She broke my fucking heart, looking at me with terrified eyes, begging me to help her.
“Please, Roan.” Vasily’s blue eyes met mine, swimming with tears and fear. “I’m so cold, brother.”
The flashback exploded as my ears echoed with the sounds of Clara choking, gasping, dying.
She’d been the colour my life was missing. She splashed me in yellows and oranges; she turned my black soul into a riot of rainbows. And now her light was gone, leaving me in the dark once again.
“That’s it, Operative Fox. You know who you are. Fight us no more.”
Hazel.
After everything she’d given me, I couldn’t go back. I wasn’t strong enough to ride through the storm of sadness—I couldn’t be there for her.
Everything I’d worked so hard for didn’t matter anymore. What was the point when all the good things in my life were stolen anyway? No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t cure illness or bring loved ones back to life.
I couldn’t change the past—just like I couldn’t change the future. It was written in stone, crushing my bones, wrapping me in chains that I’d only just begun to shed.
“What is a Ghost, Operative Fox?” My handler stood above me, pacing my cell.
I clenched my teeth. I didn’t want to answer.
He kicked me, growling, “Answer me. What is a Ghost? What is your only purpose?”
Huddling into myself, I answered, “To kill.”
“Kill who?”
“Anyone who our clients wish to die.”
“And that makes you?”
“An assassin.”
My handler clasped his hands in front of him. “That’s right, Operative Fox. You are a highly trained, highly specialized assassin. Your life is ours. Your only task is to carry out orders from governments, individuals, and anyone else rich enough to buy your services. You are ruthless. You are merciless. We made you this way. You are a Ghost.”
The conditioning I’d been running so hard from opened its sinister arms, welcoming me back. It was like slipping into well-worn clothing, still warm from when I had shed them. I hated how easy it was to revert. How all my struggles meant nothing. They were right. They fucking owned me. Always had. Always would.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
The urge to kill returned with a vengeance. There was nothing I could do to prevent it. Seeing Clara die had reminded me of my purpose. My one and only purpose.
I need to fight.
I need to draw blood.
I need to kill.
I needed a victim. If I didn’t kill and accept my heritage, I’d explode into a billion fragments, raining blood and bone.
“You thought you were free?”
I looked up at the walls of the dank pit I’d spent the last two nights in. I’d tried to run like a fucking pussy, but they caught me. Just like every time.
“You know there’s no escaping us, Fox. The sooner you give in, the easier life will be for you.” He kicked some snow from around the hole, landing on my freezing body. “Say you’ll obey, and you can come back inside.”
The thought of warmth and food almost broke me, but I was a stupid, stubborn ten-year-old—I wouldn’t give in.
I turned my back and didn’t look up when he left.
That night was the first time I dragged a sharp stick across my arm, trying to find freedom from the impossibility of my life.
The flashback ended, and I bolted.
I couldn’t be anywhere near Hazel. I wouldn’t have the self-control. She’d already lost her daughter I didn’t want to steal her life.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
I had no control left. I was a machine. A Ghost. I’d been stupid to try and change my life path. I needed to purge. I needed pain. Agony. Torture. I couldn’t live in a body while my soul tore itself into pieces.
Throwing myself down the stairs onto the floor of Obsidian, I searched the early arrivals.
You won’t find redemption here.
My mind darted into the unknown, feeding me alternatives that I’d never thought of.
Go back. You’ve accepted who you are. Go back. Go home.
My hands clenched at the thought of returning to Mother Russia. Returning to the place where my life was ruined. I would renounce everything: turn my back on Hazel, admit I could never heal. Everything I’d fought so hard for was a complete fucking joke.
Ghosts didn’t have families. Ghosts felt no pain.
So why am I in so much fucking pain?
My vision went hazy. I couldn’t do it anymore. Hating myself for my weakness; flaring with shame for my needs, I grabbed a pen from my pocket and stabbed it into my palm.
The agony washed through me with a wave of heat, followed by prickles of release. It granted a small spotlight of rationality in the chaotic storm of confusion.
I knew what I had to do.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
Zel owned me more than anyone, and I wouldn’t survive without her. Clara had gone. Hazel was all I had left. I’d kept secrets from her. So many fucking secrets.
I wasn’t worthy. I wasn’t safe.
But I could change all that.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
My heart died in my chest at the thought of betraying her. She would need me. She deserved a shoulder to cry on and another person to share the burden of grief. But I couldn’t. Not yet. Not while I existed on the border of Ghost and sanity. I couldn’t hug her. I couldn’t console her pain.
The moment I let my guard down, I would snap her neck.
I couldn’t give Zel what she needed. I wasn’t whole.
And I meant to fucking deserve her.
My anger turned outward, focusing on the handlers who’d fucked up my life.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
The conditioning throbbing in my brain was right. I needed to kill. And now I had my victim. I was done being an outcast. I was done not being normal.
I thought Clara had been my cure.
I was wrong.
