Two Week Seduction Read Online Free Page A

himself.
    Most of the kids barreled past him, out the doors. A few hung around lockers talking or making out. His steps slowed as he looked about him, feeling disconnected and melancholic in a way that might have been nostalgia if it didn’t feel so weird. It was so little of real life. Or military life. Or…he didn’t know what life except that it felt…itchy. Like new skin.
    “You can’t do this to me!” A young man’s voice pitched loud and angry, jolting him out of his thoughts. It wasn’t the words so much as the tone. A teen on the edge of violence, just about to break. All his senses went on alert, even more so when he heard Alea’s calm response.
    “I can and I have. I’ve been telling you since the beginning of the year, Charlie. You have to do the work to pass my class.”
    “I can get a waiver or something. I heard—”
    “You heard wrong. Do you really think I’ve been lying to you from the very first day of class? If you want to graduate—”
    “I have to graduate!”
    “Then you have to do the work.”
    “You fucking bitch!”
    John was through the door and on the bastard before he’d even realized he’d moved. The kid was small, but that didn’t mean anything. Even a small child could do damage with the right weapon. He had the boy pinned, face down on the floor before the platters he’d been carrying finished shattering out in the hallway. He was busy reaching for his weapon before he realized he wasn’t carrying any. And that this wasn’t Afghanistan, but a high school in Florida.
    “John!”
    “Get off me! Get the—”
    “Calm down,” he said in his most menacing voice. “You need to settle down or this gets a lot worse.” He pressed his knee into the kid’s back, just enough to make his point. It took a little time though because the kid was wiry. Probably make a good wrestler.
    “John, you can’t put your hands on a kid. You haven’t the authority.”
    “That’s right!” the kid sneered. Quite the attitude given he was lying face down on the linoleum. “You haven’t got no—”
    A little shift in his weight and the kid’s words were cut off.
    “John!”
    He eased off. The kid made quite the show of struggling for breath. It was a lie. John knew just how much pressure was needed for any type of damage, and he wasn’t close. But he also wasn’t going to go easy.
    “Apologize to Miss Heling.”
    “I wasn’t doing nothing!”
    “You weren’t doing anything except disrespecting your teacher. That requires an apology.”
    “John, I had it under control.”
    Yeah, right up to the point where the kid drew a knife and gutted her. John didn’t even look at her. “Charlie. That your name?”
    “What of it?”
    “Nothing. Just want it for the police.” He’d almost said commanding officer.
    Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Alea sigh and lean back against her desk. “Charlie, I’d like to introduce you to Tech Sergeant John O’Donnell. He’s with Air Force Security. Just back from Afghanistan. I suggest you do what he says.”
    The kid stilled enough to slant a look at him. “Security?”
    “We carry big guns and hunt terrorists.”
    “No shit?”
    “No shit.”
    “Huh.” That was it. Just a word that sounded more like a grunt.
    “Apologize, Charlie.”
    The kid squinted at Alea. “I’m sorry for cursing, Miss Heling.”
    “You’re forgiven.” She shot a look at John. “You can let him up now.”
    John was up in a flash, far enough away to give the kid room to get up, but close enough to take him right back down if needed. Charlie scrambled up, all legs and arms and attitude. But after making a show of shaking out his clothing and pumping his biceps a few times, his expression seemed tolerable.
    “I want to be Air Force, too. Fly me some jets.”
    John felt his lips curve. He remembered saying something like that years ago. “I could help with that. I know some people. In fact, Miss Heling’s brother is a pilot.”
    Charlie grinned. “I