(BL) Hunting The Field Guide
Chapter 441: The sixth day after everyone arrived on the front lines

Chapter 441: The sixth day after everyone arrived on the front lines

Warming, this Chapter contains some violence and gore. Read at your own risk.

Karen was used to dealing with psychos. She worked with a rather famous one. She was best friends with a few. She knew what crazy looked like.

Hell, it wasn’t like her blood was safe from it. Her parents were damn monsters in the grand scheme of things. She grew up in the laps of people who hated each other and went to great lengths to hurt each other as much as she could, and as publicly as they could.

But this? This was a new level of crazy.

She’d never seen psychos like these before. Maybe when you didn’t get love and affection as a kid, it fucked you up?

Well, she knew that too. Captain Thatcher and Gunther certainly weren’t normal, but they weren’t like this. This was a kind of crazy that made your skin crawl just being near them. All the hair on your arms and legs stood on end, as if a deep, deep part of yourself knew that if you slipped up, even for a second, they would lunge.

Rip your throat out with their teeth kind of crazy.

That’s why Hill only had the most seasoned, most experienced members of the Guild that she trusted with her whole heart and then some watching these freaks. But even then, she had to make sure she rotated them out so that they didn’t crack. Those who were keeping an eye on the big guy they caught were the ones who had to be rotated out the most.

He was fucking insane. So fanatical that Karen didn’t think there was a way for him to come back from it. She didn’t think he was brainwashed, she was pretty sure he believed all of the shit he was saying with his whole chest.

He truly thought that if they killed all the Guides that the world would go back to what it used to be. That they would ’purge’ the parasites that lived in their society. That the ’other beings’ were punishing them for letting them grow and prosper.

Honestly, if Karen was to believe his mantras, she would think it was the other way around. That Espers were the parasites that had infected the world and the Guides had been the healing balm that the world came up with to deal with the issue. She hadn’t brought it up to them yet, since she was still trying to get answers out of them.

She would bring it up once she had gotten everything that she could out of them. She was pretty sure she was nearing that point.

Yesterday had been a big day. The fact that they had laughed manically while calling her a ’damn faggot’ hadn’t been lost on her. She also didn’t give a fuck. She wasn’t that, and even if she was, it didn’t hit the mark to hurt.

Her parents had already done that, his words were like water off a duck’s back.

The rest of the Espers that had been down here with her while he had been going off, finally sounding like he had cracked had all tensed when they heard him calling her names. Karen wasn’t known for acting out, she was pretty cool in most situations. What they were worried about was what she would do if the insults were directed towards others of the Guild.

That was normally when Karen flew off the handle.

But the man had started rambling about how this town was done for. How they had big plans, that they had been in place for a while and soon everyone was going to see the true might of the E.A.G. and no one would mock them anymore. That they would see that they were right.

It was practically nonsense, but Karen was able to pick out the truth in it. They had something else planned and that this was just a distraction.

She hadn’t left immediately after he revealed that, not wanting to alert the man, but he didn’t say anything useful about it after that. Just rambling about how they would all pay for their crimes of fucking Guides.

Karen had almost rolled her eyes at that. It wasn’t like she just slept with Guides. She slept with Espers and civilians too. She liked the intimacy and warmth that came with those moments, but again, it wasn’t the time to rile this idiot up.

Karen’s shoes made a clear tapping noise. She knew it was distinct to that of Lieutenant status or higher. It was done intentionally to inspire fear and worry whenever someone of her rank came down those steps. While it wasn’t always one particular Guild who took over the cells on the front lines, no one had fought the Saturn Guild for the right to monitor them this time.

Not when Kellen was involved.

No one had even batted an eyelash, in fact, Sergei had even stood up and declared that no one but the Saturn Guild would be responsible for this. Karen had appreciated the vote of confidence, and this time, she had brought Taylor with her.

Yes, a healer. Karen was done playing nice.

So far she’d been rather tame in her interrogation tactics, but Captain Thatcher had given her the green light. She was allowed to go further, and he didn’t care if anyone, including the presumed Lieutenant died.

"Well well well, look what the cat dragged in." The lieutenant taunted as soon as Karen came into view. She felt her face twist into disgust as she looked at him. He was a mockery of what Gunther looked like. The fucking idiot who had tried to impersonate him on t.v.

It was how they knew who he was, and how important he was.

He had a few bruises on his face, a few marks here and there. Karen had been keeping her strength under control. She’d been doing a good job.

"Are you feeling like talking more?" She asked and he grinned. Karen didn’t hold back. She wound up and punched the man in the eye.

He fell over, the chair clattering to the ground. Karen heard Taylor let out a soft sound behind her, but didn’t flinch. Taylor didn’t like this kind of violence. She knew it, and Hill didn’t mind being the enforcer today.

