The Story Of Soldiers

Chapter 22

You're getting a healthy dose of ✨COMMUNICATION✨

Trigger warning(s): past self-harm, implied forced marriage

Ezra woke to the smell of breakfast, realizing he was on the couch.
As he sat up, Ezra realized that he had a large sweatshirt pulled over his head, sighting that he hadn't fallen asleep in it.

Just as he was about to get up, Ray entered the room with a plate in hand, and she sat down next to him.
"Morning," she said sweetly, brushing a strand of hair out of his face and making her lover blush.

They ate in silence, Ezra becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the nagging voice in the back of his mind.
Tell her. It rang. Tell her you didn't like it. You didn't like what she did. It's okay. She cares. She loves you. Just tell her.

Unfortunately, or perhaps, fortunately, for him, Ray was always quick to catch on.
"Darling, is something bothering you? You're too quiet."
Ezra swallowed, shrugging. He bit the inside of his cheek.

"Nothing," he sighed, "I-it's just...Ray, I didn't like what happened last night."
His voice trailed off at the end as if he was frightened of her reaction. Ray hated that.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Can you tell me why?"

Ezra swallowed, shaking slightly and avoiding eye contact. He swallowed thickly.
"Just, uh, the way you like.. uh, initiated it. It felt like I was being," he took a shuddering breath, "Used so you could avoid talking about it."

Ray was utterly horrified. Her used, the love of her life? How could she? How could she do such a thing? What on Earth drove her to do that to her boyfriend?
"Oh. Baby, I'm so sorry."

Ray put the plate down, wrapping her arms gently around the man, the embrace reciprocated.
"I won't do that again, I promise. I could never do that to you. I love you too much to do that." Ray said in that soft tone that always made Ezra's head fuzzy.

He smiled contently, arms wrapped around one another.
"It won't happen again. I'm sorry." Ray apologized again.
"I forgive you," Ezra smiled, and the two rested against each other on the couch.

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The team was in the library at the moment, supervised by Mrs.Klein again.
Kahsbi was buried in her book, going through it quickly.
Kamlyn looked over to read the title.

'A history of betrayals'
Kamlyn furrowed his brow, looking back at his friend.
"Hey, um. Why are you reading that? N-not to be rude, obviously, I just-."
"It's fine," Kahsbi giggled, effectively cutting him off.

"I was just curious. Why would they betray people they care for? Especially this." She pointed to one passage.
"It's about Iris Adamos, she betrayed her husband a few decades ago."

Kamlyn was surprised. "Her own husband? Didn't she love him? What did he do? W-." He cut himself off, realizing he was rambling, "Sorry.."
"It's fine. So basically Atticus Adamos stole government secrets, and he was blackmailing the president, so the government had to take him down."

"T-take him down?" Kamlyn prompted nervously.
"So, uh, they kinda had to kill him. They were able to find him because his wife sold him out for the prize money. Thing is, she also had the government secrets, so they had to kill her off as well."

"That's awful!" Kamlyn gasped.
Kahsbi shrugged. "Yeah, the way they had to go down was pretty bad."
Klein was passing by and glanced over the child's shoulder.