I candefine it best as a strong animal smell. I tried not to think about thereason for that strange smell.My attention moved to the bandage on my abdo...en and I immediately startedremoving it. When I finally succeeded I was greeted by my swollen abdomenthat had a sutured up vertical wound on it some two inches long. It waslocated just under my belly button. Five black wires were clearly visibleagainst my white skin and between each, two red wires were visible.My breath was caught inside my. Cien looked up at Regan in disbelief. For a split second he thought she’d done it until he saw her. She was blowing at her feet hastily. She was going to hyperventilate. Behind her, he saw two of his men shooting arrows into the soldiers. Looking back at Regan, he realized why she was blowing so hard at her feet. Alex had dropped the torch on the kindling of the pyre. It was quickly engulfing the dried wood at her feet. ‘Regan!’ Her eyes darted up to his and they had a perfect moment of. " On your eighteenth birthday, I promise. You can visit on layovers, but we need to be careful. We can't be linked as a couple. I know that's not fair, but if we are labeled as a couple, you won't be able to come over, I will be dishonorably discharged and sent to jail. On your eighteenth birthday, we can scream our relationship from the rooftop, I promise." I know, and I understand."No more words were spoken. We knew we would be a couple, it would just take a few years. His arms wrapped around. For once, he wasn't going to beat me. I heard him gaining fast, but I was nearing the platform. I think I got there a split second before him, but it didn't really matter. We just looked at each other and started to laugh. This was the most fun we had had in years.He looked at me and asked, How ya feeling?Fi-ne I squeaked in a high pitch voice. I then explained I had a sore throat from the smoke the night before.We climbed out of the water onto the platform. As we were sitting on the.