ASRAN SERIES- ACROSS THE BORDER

Chapter - 3

Due to the sudden approach by Draven, Linda jumped up in fright and her heart almost lost a beat. She cursed at her bad luck and turned around with a poker face to see the person who made her lose her composure.

Draven grinned widely and said in a sexy voice, “Relax! Don't be afraid, I am here to protect you, Lin.”

He then moved very near to her and almost hugged her. Linda moved behind a little to keep her distance from him while pushing him away from her. Draven did not mind her resistance. Instead, he pretended as if nothing happened and continued to get close to her.

“You don't have to worry about those dark ones. They can't do any harm to anyone until I am alive. Also, did you forget that they cannot come near us as we have activated the force shield detector? If they try to pull anything funny, they would get burned into ashes,” He tried to soothe her by rubbing her back which in turn angered Linda.

She swatted his hand away and gave him a kick on his calf without holding back. Draven slid down on the ground while holding his aching leg as he moaned in pain.

“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! It hurts like hell… mmm… mmm... mmm...” He squatted on the muddy ground and whined continuously.

“Stop trying to find excuses to touch me all the time and stop whining. Be a man and stand up quick. Also,  do you not understand the meaning of harassment. How could you not know that if I report this incident to the higher-ups then you could even get demoted or terminated from the services? Don't you have to worry about it at all before trying to take advantage of me?” Linda questioned him.

When Draven shook his head and smiled like an i***t, she lost her patience and glared at him. 

"Look, it's not funny. Stop coming after me... I am not interested in you and neither will I ever want to be with a guy, like you," Linda uttered while staring at him intensely.

"But what can I do? All I want is you and nothing else..." Draven tried to pull her down along with him.

Linda almost puked after hearing him say such a cheesy line to her. Even after giving him a stern warning, as he was not ready to give up on her, she stamped him on his feet at once. As she used full force to show how disgruntled she was feeling right then because of his actions, Draven suffered a huge impact.

He howled loudly as the pain became unbearable because the heels of her shoes had pierced his toes. The other militants did not interfere in their love fight as they already got used to it after seeing it every day. He blew on his legs and mumbled,

"I... I did not do anything... All I did was express the feelings in my heart... mmmm..." Draven tried to speak but couldn't say anymore as he rolled on the ground while lifting his leg high in the air.

Linda then quickly moved away from him after making sure that she had hurt him enough. When she walked to the other side, she completely forgot the thing she was hiding under her foot. Draven finally took notice of the pouch that she was trying to conceal from him.

He lifted the pouch lying on the ground with flying stones inside it. He shook the pouch and the flying stones made a cluttering noise. Linda stopped on her way and turned around with a tense expression. But she concealed herself very well and made a straight face.

'Sh*t! No! How could I forget about that pouch? It's all his fault... He came next to me and confused me, so that I would reveal the thing I was trying to hide, Grrr... grrr... grr...' She growled in protest in her mind.

He raised his eyebrow and questioningly looked at Linda. She shrugged her shoulders as if she did not care and snatched the bag from his hands.

“I took the stones for research. I think this might be the work of the dark ones. We can find out who came here by scanning these rocks for fingerprints once we reach the lab. If you are done with your inspection over here, then let us move to the next portal. We have so many to inspect and I don't want to spend my whole day in this useless deserted place,” Linda complained to him.

She started flying towards the next portal using her foot-attached flying hoverboard. It whirled once before it zoomed to the next location. The blue fire emitted from the flyer, almost scalded Draven’s face.

“She sure hates me a lot now compared to before… Sigh…” He mumbled and jumped up from the ground.

He then removed his shoes and took out a healing potion from his inner pockets. He poured the semi-purple liquid on the wound. With a swish and a small cloud of white smoke, the liquid entered his wound and within a few seconds, it disappeared from his legs.

“Goodness, I made sure to bring the healing potion along with me, or else I would have to keep hopping around in pain until I reached home,” He shook his legs and then jumped up and down.

Once he made sure that the wound was fully healed and did not pain any longer, he felt relieved. 

"Lin is quite different today. She never got physical with me before, however, I tortured her. But today, I didn't even do anything and she reacted too wildly," He stared at the path Linda drove away with a scrutinizing gaze.

Even though he felt something was missing from the way Linda spoke to him earlier, he did not chase behind her to confront her. Instead, he simply ordered his subordinates to continue their search for the other active portals that could still be used to travel across the border.

Meanwhile, he decided to stay behind a little longer to examine the portals in that area some more time as he did not want to miss anything that would seem out of place. Even after spending a long time over there, he still could not find anything that would raise alarms in that area. 

So, he thought to go back to his team and join them in their search. He switched on his communicator and threw some commands before setting off. He then murmured while getting on his flying hoverboard and said with dark eyes,

“I hope you don't disappoint me, Lin. If I ever find out that you have betrayed us then I will make sure that the next second I would help you escape from here. But finding a place could be a little difficult as right now all the Asran planets are under war.”

...

When David and Sussan reached the border, it was already too late. They did not see their son, Peter near the border. Instead, they saw the militants roaming near the portal while making their regular inspections.

“Sussan, let’s hide and wait somewhere safe until they leave from here.” David hurriedly said and pulled Sussan behind a desert thorny bush that was almost dry from drought.

“What if they caught Peter? We need to go there and ask them... We have to ask them to release our son,” Sussan protested and tried to remove her hands from his tight grasp.

“Have you lost your mind after losing both of our children? If they had caught Peter, do you think they would still linger around here? Don’t do anything stupid that would put our son’s life in danger.” David muttered under his gritted teeth.

“But…” Sussan hesitated as she did not want anything bad to happen to her only son, Peter. 

Since they all seemed to be only checking the damaged portal, she decided to wait as David suggested. Anyway, even if they go now, no one could predict how these militants would react or what would happen next!

'I don't want to put Peter in danger if he was not already caught by these ruthless beings,' Sussan thought.

As they both were strenuously glancing at the militants in front of them, they failed to notice the approaching figure from behind them. Linda saw the duo even before they entered the visible perimeter; Even before they realized about the militants in that area.

She hurriedly traveled further north and waited to ambush the intruders. As she had the power to scan almost miles for any living being in an area, she was able to catch them sneaking around that place way sooner than any other militant could do it.

'We meet again, brother and sister-in-law,' She grudgingly thought.