If Captain Thatcher was here, this man would have already shit his pants and told him everything that he wanted to hear. Same with Gunther. Hill felt like people underestimated her because she was a woman. She hated that aspect the most.

"Oh, resorting to violence I see." He spat on the ground, groaning, but his shoulders shook as he laughed. "How typical. I guess you were an Esper this whole time. I thought they might have sent a little baby Guide instead. What are they called? Field Guides? The Captain of your Guild’s pet Guide’s pet project?" Karen kicked him in the gut, and he howled, before he laughed. "Oo, so scary."

"What the fuck are you guys made out of? Cockroaches? This is so fucking annoying." Karen growled, pissed that she had to get her hands dirty for the likes of him.

"An honour to be compared to a bug that has outlived all other creatures." He said. Karen wanted to kick his teeth in. So she did. She watched with disinterest as he spat out his broken teeth, his grin even more crazy looking now that he was missing a few.

"Gunther was right. You need to be careful with that anger of yours. It’ll ruin your pretty face." The E.A.G. member said and Karen held back. How dare he bring up Gunther’s name right now? That slimy fuck.

"What else do you have to say? What else can you tell us? I’ll make it less painful when I kill you if you tell me." Karen told him. She was at least telling him the truth, whether he believed it or not. He rolled onto his back, cackling like a damn lunatic.

"Oh will you? These days of torture mean nothing, huh?" He laughed and Karen felt an uneasy filling fill her gut. She was moving before she even realised in, shoving her hands into his mouth. This fucker wouldn’t, would he?

He was cacking, his teeth coming down and attempting to crush her fingers as she tried to prevent him from crunching what she knew was a fake molar now. Fuck. Fuck! How had they missed that?

"Check the others!" Hill shouted as she fought with the man. She was exerting too much strength, she knew it, but what else could she do? He would bite her fingers off.

She was considering just letting him do just that since Taylor was here when all of a sudden, he stopped fighting her. Horror filled her as she heard, and felt, flesh tear, bones crack and one second she was holding open his mouth, and the next she was holding onto his jaw. Blood squirted over her, as shock and horror filled her.

She hadn’t meant to do that. She really hadn’t meant to do that.

Taylor rushed in, trying to save the man as he convulsed on the floor, pure glee in his eyes before they began to dull and his body became still.

She had walked into his plan. He had wanted to die.

Karen felt sick to her stomach.

She got to her feet, dropping the jaw like it was a hot potato and moved over to the wall, punching it so hard she heard a crack.

"Fuck!" She exclaimed, her arms shaking. Rapid footsteps approached her, and the Espers who followed her spoke up. All looked nervous, anxious, and a little green. She could already imagine what they were about to tell her.

"Lieutenant Hill...we were too late. The rest had already..." They sounded shocked too. How could Karen blame them? There must have been a code. Something she had missed. Some sign she hadn’t been aware of. What had she missed? Where had this gone wrong?

The others had been relying on her, and her she was, failing them all again. Fuck. Fuck!

Her hands trembled as she realised that she was covered in blood. She probably looked like some kind of freak.

"Go back to your positions. We’ll...deal with this." Karen told them quietly and they moved. She would have to check in with them once she was done cleaning up this situation. This was the worst way she had imagined this ending. She obviously hadn’t ruled out some kind of emergency measure like this. She’d had them checked before they came in. No one had found anything. She wouldn’t know the truth until an autopsy was performed.

She took a few deep breaths before she turned to Taylor. She was just as shocked as Karen was.

"Taylor, we’ll get the clean up squad in here. Why don’t you...go back to the medical tent?" Karen said softly and Taylor raised her gaze up to Karen. She gulped.

"Y-Your hands. Let me have a look." Taylor murmured, getting to her shaky feet, her legs covered in the blood pooling around the now dead E.A.G. Lieutenant. Karen didn’t fight her when she came and took her hands in her own. Karen just hated that she was the reason that her hands were dirty with life blood today.

Karen watched her, her pretty face, her blue eyes that turned green with her powers, her pretty brown hair. She shouldn’t have brought her down here with her, but she was also their healer. Their medic. She would have never forgiven Karen if she had left her upstairs.

"Thank you, Taylor." Karen told her when her eyes dimmed back to the shocked colour of her blue eyes.

"What are you going to do? That was..." Taylor swallowed and Karen sighed.

"I tell the truth. The bastard got what he wanted, only I played a little bit more of an active role." Karen said begrudgingly. "Don’t worry. You did nothing wrong, Taylor." Karen told her, a smile turning up her lips before she dropped it. She probably looked even crazier than the man growing cold on the floor beside them. "Let’s get out of here. I have to report back to the Captain and Sergei."