Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 37: Your Eyes

Chapter 37: Your Eyes

Happily fed and more tired than before, Bai Long Qiang picked me up from my chair and started to carry me around the cabin, showing me where everything was.

The place itself was huge, easily boasting eight rooms with four bathrooms on the second floor, while the first one had a formal living room, a dining room, and a kitchen. There was even a rec room and a game room in the basement, but I figured that was more of an afterthought than anything else.

I didn’t even expect this place to have a basement.

Climbing the wooden stairs with me in his arms, I let out another yawn, unable to hold myself back.

"Just a bit longer, and then you can have a nap, okay?" muttered Bai Long Qiang. "There is no rush. Ye Yao Zu and I managed to get the whole two weeks off. We have plenty of time together."

"Never enough," I whined, sounding like a brat. But I knew how much the military meant to him, so I wasn’t going to make his life difficult.

"No, never enough time," he agreed with a sigh of his own. At least I wasn’t the only one less than happy with being apart.

He shifted my weight so that he had a hand free and opened the door at the end of the hall.

It was, without a doubt, the most beautiful room I had ever seen in my life. Fairy lights were hanging by strings over top of the bed, making it look more like stars in the night sky than actual lights.

Beside the bed was a massive wall of windows, giving me the perfect view of the lake behind the cabin and the forest on either side. Plants decorated every surface they could find a purchase, and even a few candles were lying around on the desk beside the bed.

But what drew me in most was the giant bed in the room with ten pillows and a comforter so fluffy I could easily sink down and never be found again. There was even a black fleece blanket thrown haphazardly at the bottom of the bed.

I wasn’t sure what sound I had made, but I must have done something because all of a sudden, I was airborne, landing perfectly in the dead center of the king-sized bed.

"You’re an ass," I laughed as the comforter did try to eat me. But it was so soft and comfortable I really didn’t mind.

"I am," agreed Bai Long Qiang as he shrugged his shoulders. He sat down on the bed beside me and looked at me. "But I am your ass," he murmured so low that I knew Ye Yao Zu wouldn’t have been able to hear.

Besides, he was standing by the door after he had placed all of my luggage in a corner.

"You are that," I answered, rolling my eyes.

"I am going to leave you alone for a bit. Try to get some sleep, OK?" he continued, pushing a few strands of my hair out of my face.

"You’ll be here when I wake up?" I asked, hating how pitiful my voice sounded. I had just spent four months in City A by myself, so why was it that I always seemed to act like a child when Bai Long Qiang was around?

"I’ll be here when you wake up," he said. He took my phone from his pocket; I might have dropped it on the ground outside when I rushed to see him and laid it on the pillow beside me. "Just in case you wake up and need to know where I am."

I nodded my head and gripped my phone tighter.

"Night," I muttered. "When I wake up, remind me to start hiding stuff around the place for later."

"Your mom is right; you really have turned into a little squirrel. Don’t worry. It’s cute," he assured me and gave me one last kiss on my forehead. "Now, get to sleep."

"Yeah, yeah," I said, but my eyes were already starting to close.

I only kind of heard him get up and leave the room, softly closing the door behind him.

----

"So, that is the infamous sister," said Ye Yao Zu as he twisted open the cap of his beer. He dropped down onto the couch in the basement rec room and took a sip. "She’s cute."

Bai Long Qiang was across the room in a second, gripping his friend by the throat. "She is," he confirmed. "But she is not for you to look at either. And she is not my little sister. Our families are merely friends, so that is why I said that. But I am telling you right now. Look at her again, and I will rip your eyes out and give them to her as a gift."

Ye Yao Zu raised an eyebrow and took a sip of his beer, not caring that he was being pinned to the couch by his throat.

"There he is. I almost thought that you had been switched by someone else when my back was turned. I know that there is no way someone as terrifying as Bai Long Qiang, the dancing sword of death, would be willing to carry around a little girl and play nice with a family, not his." Ye Yao Zu chuckled lightly as if he didn’t have any fear in the world, but the hand holding his beer bottle was shaking.

Almost everyone in basic training was terrified of the man in front of him. He was known for his brutality toward both himself and everyone else around him. So, to see this softer side was almost as terrifying as seeing his bloodthirsty side.

"Besides, if you really gave her my eyes, she might run away screaming. Then this doting big brother thing you have going on will disappear. And you can’t have that, can you?"

"You think you are so smart. The son of Country K’s top psychologist knows just what makes everyone tick, doesn’t he? You are so wrong it is laughable," replied Bai Long Qiang, releasing the other man’s neck and stepping away. He picked up the remote to the television and turned it on.

"Am I really that off base, Wolf?"

"You are. If I gave her your eyes, she would preserve them in a jar and put them on a shelf somewhere. The only reason why I would never do that is I don’t want your eyes looking at her, even if you can’t see a thing."