System Nullification

Chapter 9

 "Ugh," Zephyr muttered. "For once you agree, and yet... just... not now..."

 I blinked twice, gears turning in my head, still blushing madly. "I don't even know anymore," I said exasperatedly, picking up my communicator.

 His face was pressed into a hard frown, but he immediately looked at me and smirked again. "Well, don't let this get to your head," he teased. "At least not until we can pick up from where we left off."

 He winked at me, and this triggered my self defense mechanism (dignity wise). "Fuck you!" I snapped.

 "Oh, I will, Iris," he chuckled.

 "Zephyr!" I wailed. "Shut. Up!"

 "Okay, okay... sorry!" Zephyr surrendered.

 I sighed in an attempt to remove the lingering feelings inside of me and unmuted my microphone. "Alright, now that the transporters are operational, are you all at the southwest area already? Zephyr and I are almost there," I said.

 "I'm nearly there. Okay, I'm here!" Charlotte cheered.

 "Hi Charlotte!" Nora said.

 "Oh, hi!" Charlotte replied.

 "Alrighty, we're almost- never mind," Zephyr said as the transporter ascended from the ground.

 "Hey Zephyr?" I bit my bottom lip right where his barely brushed mine."Yeah?" he asked.

 Several things ran through my mind. "I want to look at you and yet I don't want to look at you."

 "Why does your voice sound nice?"

 "I can't get over your eyes..."

 "Why are you still trying? Why is there an effect?"

 Instead of saying any of these things, I playfully shoved him (hard) and said, "It's nice working with you, trainee."

 Before he could answer, I hurriedly walked past him to join the rest of the team. Clearly, I was perturbed, probably because of Zephyr. Would there be a difference between if someone else pinned me down? Hopefully not, but if there was a difference, then clearly, it was something to be annoyed about.

 Pushing the issue to the back of my mind, I spotted Austin's expression gravely plastering a display of fear. "What's wrong?" I asked.

 "I... we're late. Another life is probably..." Austin sputtered as Zephyr caught up to us. "Come on, guys, we've gotta go. This won't be pretty."

 The sky darkened. It was just a coincidence that the clouds just moved over the sun, but as we ran to the scene, I couldn't help but find it eerie. The first thing I heard was some guy going insane inside a normal looking house. "What the fuck happened to the public police?" Dylan asked.

 "I don't know, but we've got to hurry," I said, sprinting inside. I ran past the bloodspill and three dead bodies of different sizes. It was only when I took out my sword and struck the butcher knife out of the culprit's hand that I took in my surroundings and figured out why Austin was the only other person who came after the murderer. Earlier, I wished it was still sunny, but now I was glad I couldn't see the dead bodies as well as I would have if daylight was clearly showing the scene of the crime. "Get away!" the man screamed. "I have things to do!"

 I wanted to snap at him, but I could suddenly smell blood. "That stuff is against the-" Austin stepped to the side when a gunshot resounded around the house. "Law... ugh, you had backup? Team, go get them. Iris, stay with me."

 "Am I even capable of handling this? I don't want to stay here!" I thought.

 I wanted to avoid this guy, too, because if I found out his deepest thoughts, I wouldn't know what to do. "The boss doesn't deserve to live," the guy said, running over to pick up his bloody weapon.