Incursion

Chapter 24: Expiate

{ EXPLICIT CONTENT AHEAD! PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION! }



Rhodes didn’t spend any more time torturing me after his call to the US Army. He spent the rest of the early morning hours sitting at a desk a little towards the side of the room, staring off into space. A few times he transitioned from drowsy to sleeping before he jerked awake as if he had a bad dream.

I mostly silently watched him for an hour or so before falling asleep myself. It was both easy and difficult to do. For starters, I was in an awkward position to sleep in, suspended by zip toes to the wrists. More pressing was that my stomach consistently rumbled and growled for food while my lips were parched and my throat hurt from not having had water down it for over a day now. I eventually fell asleep due to sheer fatigue however, my head tipping forwards and my chin landing on my chest.

Sometime later, I was abruptly roused from sleep by the sound of a nearby door crashing open. The resulting transition from sleep to wakefulness inflicted a mild headache and dizziness on me.

When I lifted my head and looked toward the opposite end of the room, I saw Rhodes talking to two uniformed men by the door.

“—right, I’m Hornet,” he was saying.

One of the men with him, dressed in the navy blue fatigues I was used to seeing, stuck out an arm. “Sergeant Farro. Good to meet you, Hornet. Sorry if we skip the niceties. Is that the insurgent?”

He jerked his head toward me.

Rhodes glanced at me for a split second before answering, “Correct. As per Lieutenant-Colonel Baker’s request, I’ve captured one and you’re free to do with her as he wants.”

“It’s much appreciated. Baker ordered us directly to secure this rebel and bring them back quietly. Can we—?”

“Go ahead.”

The three of them walked over to me. The US Army soldier who was speaking to Rhodes stepped close and looked me up and down with a frown.

“She’s just a girl,” he said, looking at Rhodes over one shoulder.

Rhodes nodded. “Looks can be deceiving, Sergeant. This girl is responsible for the recent attacks to some of your strongholds. She also used to be with us years ago before she deserted and switched sides.”

“Really?” The sergeant’s eyes widened slightly. “She looks… harmless.”

“As I said, looks can be deceiving,” Rhodes replied. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“I meant no offense, Hornet. We just want to be sure,” Farro said, a hit of apology in his voice. “Baker really wants these insurgents identified and stamped out.”

“None taken, Sergeant. I understand your CO. You’ve probably lost dozens of men in the last couple of weeks. If it were us, we’d want the same.”

“Over a hundred, actually. He’s rather livid and wants this done before noon today. Personally… err, between you and me, understand. I think we have more pressing concerns than watching an enemy execution, but I won’t argue we need a morale boost.”

“My sympathies, Sergeant Farro. One of my colleagues is analyzing a device the girl was carrying with her to extract more intelligence from it about this girl and her team. So far, we’ve identified her affiliation to a branch of a Canadian intelligence agency, but our records don’t have anything on this branch currently. Most probably off the books. Deniable.”

Farro raised his eyebrows. “That sounds… serious. I had my assumptions, given how hard these attacks were to link to the assailants, but…”

“Don’t worry. Once we’ve got the intel, we’ll send it to you. These shadows will be brought to the light soon enough.”

“Thank you for your help, Hornet. I’ll be sure to let the lieutenant-colonel know about how invaluable your assistance was. Now, Spears?”

“Yes, sir,” the other US Army soldier said.

Together, the two soldiers cut me loose from the bedframe. When I was free from the zip ties, I immediately started to fall like a limp doll, but the two of them caught me before I fell. Being relieved of my restraints gave me a new appreciation for how weak I felt. I couldn’t fight my way out of this even if I wanted to.

“Get her dressed,” the sergeant ordered his subordinate. “Baker wants this girl alive until the execution.”

“Roger.”

They laid me on the floor and I felt my jeans being pulled up and secured again. Within seconds, I was dressed in my parka again.

“Get up, you,” Farro told me roughly, nudging my side with his boot.

I slowly, lethargically, got to my feet. It was unsurprisingly hard, given my condition, When I eventually managed to do so, it felt as though my legs were made of jelly and my center of gravity was off. I immediately fell over again, landing on my right arm with a faint grunt.

I heard the sergeant sigh above me. “This girl’s barely alive at this point. What did you, Hornet?”

“Oh, just… things. I assure you she’ll live long enough for Baker to get a look at her. Just have to handle her carefully.”

“I hope so. Spears, pick her up. She doesn’t look heavy.”

“Roger that, sir.”

I felt someone grab my left arm and throw it across his shoulders. The soldier named Spears hoisted me to my feet and put his free arm around my waist.

I lifted my face a little at Farro and Rhodes, who were facing each other now.

