Page 4 of Snow Blind
Lashonda agreed. Over the next seven years, she became a doctor to a group of people who seemed deadly and came to her in the middle of the night with gunshot wounds or worse. The stranger called them Technicians. She also became a Technician, serving as a medical doctor who didn't like practicing medicine and moved away from the public to a small place in Antioch, Illinois.
Her mother, who passed right after Lashonda began her residency, leaving Lashonda adrift with no anchor other than the handsome stranger. He aided her in staying affixed to this world where he said she was needed and assigned her to a woman named Azreal, who became her handler. She still had yet to make a friend. She treated and streeted the people sent to her for care, taking more time to aid in nursing wounded animals and setting traps for larger ones.
This was her life. This was her passion. This was the fruit of her labor. Fifteen years later, she emerged a hardened shell and an accidents specialist who also served as a medical doctor for the Forbidden Fruits of the Great Lakes. Her handle was Passion Fruit.
Chapter 2 - Trouble
The uneasiness of theevents from the day before had killed Helen's appetite, even after a long day of being on the road, leaving a sad faced Mustang home alone, and arriving at a very cold home to find a Technician dragging a body. The next morning, however, her belly screamed for food, especially for hot cereal like a bowl of parmesan grits with scrambled cheesy eggs. To wash it down with a cup of hot coffee would be amazing, which fueled her into action to shower and dress. With her teeth freshly brushed, body cleanly scrubbed, and legs properly coated in her favorite lotion, she stepped from the bedroom, almost wanting to check on the partially comatose resident across the hall, but this wasn't her circus, and that man wasn't her clown. Instead, she made her way to the kitchen.
Helen walked down the narrow hallway, coming to the space where the living room was on the left and the kitchen and dining on the right. However, the air felt different. Instinct made her reach for the knives in both of her sweater pockets, holding them, prepared to throw at anything big coming her way. Two hours ago, she’d heard Passion Fruit's truck crank up, along with the heavy paws of Candy the Cane Corso leaving the home. She hadn't heard them return.
Something was off.
Something was different.
Someone sat in the corner in the dark.
A pair of black boots were there, attached to a pair of legs, which weren't there when she went to bed. Helen wasn't sure if this was Passion Fruit's man, her father, brother, or anyone else. She would err on the side of caution, considering the person was in the home, but she wasn't taking any fucking chances.
"I am pretty deadly with these knives," she said in a voice much calmer than she felt. "I may not land both center mass of your chest, but one will get you. Come on into the light."
The boots moved. The legs attached to the boots brought the body of a man into the light of the kitchen. Helen's eyes started at the feet, working their way up the stranger's body. The boots were very similar to the ones her cousin Cherry wore when she was out and about doing her former job as a Technician. The black cargo pants appeared custom made, with lots of pockets in different shapes that showed the imprint of knives and what looked like ninja stars. She made a mental note of the pants, definitely wanting to know where he'd gotten them made.
The shirt, in an inky black dark cotton, had three buttons open at the neck. She could see the marking of a tattoo as well as, what she wasn't sure...possibly scales. Dark skin, kissed by a life lived in the sun, covered the man’s throat. A scraggly beard barely covered the strong chin. The lips she almost recognized, and the nose as well, but it was the eyes. A stare which nearly bore through her met the steely gaze when she made it to his eyes.
"Oh, okay," Helen said, putting the knives onto the kitchen table. She wasn't sure what fresh hell had brought this man to her doorstep, but she wasn't dealing with him without having coffee first.
"Do you know who I am?" the man asked in a heavily accented, deep baritone voice.
"Yeah, you're the Bushmaster's father...the Lancelot," Helen said, walking to the stove to start the kettle for coffee.
"The Fer de Lance," the man corrected.
"I knew it had a lance in there somewhere. Sorry, I need coffee," she said. "I also need breakfast. Are you hungry? Can you eat a bit?"
"Excuse me? Do you know why I am here?" he asked, perplexed by the woman who didn't seem surprised to see him, nor was she afraid. Perhaps he had the wrong one.
