"Don't you have to lock the door?” she asked."Self-locking,” he said as he smiled. "I told you this was my father's place.” He said as they took their seats, "What I didn't tell you in the last year of his life, he kinda went a little crazy. He was so sure either my mother or step-mother were trying to kill him. He made this place impossible to get in without the keycode or keys. Also safe rooms on each floor and a bunker underneath. It also has a grid that goes out about a half a mile completely surrounding it. No one can get close without alerting the person or people inside. I'll show you when we get back."

 "Who?” he looked at her seriously now."Biggs's daughter,” she said. "Both of her parents are gone. If his body wasn’t in the shed, his skin was in my house, so we know. Elodie said the woman in the shed was her mother. I didn’t see it before, but he always had this one face he made when he was not happy and didn’t get his way. She made the same face in the store.""Poor kid,” he said. "Hopefully, they set up something for her if something was to happen." He was shaking his head and looked at the small girl in the backseat of the car they were using. A little thing she had already gone through so much and not to be orphaned because of a crazy man set on revenge on the wrong people."They did. Me,” she said."What?” he asked."She was newborn. It was two years ago, and she was still in the hospital. They had me sign some papers, and we had them notarized, and I know he had one copy placed

 "Wha—," she found herself back in his arms being carried toward the back of the house. He kicked open a door on the opposite side of where Elodie was fast asleep. She looked about the room bathed in darkness as he placed her down on the bed. When he climbed in and stayed looming above her, she couldn't place the look in his eyes as anything but desire. They glowed in the darkness, much like an animal when the light hits them. His mouth took hers gently, but as the dam burst that he must have held back since the first time they met, she could feel everything he had built up. He cradled her head and then rolled her on top of him. Everything that he felt was shining in his eyes in the darkn

  Two weeks later......"What do you mean you lost him?” Col. Oda nearly yelled in the middle of the main floor of the building. "We had the son of a bitch now you can't find him?""Sorry, sir.” the tech said."Don't be sorry. Just find his ass again.” Col. Oda said.Col. Oda stomped away, and the slammed the door behind him. He sat down in his chair and knew he should take a break. He couldn't, though. He looked at the picture on his desk, his team. They were a ragtag bunch, but he genuinely cared for all of them. All but three of them were gone now that were in the picture, and he would give his last breath to make sure the other two stayed alive. Aaron could easily take over for him when he did retire as long as he still had a hand to guide him, and she was that hand. She was the reason the team was founded in the first place, this building, these people they probably didn't know her story or her origins, but

 "Colonel, it isn't as easy as running a search,” Marie said as she handed him the report for Mitsunari's lab. "We are working as fast as we can, but sir, it is just the two of us, and we have to search every facility's records."He looked up at the smaller woman who had never said anything more than hello to him as she would scurry away as fast as she could away from him. He was surprised to see her handing the report to him instead of the mild-mannered young man who ran one of the labs underneath the princess. Oda was consumed with the thoughts of bringing her and Aaron home as it was now close to a month of having them in hiding. Aaron had been holed up traveling with one of the spec ops guys moving every three days, the two were now at each other's throats and would soon come to blows if they didn't act fast. The princess, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy her captor a little too much, another reason to bring them home. Col. Oda couldn't place the unde