“Thanks again for your cooperation. This one ought to placate the CO a little,” Farro was saying. “Of course, there’s still more of her out there.”

Rhodes glanced at me, then crossed his arms and nodded. “I’m aware. Like I said, Sergeant, my colleagues and I will share information with you as we uncover them. My primary objective here in the city is collection of prisoners. It just so happened that this girl and her team got in the way of that, so we became involved. After a couple more batches of prisoners are safely in our jurisdiction, we should be good. Depending on my superiors’ decisions, we may either vacate the city entirely or stick around long enough to assist you in pacifying the rebels.”

“I see. I know it’s not my place to say, but I do hope your officers decide on the latter. I know a lot of my Army co-workers think we can resolve this on our own, but I for one am not above asking for help to maximize efficiency.”

“Appreciate hearing that, Sergeant. Yes, we will see.”

Farro nodded, then looked up at Spears. “All right, get her to the Humvee.”

“Hold on. Just one last moment, Sergeant Farro.”

Rhodes walked over to me and bent down so we were at eye level with each other. He smiled unpleasantly once more.

“Well, Christina, I’m afraid this is goodbye.” He somehow didn’t sound completely content with this development. He was smiling, but there was a hint of disappointment in his obsidian eyes. “Is there anything you want me to pass to your team? Heimdall and I will be meeting them soon enough.”

I opened my mouth, but hesitated before anything could come out of it.

From what I’d heard so far, I wasn’t headed back to the Stampede or anywhere like that. I wasn’t going to be a prisoner of war a second time. I probably wasn’t even going to live another twenty-four hours.

I didn’t have a lot of friends. Nearly all of the people I openly called my friends were distant memories from before I joined Northstar. They were from the days when I could go with my circle of girls on a Friday night back in university to bars and clubs. They were from the days when all there was to think about were the next upcoming tests, the homework that was due the following day, or the occasional boy in one of my classes. God, that feels like a lifetime ago now. What would the me back then think of the me today?

Likewise, for years now, I didn’t have any family. Dad was killed in a raid in the war between the militia and the US government. My older brother died by my hand in a bid to save my life. His death was probably the last straw for my mother, who died in the hospital less than a week after I had to painfully tell her about Michael. I’d been alone for a while now.

The only people I really felt reasonably felt close to since my life plummeted to where it was now… were the members of Shadow Team. Maybe it was presumptuous to feel this way, given that my time with them had been brief, but for a while I couldn’t deny that I felt like I belonged somewhere. That I was welcome. Even if it was a lie, since they didn’t know what I’d done, it felt good to be needed by them. I would never forget Josh’s hearty laughter and good-natured humour. I would never forget the way Genel watched over me before I woke up from the Stampede assault, or how she chose to confide in me of all people about her relationship with Sergeant Burke.

I will always remember that stoic team leader who, while lacking the other members’ cheery and outwardly welcoming personalities, still worked alongside me and trusted me to perform my role within Shadow Team. I’d always remember how, despite his stiff demeanour, still genuinely cared about the others. Maybe even… me.

Thinking about them was harder than it had ever been. It wasn’t that I regretted meeting any of them. Rather, it was that I regretted not being able to spend more time with them, and that they probably never even knew who I really was. I supposed my most immediate regret was not being able to tell any of them about the horrible things I’d done. It’s not that I sought validation or pity; deep down, I simply wanted someone to know. Even if I’d always feared condemnation, I wanted someone to know the real me. It just so happened that they were the closest to friends I’d ever had in a long time.

Having someone be a middle man was hardly the way I wished to impart the truth to the team, but right now I didn’t have the luxury of doing things my way. Even if Rhodes was just making small talk, I wanted to cling to the last chance I had at a shred of peace.

“Rhodes.”

“Yes, Christina?”

“I doubt you’ll live long enough to do it, but in the off chance you do, tell my team that… I’m sorry. And tell them what I did. About what happened here years ago.”

Rhodes’ smile faltered, his serious look coming back.

“The bombing, you mean? Hmm. Were they involved in it?” he asked.

“No. But even so, I want them to know. I could never quite tell them myself.”

“Hmph. You want to stain their memory of you, is that it? You really are a masochist.”

“No, I just don’t want to die a lie.”

Saying this felt strange. Death was a peculiar thing. People spend their whole lives knowing it’s an inevitability and that it’ll come for everyone in the end. Yet when it comes creeping over the horizon, no matter how ready one was to meet it, there was always still at least a little fear to be felt. Some small part of me still wanted to continue living, but there was an ironic sense of peace too from knowing the end was close.

Will it hurt? What happens after? These were questions my self-preservation demanded to know the answers to. But if I really tried my hardest, the voice asking them was barely a murmur.

