed up. Because Edge was still standing with his eyes wide open and staring at me. “Made you look.” He smiles.

I stared into his purple glowing eyes and started to feel strange, almost calm. I had felt this feeling before when I was sedated for a minor injury last year. My entire body went limp, but my mind was still wide awake.

“You will take the gun out of Gerald’s hand and shoot Winchester with it.” Each one of those words weighted my body down. My new found strength left me and my body started to move on its own towards the gun in Gerald’s hand. I needed that gun to kill Winch after all.

What’s happening? Where is my body going? Stop!

“Here you go Corporal Chávez.” Gerald words sound gurgled like they are under water. They only words that penetrated this deep confused haze where Edge’s.

“Point the gun to Winchesters head and pull the trigger.”

My eyes move to the gun in Gerald’s hands and Edge’s words get stronger, deeper and they are pulling my hand against my will to the gun. I bite my lip to stop my fingers closing around the handle.

“No.” I grit out, but if I picked up the gun then I could use it to defend myself.

Don’t lie to yourself. You just walked over here against your will. If you take that gun, you’re going to point it at Winch. SO, KEEP YOUR FINGERS FROM CLOSING.

Gerald’s gurgled words register somewhere, but I don’t pay any attention other than fighting the thrall that my body is under.

“Order her to do it again. Look at her this time.” My mind was getting lighter by the second. Don’t focus on them. Come on Ainsley, focus on something else. Focus on how sick and dizzy you feel. Focus on how loud the blood pumping through your veins is and the loud beating of your heart. Block them both him, block Edge out.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

“Pick up-.”

No, don’t listen to him. Focus on taking that damn gun out of Gerald’s hand.

“Pick-.” Focus. The haze on my mind cleared and I picked up the gun from Gerald’s hand.

The room around me began to slowly material beneath my feet. The dim light from outside illuminated the room. The powdery smell of the chalk tickled my nose like it always did. I felt how stuffy and heavy my uniform was and how hard my black heels are, but above all that I felt the heavy cold metal in my hand.

“That’s right. Shoot him.” Gerald whispers in my ear.

“With pleasure.” I say with a smile. I slowly turn to him and my smile must have rivaled the Cheshire cats. On the other hand, Gerald’s smile faded. With the control of my own body back in my hand I point the gun at his head.

“Edge!” I fired the gun, I felt the recoil, but Gerald’s head was unblemished. A few thoughts went into through my mind at that moment. Was the gun fake? Did I just fire a blank? Was I hallucinating this whole ordeal? That last one was the most believable.

“That’s two holes in my body today, Gerald. Wait, no three. There had better be enough blood in that truck for me.” Instead of my gun being pointed at Gerald, Edge had stepped into the line of fire. He had placed his hand over the barrel and the bullet had shot a hole through his hand and straight through to his chest. My eyes move to the gun in my hand and the hand that was covering the barrel.

“Are you made of steel?” Wait, just he just say, there had better be blood on the truck?

“No, just flesh.” Edge gently takes the gun out of my hand. “Did she pass?” Edge asks while using his free hand that HAD A FREAKING HOLE IN IT.

“Holy shit. There is a hole in your hand.” I say losing my footing.

“Yeah, it only just occurred to me that I could have sped him out of the way.” Edge grunts in pain and throws the gun back at Gerald. He lifts his hand and I swallow as the small hole in his hand starts to close before my eyes.

“You’re a fucker for using a real gun. I just want you to know that.” Edge says to Gerald.

“I think I’m going to faint.” I say weakly.

“You wouldn’t be the first.” Edge jokes. “One candidate actually tried to shot himself when he saw my eyes. He started to pray calling me a demon and every other blasphemous thing he could think off. We didn’t hire him.”

“I get that. I wanted to shoot myself when you opened your mouth.” I laughed a bit more because I could feel that the danger had passed. Also, I had a bad habit of making jokes when I was scared or uncomfortable.

“What do you think?” He asks Gerald.

“Have you ever met a human you was immune to your compulsion?” Gerald asks and Edge shakes his head.

“This a first for me too.”

“She already qualified this just cements it then. Though I can’t say I liked how you tried to shoot me.”

“I would have done that too.” He mumbled. “That took some balls.”

“Yay I passed. Now one of you tell me what the fuck just happened?” I was amazed at how breathless I sounded. I was exhausted and winded like I had gone jogging.

“First, Edge wake up Winchester. The test if officially over.”

“Hold yourself up, Princess.” I don’t say anything back, but I brace myself for it when he lets me go.

I feel a whoosh of wind and Edge is standing in front of Winch across the room.

“So, you’re fast too?” I ask not believing my eyes and not believing that I was actually humouring the impossible word that was on the tip of my tongue.

“Sargent Winchester, you can wake up now.” The light in Edge’s eyes dimmed and Winch came to life like someone had lit a fire under his ass. He jumped out of the chair and looked around the room. I assumed he would have more questions considering multiple people in this room where covered in blood. He should have been furious, reached for his gun and had many…many questions, but instead he took a deep breath and looked at Gerald.

“Did she pass?” That was the last question I expected to leave his lips.

“Yup.” Gerald said in preppy tone. “She even tried to shoot me.”

Winch winked at me and laughs from his belly. “That’s my girl!”