The fucking cure was inside me all along. I held the key to fixing myself by returning to my past and annihilating them.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
“Fuck this.” I let down all my walls. I welcomed the ruthless conditioning with open arms. I smiled as the ice entered my limbs and filled my head with fog. I allowed my muscles to remember exactly what I’d been programmed to do.
I went Ghost.
And I lost myself.
* * *
Mother Russia.
The Iron Fist of a past I couldn’t out run. Bleak and barren and home to my misery.
I only vaguely remembered how I got here. I bought every ticket in the first class cabin to ensure no one touched me. I locked myself into the freakish persona of an assassin and no one—not even the air hostesses came near me.
The moment I landed, I stole a 4WD to drive into the snowy wilderness. I said goodbye to no one. I just disappeared.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
The conditioning throbbed harder and harder, recognising its place of origin. I was returning to my handlers and the training was fucking ecstatic to embrace the true machine I was.
I had no belongings apart from some cash, passport, and my memories, but that’s all I needed. The establishment stole me when I had nothing, and I would return with nothing.
And then I’d make them fucking pay.
Over and over again.
I was ready to go rogue and dance in blood. The ice was back in my veins, howling like a Siberian winter. I’d embraced who I truly was—who they made me become.
“You’re not a bad man. You can’t be a bad man because I love you and well, I couldn’t love a bad man.” Clara’s voice whipped around me with the artic wind.
I shook my head as a fresh, crippling wave of grief threatened to overshadow the rage. I couldn’t let myself mourn. Not yet. Not when I had so much to do.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
S
ucking in a deep breath, I deliberately pushed Clara from my thoughts.
I stood on the perimeter of the establishment, hidden by thick trees. Thunder rumbled above, chasing jagged lightning, illuminating the compound in flashes of white.
My skin crawled beneath my black attire. Home. Hell. My place of birth from child to killer.
Snow flurried like icy tears—glistening in the dead of night, raining over the landscape and hiding a multitude of sins. Russia was just like I remembered—frigid, ruthless, uninhabitable.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
Australia, Hazel, Clara,—all of it seemed like a dream. I felt as if I’d never left this terrible wasteland and everything in me said to run.
Beneath the pulsating conditioning all I wanted to do was run far, far away and never look back. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be fucking free from all of this.
My muscles tensed. You will be free. Kill them all. Make them give you freedom by taking their fucking lives.
Straightening my back, ignoring the howling wind and jagged teeth of frost, I prepared for battle. I would win tonight. I would take back what was mine.
“You always were a weakling, Fox. Got to beat that compassion out of you.”
The flashback came from nowhere as I stared at the gargoyle embellished facility—so similar to the building I’d erected at home.
“You’re no one to anyone anymore. You’re an orphan, a drifter, an unknown. We are now your family, your shelter, your owners. Never forget that.”
Rows upon rows of windows, containing cell upon cell of new recruits and old, glowed dimly in the night. My heart thundered to think how many more they’d ruined while I’d been gone.
“Time to work, Fox.”
I rolled over, clenching my teeth against the broken radius in my left arm. I couldn’t remember a thing.
My handler laughed. “Trying to recall what some dickshit paid you to do last night? You won’t, Operative Fox. We programed you to forget. You’re brainwashed to suffer short-term amnesia whenever you complete a mission. That way you cannot compromise yourself or us if you’re ever caught. You cannot lie if you don’t remember.”
I wrapped my hands around my head, trying to squeeze the flashbacks from my thoughts. I couldn’t go to war compromised. I had to stay clearheaded and be the ultimate Ghost.
A sudden image of Clara consumed me, almost bringing me to my knees. Her innocent smile, her intelligent eyes—all gone.
“Roan, don’t fight with my mummy. She needs you.”
My stomach snarled, tangling with my heart. I was a fucking bastard for leaving her. Abandoning her and Zel when she needed me most.
I couldn’t breathe at the thought of never seeing Clara again. I’d never fight the horrible urge to kill such innocence again all while falling madly fucking in love with her.
Hazel replaced her daughter, taking me hostage. Her tears, her grief gripped my heart while the haunting sound of her wails danced on the wind. I hated that I wasn’t there for her. I hated I wasn’t man enough, strong enough.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
Blinking, I forced them both from my thoughts. They had no place here. Nothing else existed but the machine I was and the bloodbath I was about to indulge in.
Balling my hands, I took a step out of the tree line. Exposed in the cleared snowy moat of land around the house, I shed everything but my mission. I ceased to be Roan. I ceased to be heartbroken by a little girl’s death. I ceased to hate myself for not being there for the mother.
For this mission, I was nameless.
I was Karma. I was Fate.
I ran.
The backdoor, fortified with iron that I helped maintain, and a lock I helped design, barred my entry. Scraps littered the snow from dinner and trails of blood drifted off into the distance where local wolves took recruits that hadn’t made the cut.
I might have turned blind from a psychological issue to avoid more horror, but others—they just shut down. Nothing reached them. Not even the threat of death.
Picking up a rock resting by the door, I smashed the hinges with all my strength. I’d never be able to crack the lock, but the hinges—they were old and weather-worn. Wood splintered and groaned mixing with the howling wind.