Rhodes stared at me silently for a moment, then gave me a tiny nod. “Very well. Once they’re pacified, they’ll know one way or another.”

I doubted Shadow Team would go down to Rhodes, but the thought of my sins being bared to them still lifted a weight in my heart. This time, the decision wasn’t up to me. Maybe now that it was out of my hands, the right thing could be done.

I almost thanked my captor before settling for a curt little nod of my own.

Rhodes straightened up and looked back at Sergeant Farro, who seemed to listen to our brief conversation quietly and intently.

“All right, you can take her away, Sergeant,” Rhodes said to the soldier not holding me up.

Farro nodded. “Roger that. Thanks again. We’ll get out of your hair. Come on, Spears.”

Spears supported me out of the classroom with Farro in the lead. As I was ushered past Rhodes, I didn’t look anywhere else but at the floor. There was nothing else to say.

When I was carried outside the room, I saw that I was in a large atrium of some sort, and that the room I was confined to was on the second floor. Through the dim lighting provided by the skylight above, I was able to surmise that it was probably five or six in the morning. I knew it was right before dawn because while it was dark and Farro had switched on a Maglite for illumination, I could still see enough of my surroundings and the stars were now hidden from view. Only large clumps of soft blue clouds were visible through the glass roof.

The atrium itself was quite large, with three floors on either side of it. From the content of the fliers pinned to the walls and the presence of lockers to one side of the immediate hallway, I guessed I was at a post-secondary institution. Maybe SAIT Polytechnic or Mount Royal University. Wherever I was, the place was empty of the normal curricular and extracurricular buzz I’d come to expect from places like this. With this war going on, the building was as silent as a graveyard.

Farro and Spears led me to the end of the second floor hallway and down the static escalators at the end. From there, we moved further away from the heart of the spacious atrium, past a few closed food stalls and a shuttered bookstore before coming to a foyer that led to the outside of the building, where a trio of Humvees were waiting. Several US Army soldiers stood around the vehicles in the gloom.

Once I was outside, the Calgary winter air stung my skin. At the same time, the cold numbed the traces of pain I felt all across my body. The cuts Rhodes created on my skin seemed to stop throbbing as the bitter cold overwhelmed them.

“All right, everyone get back in your vehicles, we’re heading back!” Farro called out to his men as Spears and I neared the middle Humvee.

As several pairs of boots thunked repeatedly all around me and the soldiers piled into the Humvees, I was loaded in the back of the middle Humvee with Spears sitting to my left and Farro in front of me riding shotgun. Another soldier whose name I didn’t know got behind the wheel and started the engine.

“Spears, the bag,” Farro said, turning a bit in his seat to gesture toward me.

“Yes, sir.”

As I was still taking in my surroundings through the window next to me – having just confirmed I was at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology based on the red and blue logos on the outside of the next building over – Spears grabbed me by the neck and shoved a cloth bag over my head, plunging me in near total darkness.

For the next ten minutes or so, all I could hear were the Humvee’s engine rumbling and Farro occasionally telling his driver things like “over here” or “turn this way” right before I felt the vehicle make the corresponding maneuver.

Near the end of the ride, I felt the Humvee descending a ramp, clearly heading underground to a parking garage or something similar. When the vehicle finally halted and its engine quieted down, I became aware of the roar of at least a few industrial grade fans. The noise they made seemed to reverberate wherever I was, so my guess that I was in an underground parking level wasn’t the most improbable.

“Spears, Ellis, take her to the holding cells. I’ll get word out to the lieutenant that the insurgent has arrived,” Farro said to the other two soldiers inside the vehicle with him.

“Yes, sir. Any idea when she’ll hang?”

“I don’t know the specifics. Not for me to say. That’s Baker’s call. It could be in an hour, or this afternoon. You’ll hear about the time and place from someone higher up.”

“Understood.”

The door nearest to me opened and someone roughly grabbed my right arm and hauled me out of the back seat. Robbed of my sight and still weak from Rhodes’ treatment, I couldn’t do much except fall out of the Humvee with a grunt as I crashed on my side on cold, hard concrete.

A man’s voice seemed to approach me as it spoke. “The hell is wrong with her? Get up, you skank.”

A sudden blow to my stomach made me curl up instinctively and cry out hoarsely. The point of impact of the kick wasn’t exactly where I’d broken ribs, but all the same the blow hurt tremendously.

“Hey,” said another voice that I recognized as Spears’, “be careful. She’s already hanging on by a thread. If Baker finds her dead before the execution, he’ll be furious.”

“Tch. I almost don’t care. This bitch killed a bunch of us, didn’t she?” the second voice said, and whoever it was placed a foot on my shoulder and pushed me onto my back.

“I know, but Jesus, don’t kick her. I don’t want Baker chewing me out because you killed her.”

