Flora

Chapter 5

Price and the rest of the men stood in the hallway conversing a bit.

"She laughed! I haven't heard that before!" Soap was saying quietly but excited.

"Yeah," Gaz added, "and it was because of me, not you."

"No. I think Price wins that competition. He's the one who punched you after all." Alejandro interjected.

"You guys just don't want me to win!" Gaz huffed.

Price ran a hand over his mustache, not joining into their jovial narrative.

"What are you thinking, Captain?" Ghost's voice pulled him from his thoughts.

He shook his head a bit, "Just the pictures Laswell sent of where she had been living. A dark dingy maintenance room with a generator. That's no place for a kid to live."

"Aye. And she didn't even go to school." Rudy added sadly. Some of his fondest memories were his school days with Alejandro. He greatly valued education.

"At least she turned out alright." Soap sighed, "Six years on the streets and she's still kind and polite."

"Still ruthless though." Ghost threw out. "Had you on your knees with a gun to your head."

"She did?" Rudy asked, shocked. That sweet girl had done that?

Soap nodded, "She was in survival mode. Kill or be killed and all that. Besides, the gun wasn't even loaded, she just did it to scare us. Get the upper hand."

"I wonder if she's had to do that trick before." Price murmured.

"What do you mean, Captain?" Alejandro asked.

"One of the items in her pack. Small handgun. No bullets. Kate sent me a list of the items. Hated to invade her privacy but had to look through her stuff to see if there were any sort of clues in there." Price explained.

"She was packing pretend heat?" Gaz offered.

Price nodded, "Had to keep herself safe somehow, I suppose. You flash a gun at civilians, and they'll usually run off with their tail between their legs. They don't need to know if it's loaded or not."

"Were there any clues in her pack?" Soap asked hopefully.

"Not really. A picture of her and her father. One of her mother. So, we've got faces to go with the names now at least."

"What about extended family?" Rudy asked, "Any aunts or uncles?"

Price shook his head, "Not sure. We could ask her, might narrow down the name Viktoria for us."

"In the morning." Alejandro said, patting the man on the shoulder.

Price nodded, "In the morning."

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Soap was the last one out to breakfast in the morning. He had told Ghost to go on ahead of him while he changed. He looked around at all of the vaqueros milling about the mess hall. Walking over to the table the team was sitting at. Each member sitting in the same seats that they had been the night before. There was a noticeably empty seat.

"Where's our little friend this mornin'?" He asked rocking back and forth on his heels.

"We let her sleep in." Price told him, sipping some sort of beverage out of a mug.