By the time the door creaked open, my hands were bloody and I shook uncontrollably from ice.
I weaved through shadows, breaking into the one place I’d always tried to break out of. It was dark and late and no one was around. Dancing around tripwires and avoiding alarms, I moved deeper into Hell.
I infiltrated an operation so cocky and arrogant, they never thought to fear one of their own coming back to end them. They were so self-assured, believing their human weapons were subservient and loyal to the end.
They had it wrong.
No one wanted to be there.
No one wanted to serve in purgatory.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
My first stop was the armoury. A range of knives, blades, and other equipment lay as I remembered from two years ago. The anvil was the same. The stench of sweat and metal the same. But there were new items, too. The finesse not as refined, the lines not as straight. The smithy had been the only place where I’d found a smidgen of peace.
“I want you, Fox. I want to touch you.” Hazel’s voice rang in my ears, buckling my heart. I wanted so fucking much for her to touch me, to not have to deal with the shit inside my head.
The fucking bastards had to die. It was my only chance at freeing myself forever. My last hope for a cure. My last chance at happiness with a woman I desperately wanted to hug and protect.
I stood over a pile of weapons, taming my rapid heartbeat. I wanted to inflict pain. After all, I was a fucking Ghost.
I collected crescent moon blades, a silenced pistol, and a hammer I used so often to beat metal into submission.
That was all I needed.
My breathing calmed, my muscles bunched in preparation, and I slunk like the demon I was down unforgotten corridors. No spike of emotion. No residual humanity. I embraced the ice.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
The witching hour was mine and I snuck into the first unseen bedroom, morphing with the dark. I didn’t know who’d created the society of Ghosts, or who bought our services. Some missions had been politicians, other movie starlets. There was no rhyme to who we killed—if they had money, they could buy us. We were purely guns for hire and it was time to burn the fucking place to the ground.
The first man I stood over wasn’t significant. I wasn’t in his realm of minions. He was handsome, well-built, and fast asleep like a fucking angel. But he was a ruthless dictator just like the rest—profiting on others pain and misery.
I pressed one hand over his mouth.
His eyes flew wide, confusion smothering.
He squirmed and his hands came up to touch me.
It was instantaneous. To be inflicted is to inflict.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
I bowed to the command for the first time in two fucking years.
With precision and an emotion almost described as serenity, I dragged the sharp blade over the gristle and tendons of his throat.
Instantly, warm, coppery blood sprang from his body in a brutal cascade. His eyes wrenched wider, his mouth snapped below my palm, and he thrashed around in death throes.
His heart pumped rapidly toward death and the stench of his bowels loosening serenaded him from living to corpse.
I left his grave and returned to the hunt. The hunt for evil. He was the first to die, but definitely not the last. I gave myself completely to the sweetness of killing. I threw myself into my task and everything else ceased to exist. Time blurred, blood flowed, and men died like fucking flies.
Room after room, I entered and dispatched. Five with the silenced gun. Seven with a blade. Two with the hammer. Four with my bare hands.
The night belonged to death, and I was the executioner.
The eighteenth
handler died just before daybreak. His final cry petered out, smothered by my hand, and I stood upright rolling my shoulders.
The conditioning pulsed behind my eyes and I could barely feel my extremities. My body had become an instrument of carnage and I didn’t focus on the splatter of blood or other human tissue covering my clothing.
Stalking down the corridor, I knew I wouldn’t find my handler in this wing. He always slept alone on the opposite side of the compound. He was the next to die. He was my final trophy.
I savoured the anticipation and prowled through the dwelling, suffering blending memories of Obsidian and here. Every door looked the same, the length of corridor the same. I kept expecting to see Oscar appear or Clara bolting toward me.
“You’re not a bad man.”
Clara had that wrong. I was the worst sort of man: I was a murderer.
Instead of rushing to finish my mission, I stopped to look at the cells. I couldn’t let them die behind locked doors when I snuffed out the final handler. Retracing my steps, I headed to the heart of the house where the alarm system rested along with the security mainframe that kept every keypad lock secure on the cells.
With my blade, I stabbed it into the main console and severed power to the rest of the compound.
Instantly, alarms erupted, screaming a warning, shredding the silence of the dawn.
Rushing back upstairs, I passed children, teenagers, and adults as they shuffled out of their rooms. Recruits and operatives, all in different stages of training looked bewildered but with a small spark of hope in their eyes.
The ones who knew me nodded in silent respect before charging down the stairs and out into the freezing wilderness. The ones who didn’t were coaxed by others to leave.
It only took a few minutes before the entire establishment was an empty tomb.
Another minute until the person I was on my way to see, found me. I didn’t hear him arrive, but I sensed him.
Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.
The hair on my neck stood up on end as I spun to face my nemesis. My handler stood behind me, hands on his hips, his perfect face looking like a flawless sculpture. He was blond and beautiful, but beneath his perfection lurked oil and ink and filth for a soul.