“Whatever. Let’s get her to a cell. She can’t die fast enough, I’m telling you.”

I felt two pairs of hands grab both of my arms and pull me to my feet. Spears and the other soldier dragged me for a couple of minutes, my feet scraping on concrete, then what sounded like wood, then concrete again.

Eventually, I heard the rattle of a metal door in front of me and the bag over my head was removed. Before I could take stock of my surroundings, the men dragging me threw me forward into a cell. Devoid of strength, I collapsed to the cold concrete floor on my face and stomach.

As the cell door rattled shut again and footsteps echoed away from where I was lying, I lifted my head to look around at the cell I was in. It was small, containing only the standard bench that doubled as a bed secured to the wall, and a tiny toilet that reeked of stagnant water. Barely two people could fit in this cell, but then it was only ever designed to fit a single prisoner.

I managed to hoist myself up to a sitting position on the hard bench and lean my back against the equally cold wall. I hugged the single layer of clothing that was my parka more tightly to my torso and exhaled a dull mist that hovered in front of my face before disappearing in seconds.

There were cells just like the one I was in all around, although from the light of dawn pouring in through the basement windows in each cell, I could tell I was the only one in this cell block. Some distant voices of who I presumed to be US soldiers were echoing from somewhere further down the row of cells, but otherwise my end of the hall of cells was quiet.

I looked down at my palms, unsure of what to do with my last moments. What did inmates whose time on death row was drawing to a close do? Weren’t they offered a last meal of their choosing? Didn’t they get to speak to their families one last time before the end? In a way, maybe even they were better off because they were allowed those final concessions. I had no family to see anymore, and as famished and weak I felt, I didn’t feel it necessary to ask for any food or water.

It would all be over soon.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it might be like to stop breathing. Was it agony? Or was it like falling asleep?

Sometime later, I heard two or three raucous voices right outside my cell. Just as I began to realize that I must have fallen asleep from exhaustion on the plastic bench, the cell door slid open and I felt a hand roughly grab me by my hair. I yelped as several strands came out at the roots.

“You’re the slut who’s been killing our friends, huh?” a gruff, slightly-out-of-breath male voice growled close to my ear. I opened my eyes fully to find the face of a uniformed soldier close to mine. Pure hatred was plain to see in his scowl and glare. A glance without moving my head much revealed two others standing outside my cell. They too, looked on with sheer abhorrence etched into their faces.

The man inside the cell with me lifted me off the bench, painfully yanking at my hair as he did so. I tried to reach for where he was holding me, but before I could try to gain some leverage he shoved me to the floor roughly and descended to it with me.

I tried to lift my torso off the floor, but the soldier held my head down and smashed my cheek to the freezing floor. As a sharp pain shot through my head from the impact, a couple of other voices somewhere close by cheered my aggressor on.

“Yeah, get her on the floor!”

“Fuck her up! Come on, Ellis!”

The man handling me on the floor grabbed my hips and pulled my rear end up toward him before carelessly pulling the waistband of my jeans down my thighs. The cold air greeted the bare skin of my legs with merciless promptness, but not long after it did, a couple of rough hands clawed at my buttocks and struck me there a couple times.

“Yeahhh, I’ll fucking show you to mess with us, bitch,” the soldier behind me snarled.

I tried to whimper, halfway between staying silent and begging him to take it easy, but either way he paid any protestations – verbal or otherwise – no mind.

Not long after I was partially undressed, shivering from the low temperature inside the cell, I felt something paradoxically hot and tough work itself between my legs and inside me.

I screamed as more pain shot through my broken body as Ellis or whoever pressed into me from behind. I tried not to give out any moans or grunts, but the man’s forceful and contemptuous thrusts were much too excruciating to endure quietly.

“Fuck yeah! You like that, huh? Like that, you murdering little bitch?”

He kept shoving my face into the floor to keep me from lifting my head, though he didn’t really need to as I was sapped of all strength to resist him. As his thrusts picked up in power and speed, so too did his animalistic noises. Some part of me still felt horrified by what was being done to me, but that part of me paled in the shadow of the one that simply told me that this was nothing I didn’t have coming.

The other two soldiers who had accompanied Ellis howled with delight and whistled excitedly as tears of distress gathered in my eyes.

“Don’t hog her, Ellis – I want a go at her after you!”

“Yeah man, leave some for us, all right?”

If Ellis head them over his panting and groaning, he didn’t bother to acknowledge them. He merely hastened his pace and kept working on me, brutally clawing at my skin and occasionally taunting me to resist as he kept going.

A tear escaped my eye and dropped to the floor.

It hurts. Please stop. It hurts.

Despite all the pain and humiliation, I did not beg for the man to stop. It wasn’t that there was any pleasure to be had from this.

