A few days pass. It’s quiet for the most part and Ken and I spend the time together, mostly in bed. He is a demanding and dominant lover. I am a rebellious and receptive one. Together, we are incandescent with passion. In this world of death and fury, mating has a greater meaning and more satisfaction. He is a lion in bed, his cock surging in an out of my aching cunt. I’m sore from sex, but I want more. Always more.

Work inevitably calls again though, work I am allowed to accompany him on. Something relatively boring then, though I don’t mind because it means I will be with him.

“We’re going to roll through that same village we did the other day,” he says as we head out. “I want you to stay in the vehicle. Tensions are high right now.”

“Why?”

“That attack the other night originated from a local warlord. They’re trying to move in over this way, and the villagers are loyal to them already. But he’s a nasty son of a bitch and I want him. He knows that. So it was this village he hit that night. It’s a warning, to us, to stay away. They’ll be punished with death if they don’t resist us. So today could be dodgy. Stay in the car, no matter what you see, and no matter what happens.”

“Okay, I agree. “No problem.”

“That was easy,” he says, his brow raised in surprise.

I’m surprised too. I want to please him. It’s a strange impulse for a woman like me, but I guess I’ll get used to it.

The first part of our journey is relatively uneventful. There are more burned out vehicles on the side of the road than before, some of them no doubt from the battle a few days ago. I usually don’t have much of a reaction to sights like these, but on this occasion I’m reminded that Ken was in the middle of this. He was in the range of fire, he was exposed to all this death and destruction. It’s the water in which he swims. I always knew that about him, but this is the first time I really feel it, and it’s the first time it upsets me.

As we enter the village, there are more sights which indicate battle has taken place. Some of the houses have been utterly destroyed. Others are burned out. There is more chaos than there was last time, and as we roll through, the villagers are obviously suspicious. I try to keep an eye out for the women I met last time, just to see if they’re okay.

Ken stops the convoy, takes a couple of guys with him and steps out. I wait in the back, two other soldiers with me, weapons at the ready. There’s a little window I can look out of and I see the chaos in the village at close quarters.

Somewhere, in the midst of the shuffle and the work to rebuild, I see a man and a woman fighting. Well, a woman who is cowering and a man who is yelling at her. As they draw closer I see that it is one of the women from my first visit. I also see that he has, in his hand, one of the little soaps I gave out then. The context is immediately clear. She is being harassed and hurt because of me, because she wanted something a little nice.

In her, I see myself. I see how I was hurt in that laboratory. I couldn’t fight back, and she isn’t fighting back either, because to do so would be to guarantee her own death.

I see the man’s fist rise and come down toward the woman. Everything becomes slow motion.

I’ll never be able to explain what happens next.

It’s pure rage, and it animates me without my conscious will.

The sliver of mind which watches my actions dispassionately notes that I am running from the LAV. I am shouting at the top of my lungs. I am lashing out with boots and fists and before I know it the man who was trying to beat the woman is on the ground and I am hitting him with every bit of fury and strength I have.