She looked up at him over the cloth she had been using to hide her face. "I'll make you another deal," he said."What?" she said, her voice unsure."If ...you'll put that thing on, and let me try out my new camera for some portraits, you can keep whatever extra money is left over and I'll buy the outfit for you to give to your mother."There, he'd said it. She'd either scream and call the cops, or not.Teri froze. She looked at her Uncle again. That look was still there, and her stomach still felt all. “Please daddy,” she begged. “It’ll be my birthday and Christmas presents for the next two years.”“More like the next twenty years,” he said. “It’s not going to happen.She jumped off his lap and jumped up and down as she said, “You never buy me anything.”“What do you mean I never buy you anything?” he shouted. “What about the Ipad, the new Iphone, the trip to Cabo for spring break? What about those?”“Those aren’t the same,” she said while stomping her right foot.“Look honey I don’t want to. The assembly area was full of fully armed soldiers, ready to be sent off on their first real mission since taking the town weeks before. They were to root out a nest of locals who had been terrorizing the Militia for several days.The napalm strike had been frightening and nearly forty men had died as a direct result of the attack, but the men had drawn together in resolute solidarity.There were some four hundred men on the assembly area, and all of them were standing at attention. The 'General'. Lovebright's School for Girls was the prep school of last resort. It was a place where the rich could send their pampered, less brightly lit daughters and have some hope of getting them into college, or failing that, at least having a prestigious name on their resume before marrying them off to someone rich enough to support them. Grade point averages and similar niceties were generally a moot point as long as Daddy could afford the tuition.The school had never taken more than 30 new students.