I simply had no right to ask for mercy.





I arrived at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, more commonly called SAIT Polytechnic, at roughly twenty past five in the morning. The campus was large, about the size of most amusements parks. Comprised of nine campus buildings, the institution was widely renowned for its programs geared towards preparing students for careers in trades like automotive, transportation, and construction, while also having schools dedicated to education in fields of health and public safety, business, and information technologies.

Though I’d never been a student here before, I did my fair share of research on it years ago, before I ever considered a career in the federal government.

I remembered my dreams to be a librarian. Remembering that aspiration filled me with a hollow wistfulness. It felt like such a long time ago that it was almost as if it was a dream of a wholly separate person from me.

I snapped out of my momentary reverie and resumed scouting the building ahead of me. Having come from Panorama Hills to the north, I was currently hunkered down at a gas station across the highway from the northern boundaries of the campus. The blizzard that had pummeled the city mere hours ago had gone sometime whole I rested a measly three hours in the safehouse. Now, as I scoped out what parts of SAIT Polytechnic I could from across 16th Avenue, the air was much calmer and visibility was back to normal for this time of day.

From the two buildings I could see, it was easy to infer that the campus was largely empty like much of Calgary. The Aldred Centre to the left with its big, clear windows showed the large food that comprised its first floor as abandoned and devoid of any activity. The other building to the right, a brown brick one called the Thomas Riley building, was older and didn’t afford the same transparency as the Aldred Centre, so I couldn’t see quite as much into it. However, both buildings appeared silent and dead.

Of course, if Rhodes and Angel were inside either of them, odds were that I wouldn’t know for sure unless I saw a light on in a window, or a big enough ruckus reached my ears.

Stifling an annoyed cluck of my tongue at the prospect of searching nine huge buildings for two people, I made my way across 16th Avenue and reached 12th Street, the short throughway that split the Aldred Centre and the Thomas Riley building. While I was still debating which of the campus buildings to search first, the rumble of powerful military engines drifted toward me from somewhere up ahead at the roundabout at the end of 12th Street.

Being mindful to stick to the darkness to conceal myself, I maneuvered toward the source of the noise that broke the morning quiet. Eventually, after traversing much of the eastern wall of the Thomas Riley building, I took cover behind a pillar outside the southernmost wing and peered behind it further south at the path between the Johnson-Cobbe Energy Centre and the heart of the campus, the Stan Grad Centre.

Three standard military land utility vehicles not too different from mine were parked outside the western foyer of Stan Grad. I was just in time taking cover to observe about ten US Army soldiers leaving their vehicles and forming a loose circle around the Humvees.

One of them – the leader, I presumed – stepped out of the second vehicle’s front passenger seat and spoke to the rest in a carrying volume that I clearly understood from the fifty or so metres of distance between me and his group.

“Spears, with me. The rest of you, wait out here. We won’t be long,” the soldier told his men.

He and one other soldier broke off from the rest and entered Stan Grad through the western doors.

I stayed concealed where I was, trying to get a read on what was going on here.

Prior to me heading here, I didn’t have any intel on what to expect of the place. I had subconsciously been preparing to infiltrate an enemy stronghold not unlike CFB Calgary, but when I got here the campus was largely abandoned. Clearly, Northstar and the US Army were associated with each other in some way, but coming here finding only a handful of the latter made me suspect the two had different goals.

The fact that the soldiers were here in this dead part of town meant something was here. I was betting on that being either Rhodes or Angel.

The question now was, do I follow the two soldiers who separated from the main group, or wait out here to see what happens?

Five seconds of silent deliberation later, I decided to hold my position. If either Rhodes or my former XO showed up, then—

I gripped the barrel of my P416 more tightly in my hand.

I stayed low and carefully maneuvered behind the closest pillar to the group so I could see and hear everything better. For the first five minutes, nothing of note happened. All I heard were idle conversations between the soldiers, which were of no value to me. After those five minutes, none of them gave any indication as to why they were even here.

I gnashed my teeth in frustration. Maybe I should have followed the two soldiers inside.

An eleven-minute wait yielded no clues. I was just about to resolve to head into the building myself when one of the soldiers guarding the rear of the third Humvee turned to his buddy beside him.

“Man, what’s with the holdup? How long does it take to pick up a rebel or insurgent or whatever, anyway? My nipples could cut glass out here!”

The soldier shivered visibly and jogged almost comically in place as his colleague laughed mirthlessly.

“Don’t know,” the second soldier replied. “The Sarge seems to be no-nonsense and all, but I personally think these mercs have us by the balls. Anyway, if you really feel cold, you can head in there and warm up.”

“Sarge said to wait out here, though,” the first soldier whined, continuing to stomp in place as if he were barefoot and standing on ice.

