Operation Honey Trap vs The Emperor of the Apocalypse-Chapter 136: This is Me, Walking

As the mission team and Bill Rutherglen ended their first day of riding towards Port Fairy, they made camp in an old building in Penshurst, eating together in the main living area and throwing their gear into various of the bedrooms.

The loose approach for sleeping arrangements appeared to be girls in one room and boys in another.

Delphi approached Alton before he could head upstairs to the men’s bedroom.

He had been cooly polite to her all day.

You couldn’t put a finger on him being rude, ignoring her or giving her the silent treatment, it was just that he was distant; polite and professional, giving her exactly as much as she needed to get on with the mission, nothing more, nothing less.

"Can we talk, Alton?" she asked him gently.

"What about, General Chastain?"

"In private, please," she motioned for him to join her outside.

He followed her out and they walked around the side of the old stone building they had taken over for the night, standing in an old rock garden.

Bogden and Miro were roaming around outside, keeping an eye on things and protecting the horses.

"What is it, General?" he asked her, stopping when they had gone not very far at all, and refusing to walk any further from the front door.

"Can we cut the crap, Alton?" she asked him, starting to lose patience with him, despite her promise to herself to stay calm and be empathetic. "If you’re angry at me, just say it. Let’s have the discussion we need to have. I understand how it looked, but you haven’t even heard my side of the story yet," she sounded hurt.

She felt in her pocket where she was holding the old smart phone which Han had downloaded the video onto for her. She had viewed it herself and it told the same story she planned to tell Alton.

He sighed, "General, I don’t have anything to say to you about the events of last night. I will, however, discuss any aspects of the mission with you that you need to talk to me about. Can we make it quick though, I’m tired and I want to get a good night’s sleep."

He neglected to say, because he hadn’t had a wink of sleep last night, because of her...

"Do you have to be so babyish about it, Alton? Can’t we just have a mature conversation like two adults?"

"There’s nothing to talk about, General. You’ve said yourself that there’s no commitment between us. Let’s not try and have a relationship conversation when we don’t even have a relationship," he raised one eyebrow at her. "That would really be all of the downside and none of the up."

"You’re over-complicating what should be a simple conversation, Alton. Can I just explain to you what happened between Brenner and me in that bathroom, so that we can get on with our lives and move past this little hiccup?"

"I think this is a bit more than a ’little hiccup’, and I’m not interested, Delphi."

Ah, here was ’Delphi’ finally, instead of ’General,’ this was a step in the right direction, she thought.

"You’ve said to me on many occasions that you don’t want a relationship with me," Alton threw her words back at her. "So what you get up to with other men is entirely your own business. You’re not cheating on me. You have to have a relationship in order to cheat."

She obviously thought wrong about the ’Delphi’ thing... the step was in the wrong direction...

"Alton, where are you arriving at this cheating idea? I was in that bathroom with Brenner for all of three minutes!"

"As we both know," he drawled, "it doesn’t take you any longer than that, and I’m sure that nimwit wouldn’t last long. Three minutes probably gave you both time for a smoke afterwards."

"Now you’re just being rude, Alton. I really don’t think that’s called for. If you could just let me explain exactly what happened, I think we can easily move past this and put it behind us," she was really trying to maintain her composure, understanding that there were things for him to be angry about. "I understand you’re angry, and I probably would be too, but it’s not what it looked like."

"Not interested, Delphi," he said impassively, turning to walk away.

"Are you really going to walk away from this discussion?" she called after his retreating back.

"This is me, walking," he called over his shoulder, as he rounded the corner and disappeared back into the house.

Oh, that infuriating man! she thought.

Well, he could forget about seeing the tape then. Until he was ready to listen to her, trust her and be reasonable, she wasn’t going to show it to him; he didn’t deserve it!

Alton walked through the house and straight out the back door, heading into the overgrown backyard for some peace and quiet from the noise and drama both inside the house, and around the side.

He didn’t want to hear Delphi’s version of events. Of course she was going to say nothing had happened with Brenner, what else could she say? I snogged the guy but it’s not a big deal?

And Brenner said he had kissed her. How could he believe Delphi now? The remark about the mole he took with a grain of salt. That top of Delphi’s was so small Brenner could have seen it even when she was wearing the thing.

But he had seen her in Brenner’s arms during the victory lap, and that was what kept playing in his mind on rerun.

Even though he had started to suspect something might be wrong with her, some type of sexual dysfunction, he even suspected the Emperor had tampered with her in some way; at the end of the day, he found it didn’t help. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

He was filled with unending rage about what he’d seen in the training room, and then seeing that man in the bathroom with her was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

He couldn’t trust himself to talk with her about it because he knew he’d be too angry.

And frankly this whole thing with her was a level of vulnerability he was completely uncomfortable with.

He already knew she held his heart in her hands, and now exactly what he had been afraid of had happened.

He hadn’t slept at all last night after he left the fight with Brenner. He lay awake and contemplated the various options open to him.

In the end he had come up with a list:

1. There was no way he could simply stop loving her now, it was too late for that.

2. He was not going to keep senselessly chasing after Delphi with no commitment from her.

3. He would wait for her to come to him.

4. He would protect her with his life.

Those were the things he knew were right, and he wasn’t going to deviate from them.