Chapter one hundred and four

               The soldier kept staring at me with wide fearful eyes all the way back to my tent. It wouldn't have been so bad if she didn't insist on being a few steps behind me with her hand constantly resting on her gun. At first I tried to ignore her but I noticed her partially take out her pistol every time we passed somebody as if I was a threat to the people we were passing, that just pissed me off. I stopped walking and turned towards the antsy soldier to give her a piece of my mind only to find myself face to face with the business end of her gun. 

               My mind immediately registered it as an emergency situation and I reacted immediately before I even had the chance to think about it as my training kicked in. I grabbed the muzzle and redirected the gun towards the sky while at the same time I used my powers to mess with the gun's firing mechanism so that it would jam. My palm shot forward and delivered a precise blow right to her stomach which caused her diaphragm to spasm making her gasp desperately as she found herself struggling to breath.

             She tried to pull her gun free from my hand but that wasn't happening. I had my legs spread open and had gotten into a horse stance, a stance I rarely used since most of my techniques need movement not stability. I lowered my torso lowering my center of gravity which simultaneously increased my stability and gave me better leverage when I flung the soldier over my shoulder in a classic judo throw.

           She landed on her face with me riding on top of her back. I twisted the hand she was holding her gun with behind her back. I increased the pressure on her wrist until the pain forced her to let go of the gun. Once I had the gun I got off her back and backed away from her with the gun pointed directly at her.

            I gave her a few minutes to regain her breath before I started shouting at her, "What the hell is your problem? Why would you point your gun at my face for no reason at all? "

            She didn't reply immediately, instead she struggled until she was on all fours then spit out a mouthful of blood before she looked up at me with pure hate in her brown eyes, "You are one of the monsters, isn't that reason enough?"

            "Who the fuck are you to decide that I am a monster? Do you know me? Do you know what I have done?"

             "I don't need to. Smith has told us about you and your kind. You are all dangerous just like the creatures who just destroyed a part of Europe. You are all evil! Just shoot me and get it over with, just know that you won't get out of here alive."

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            I was starting to think that I was talking to a crazy person, "Why the hell would I shoot you?"

            "You assaulted a soldier , why wouldn't you finish the job."

             "No, I protected myself from an insane woman who was trying to kill me."

             That seemed to make her angry because she finally got on her feet and started walking towards me with her hands stretched out to the side as if she was trying to present me with a bigger target, "Stop pretending to be human! You didn't have any problems while you killed all those people in Switzerland and France, why are you hesitating now? You didn't have any problems killing my family."

            The last part was said in a whisper but I heard it anyway. The woman had apparently lost people close to her and in her grief she was looking for someone to blame. Unfortunately for me I was that someone.

            I wasn't really going to shoot her so I took the cartridge out , ejected the bullet that was already in the barrel then threw the gun away which seemed to surprise her because she faltered on her way towards me and stopped when she was right in front of me. She looked at me and breathed out a single word, "Why?"

          I didn't know what she was asking. Why did I throw the gun away? Why did I not kill her? Why did all this happen? Why did her family die? I didn't know what she was asking and I don't think she was too sure about it either but I tried to do my best to answer her,

          "I'm sorry about what happened to your family. I'm sorry that they got caught up in something that wasn't their fault but that is how the world is. The world isn't fair. Sometimes things happen for no reason and shatter our lives beyond repair but all we can do afterwards is pickup the pieces and move on. Blaming me for something I didn't do or getting yourself killed won't bring your family back. Just live the rest of your life as best you can and hope that you will meet them in the next life."

          For a second I thought that she was going to attack me but she broke down into tears instead. I closed the distance between us so that I could give her a comforting hug and as my hands moved around her , she buried her head into my chest and started to truly cry as sobs racked through her body making her shiver.

           I just held her close as she mourned her family.