“Then I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“Shit. I gotta take a piss.”

“So go take care of it,” the second US Army infantryman sighed, sounding worn out by the less professional one’s complaints.

“Can you come with me?”

“Are you serious?”

“Like, cover me and stuff, man. I don’t wanna piss without anyone looking.”

“Jesus, Marcus. No one wants to piss with anyone looking. Just go around the corner or something and get it done.”

“But we shouldn’t split up!”

“I swear to God, Marcus, just shut up and be done with it. I’m not holding your dick for you. There’s no one out here.”

“Argh, fine. I can’t hold it in any longer! Watch my rifle!”

“Sure, whatever.”

I watched as the restless soldier put down his M4 on the ground and hobbled down the path toward me. I pressed my back against the column and embraced the shadows to stay out of sight.

The soldier, Marcus, wasn’t being even remotely mindful of his surroundings, however, and that was thanks to his bursting bladder. He practically skipped past where I was hiding and turned onto the path running between the Thomas Riley and Johnson-Cobbe buildings. I heard him cursing frantically in a low voice as he hurriedly picked a spot on the latter building’s northern wall to relieve himself, dancing in place as he tried to undo his zipper.

“Damn zipper. Oh shit, oh shit, ohshitohshit, come on…! Right… there! Ahhhh.”

Evidently managing to unzip finally, I heard the unmistakeable sound of a stream of liquid hitting the wall with the force of a hose. I took this sound as a cue to make my move.

Taking note of where the nearest soldiers were looking, I crept out from cover when no one was looking this way and quickly, silently moved up behind Marcus, who was still gushing a river at the wall with his back turned to me. The other soldiers around the Humvees didn’t have line of sight of this part of the wall, so I breathed a silent sigh of relief when I was practically right behind the oblivious man.

I slowly drew my sidearm with one hand and lightly tapped the end of my suppressor to the back of Marcus’ balaclava. He jumped a little and began to turn his head, but I swiftly warned him against it.

“You turn around or call for help, you’re a dead man,” I murmured just loudly enough for him to hear me.

“Huh? Oh shit,” he squeaked, stiffening up like a board. “Oh shit—”

“Quiet,” I hissed at him, nudging him a second time with my suppressor. “Hands up.”

“But I’m taking a piss, man—”

“Fine!” I snapped impatiently, feeling like I had wasted a precious minute already just telling him to freeze. “Keep them there. If I see either of them so much as twitch the wrong way, I’ll blow your head off. Now you’ve got ten seconds to tell me why you and your friends are here at the campus. Start talking.”

Marcus’ urine kept crashing against the wall as he began answering, clearly scared out of his wits at being caught literally with his pants down.

“Okay, okay. Just… don’t shoot, please. We’re picking up a high value individual. That’s what our sarge told us.”

“An HVI? Who? What for?” I demanded.

“I… I dunno, man. Some rebel or something like that. Heard they’ve been causing us problems so our CO wants to teach them a lesson.”

“What does this rebel look like?”

“I don’t know.”

“You want to rethink your answer?”

“I can’t, man, I can’t because I really don’t know what they look like! All I know is we’re supposed to transport a special prisoner. Baker wants them alive so he can execute them in front of everyone today. Those latest attacks on us have got to stop, see? So he wants to make an example.”

Steven Baker. The leader of all the enemy soldiers occupying the city.

Marcus was still pissing, but sooner or later one of his friends would wonder why he wasn’t back yet.

“Who are you meeting here? Who’s handing off the prisoner?” I asked urgently, giving him a third nudge with my Walther Creed.

“Some, uh… a merc. Yeah, a merc! From this PMC called Northstar. You heard of ‘em?”

Theo Rhodes. He’s here.

“We’ve met,” I answered quietly.

“Yeah, them. So… who are you, man? Look, if you just let me go, I won’t tell anyone you’re here. All right? Just let me—”

“Where are you taking this HVI?” I interrupted him before he could get too deep into bargaining. “Answer me, now!”

“T-The Calgary Courts Centre!” Marcus replied, sounding truly terrified at my harsher tone. “We got orders to keep the prisoner there. Maybe even the execution will be there too, I dunno. But that’s where we’re taking them.”

By now, Marcus’ stream had tapered off to a trickle. I noticed him starting to fumble to zip up his pants. I made a quick assessment of his build and catalogued what little I’d seen and heard of his tics and mannerisms in my head.

“Don’t bother with your pants. Take your clothes off,” I ordered him.

“Huh?” he said, sounding absolutely bewildered at the random command. “What do you mean, take my—”

“Exactly what it means. Take them all off. Hurry up.”

I bashed the bottom of my pistol’s grip on the back of his head, not meaning to incapacitate him, but merely intimidating him. Another less than gentle verbal persuasion from me had the soldier undressing at a thankfully and amazingly rapid speed.

Once he was down to his boxers, he asked, “D’you want my boxers too, or—?”

Without waiting for him to finish, I pulled the trigger and sent blood splattering the wall ahead of Marcus. His body collapsed to the ground like a puppet whose strings were just cut.

Not wasting any time, I rapidly began shedding my gear and clothes as well, then replaced them with Marcus’ uniform and gear. He was a little leaner than he initially looked, so his clothes felt tight in some areas, but they fit me regardless. I managed to get into his full attire in less than five minutes, which was already too long for a simple washroom break.

I pulled on his balaclava to conceal my face, then hid my own clothes and gear underneath some low shrubs near the western end of the Thomas Riley building’s southernmost wing. I’d have to come back for my things later, but right now I had more important arrangements.

By the time I returned to Marcus’ body, the rumble of the Humvees’ engines was reverberating through the campus again.

“All right, everyone get back in your vehicles! We’re heading back!” one of the soldiers ordered to the others.

“Oi! Marcus, you coming or what?” I heard another soldier yelling from that direction.

There was no time to hide the body. I gave myself one last look for any fatal gaps in my disguise, then took a breath and returned my best impression of a bellyaching, pain-in-the-ass soldier.

“Sorry man, I’m coming!” I called back, assuming a bit of a higher pitch to imitate Marcus as best as I could. Sounding like him was fortunately not too hard as his vocal range wasn’t that different from mine.

“We’re leaving! Hurry up!”

I jogged over to the Humvees and made a show of clumsily picking up the M4 the real Marcus left on the ground.

The soldier who was speaking to Marcus before moved toward the rear left passenger door of the last Humvee.

“What took you so long?” he asked, sounding exasperated.

I scratched at the top of my balaclava. “Sorry. Number two.”

“Christ, you animal. Did you at least wipe your—” The soldier shook his head mid-sentence, then gestured toward the mounted 50-caliber machine gun on the roof of the Humvee. “Actually, never mind. Don’t answer that. Just get up on the fifty.”

“Roger. Be nice to get out of this weather!”

I approached the right rear passenger door of the Humvee just as another soldier walked in front of the third vehicle with a person slung by the arm over his shoulders. I instantly recognized the jacket and the shock of rose pink hair gently flowing in the wind. She was placed in the back seat of the LUV ahead of the one I was entering before I could confirm visual on her face, but there was no mistaking that hair or her petite frame.

Christina Valentine. So she was still alive, then.

My hand surreptitiously crept to my hip, where Marcus’ Beretta M9 was nestled in his holster.

I was jostled out of my momentary lapse by the door beside me opening and smacking me on the hip. As I jumped a little in surprise, the soldier who seemed to be stuck as Marcus’ partner gestured for me to get in.

“Come on! What are you standing around for? Let’s go!”

I hesitantly ducked into the vehicle and stood up so that I was poking out of the hole in the roof. I charged the Browning M2 mounted on the roof as the convoy of Humvees trundled toward 14th Street to the west of SAIT.

I aimed the sight of the machine gun at the back of the second vehicle, hovering my finger over the trigger.

She’s right there. Just pull that trigger. You’re manning a big gun, aren’t you?

I placed the pad of my finger on the M2’s trigger and kept the gun on the second Humvee even as the convoy weaved between lanes to maneuver around abandoned civilian vehicles on the highway en route to the downtown core.

You can kill her right here. Three… no, more than three years now you’ve been looking for her and the others responsible. Don’t worry – Rhodes is still in play. You can ask him instead about who’s behind that black ink.

Christina Valentine doesn’t need to talk.

I slowly, steadily began applying pressure on the mounted weapon’s trigger. The whole time, my sights did not waver from the space where I knew that woman was sitting in that vehicle ahead.

Just before the break in the trigger was reached, my eyes finally opened to the plating installed on the back of the vehicle ahead. Stock, basic Humvees typically weren’t armoured, but these and the ones we had at Haven were.

Damn.

I released the trigger gently and gritted my teeth. I stayed silent as the convoy headed straight for downtown Calgary.

I would have my chance. I’d be damned if I let her slip away now.





My head felt like it was swimming in a fog. How I was still in any way conscious was beyond me.

I wasn’t sure if this was the first man, or the second, or the third inside me now. Perhaps each of them already had a round with me and they were coming for seconds.

In any case, that didn’t matter. The pain had long since dulled to a vigorous throbbing all over my body. I was aware of my battered, broken state, but I could no longer scream in agony or gasp in torment. I was aware of the pain, but I was long past processing it.

I was exhausted. How much longer would this go on?

When will I finally die?

The harsh pounding against my buttocks hastened drastically before eventually another deep, guttural groan exploded, and the movements ceased. There was yet another vivid flash of heat expanding within me before I felt something leave me and some more muffled laughter broke out somewhere nearby.

When the hands grasping me on the hips left my skin, I was finally allowed to slump facedown on the floor without resistance.

Was this it? Was it over?

There were some vague shouts that I didn’t bother to make out the words for. A couple of the men nearby sounded angry. The thumps of their feet thundered and shook the floor beneath me. They had to be arguing over who would have their turn next.

It was hard to be sure, but I thought I sensed the three of them scuffling with each other just outside the cell. Wearily, I wondered why they bothered to fight over me. I was hardly resisting and surely I was nowhere near as good as anyone else for this.

After some time, the thumping and rumbles stopped. I didn’t bother to turn myself over to check what had happened. I doubted I could even manage to lift myself from the floor if I tried. I breathed raggedly through my nose and swam in the thin divide between wakefulness and unconsciousness.

A pair of warm hands grabbed my shoulders. Someone else was going to have a go at me. I tried to brace myself for the hand yanking at my hair or the one pushing my cheek into the floor, but neither came.

Instead, the hands flipped me over onto my back and I felt someone lifting me up slightly to an inclined sitting position with my back against what felt like a forearm. Something small but gentle pressed carefully against the side of my neck before departing.

Can’t execute a corpse, I suppose…

I felt a hand lifting and supporting the back of my head. The blurry outline of a person crouching beside me came into view, but I couldn’t make out their features. My eyes wouldn’t focus or adjust.

Whoever was there shook me gently for a moment, as if to wake me when I wasn’t even asleep. I gradually became aware of a voice calling my name, but I couldn’t quite place it right away.

I blinked my eyes sluggishly a couple of times, succeeding in regaining part of my normal vision until I was finally able to see more of the man who was holding me.

Short, black hair. Dark eyes that bore into mine with a probing urgency. Lips set in a tight frown that was almost a scowl. I watched them part and move to form one word.

Christina.

I tried to laugh, but my throat felt too dry and too raw for it. Surely I was dreaming of him now. It was to be expected, I suppose. Some small, insignificant part of my brain clung desperately to the irrational hope that he’d save me like he once did before. But I knew in my heart he wasn’t going to. He was nowhere near me. He was the first to go.

No, maybe this wasn’t a dream, but rather the afterlife. I had died without me realizing it right away, and he was welcoming me from between the divide of the past life and the next.

Do I even believe that? Is this what dying is supposed to be like?

There was a weird, vague sensation of him turning his back to me and taking both of my arms. He draped my arms over his shoulders and placed his hands beneath my thighs. With a grunt, he rose to his feet, supporting my legs to his hips. I heard him say something to me that I didn’t quite catch.

Hey. Isn’t heaven supposed to have better transportation for those who were new arrivals?

Wait, why am I even here? My place isn’t here with him. But…

…then why was he here, too?

This was all too tiring to even ponder. I wanted nothing more than to just drift off to nothingness.

“Hey,” I whispered, not sure if he could even hear me. He was walking now, his strides brisk. His motions felt real, as if the two of us were still alive. “Knight.”

He didn’t respond. He kept moving, not stopping to address me as he carried me off to who knows where.

The feeling of his body against mine was strangely comforting. The thought of him being there made my heart clench in my chest. I choked back a gasp as I buried my face in the back of his shoulder and wrapped my arms a little more securely around his neck.

“No, I guess… I should be saying ‘Ian’.”

He felt real. But there was no way he could really be here.

“Will you… listen to me?” I mumbled feebly to him as he continued to carry me on his back. “I know you’re probably not even… really here, but…”

He wasn’t here. Even if his warmth felt real.

But…

“There’s something I have to say… I don’t know who else… to tell. I’m sorry. I’m sorry... I hope you don’t mind.”

Ian still did not respond. I wasn’t sure if he could understand, or let alone hear me. He simply kept moving. I must not have weighed much anymore, because from how I bobbed up and down on his back slightly, I could tell he was practically jogging even while supporting me.

I lifted my face from the back of his shirt and made sure to put my mouth close to his ear so he would hear. I clung more tightly against him, determined not to slip away until I’d told him everything. He wasn’t really here, so I figured I could be brave enough to hold him like this just this once.

“Ian—”

I felt that same damned hesitation again, the same one that reared its ugly head whenever I wanted to come clean about what I did and who I really was. This time though, I wasn’t going to let it win. There was no point in indulging it any longer.

“—I’ve done terrible things. So many terrible things.”

Once I started, I couldn’t stop. The dam cracked, then shattered completely.