by Gabi Moore
The building in question was a few hours drive from our current position, but was by no means out of reach. I should have taken some time to think through the options that were available to me. I was eager to be done with the whole thing, and I thought an initial strike wouldn’t be such a bad thing. After all, we needed some place to start, and they would have no idea that I was onto their position. If I played my cards right, it seemed likely that they would be caught off guard.
Beyond that, I might actually be able to get some of my own intel — something that would take Sclari down, and leave me to resume my life in peace.
One thing was for sure… after getting this far into conflict with an organization as powerful as CONTEK, there was no backing out through conventional means.
I didn’t get where I am in life today by rising to every conflict situation that comes across my doorstep. I know how to fight, just as well as I know how to lay low. When you are a warrior, part of the responsibilities implicit in your skill set are determining where to apply your skills. When you know how to apply violence, it becomes important for you to consider when the use of violence is a legitimate option for you to explore.
“So what’s the plan,” Lorin interrupted my stream of consciousness after my walk back to the car.
I turned around, surprised to see that she kept pace with me. I would have wanted to ditch her, but there was no place for her to go besides with me. I also didn’t mind telling her as much.
“I’m not sure the plan includes you, to be honest,” I said.
“Oh, you don’t, well, what do you think you are going to do with me?”
I stopped in front of the driver’s side of the car, and looked over at her.
“I don’t have any idea,” I said, not knowing what to do. I shrugged, and opened the driver’s side door.
“Hey!” she yelled, and opened the door on her side without hesitation.
I had to hand it to her. The woman had tenacity. I didn’t say anything to dissuade her, and instead simply drove out of town. We were running on fumes, and I needed to hazard stopping at a gas station. The place was empty, and the morning clerk was a spaced out kid in his early twenties — stoned. I gave cash, bought a few snacks, and filled up the tank to the car.
Lorin stayed in the car.
After leaving the gas station, we made our way inland along the southern boarder of the state. I had considered hitting up a hunting supply store on the way, or perhaps some kind of pawnshop, but I decided against it. The fewer places we were seen in public the better. I had already pushed our luck so far by stopping by at the cafe, and buying gas.
The real reasons for the cafe visit were unstated. I did the research necessary to get us to the next location, and we caught a break with Charlie. I had a bit of history with the place, and I felt the need to stop by and check on their welfare.
“That woman,” Lorin spoke up, “you know her?”
“Not sure why you care…”
She paused, and then indicated she had reached her limit.
“Look, I get it. You fucked me, I’m causing you a lot of problems…”
“And you’re about as trustworthy as a professional actor.”
“Fine. But I don’t see why you have to treat me so…”
“Why do you want to know?”
The question cut through her tirade, and gave me insight into a hint of her affection.
“I just… saw the way you were holding her, and I wanted to know, that’s all.”
I thought about answering her, but it didn’t seem like she was trustworthy enough to hold onto that kind of information.
“Nobody you need to worry about.”
The answer was vague, and spoken with a definitive tone of voice. That was the end of the inquiry, and I saw no reason to reopen the topic. Sometimes you were free to trust people, and other times you were not. Right now, all I wanted to do was defuse this situation and disappear into the woods as quickly as possible. If this woman insisted on coming along with me, that was her deal.
At the least, I would sleep better when this was all over, if I knew I wasn’t directly responsible for her death. She may have deserved everything that was pushed her way, but I wasn’t the arbiter of that judgement. I didn’t know her from Eve, and I didn’t need anything else on my conscience.
“Just stay out of my way, and keep yourself safe. That’s all I ask of you. After this is done you’re free to go back to whatever you call normal, and I’ll go my way as well.”
She nodded, a bit hurt, but not too much. The obvious pain that she felt couldn’t have all been from me. Undoubtedly, she had to deal with her own guilt about the whole experience. The realization that she was responsible for the experiences she was going through shut her up well enough.
At least she has the capacity for self-reflection, I thought, shaking my head and then focusing once more on the road.
Chapter 16 - Lorin
The drive was painfully long, even though the mileage was a fifth of what we went through the night before. No doubt being conscious with Aden in such a small space was more intolerable than I had anticipated. Until that point, he had proven himself to be both useful, and an arrogant pain in the ass.
“We’re here,” he muttered, though I sensed relief in his voice.
He actually thought that we were going to be through with all of this just by taking a pit stop to rural Maine. There was no way that he was taking things as seriously as was necessary. I wasn’t sure if he truly understood the extent to which Ryan’s will dominated those around him.
“Just stay low, and out of sight. I parked far enough away to where you’re not going to have any immediate problems. If I don’t come back in an hour, I want you to take the car, and turn yourself into the police. Do you understand?”
He looked at me with that confident, daring disposition that I found so attractive. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take him seriously any longer. Not when I knew how poorly he was assessing the danger of the situation.
“You think you’re just going to wander into one of Ryan’s private warehouses and then leave again?”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m going to do my best to figure it out. If it’s as dangerous as you say, then I won’t have to deal with you sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“Oh?” I asked, more than a bit irritated at his cavalier attitude. “I’m coming, don’t you second guess it. If you want to stop me, you’ll have to tie me to that tree over there.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“You’d tie me up and fuck me just like they did. Don’t pretend like you’re anything but a hermit, sexual opportunist.”
I don’t know where the vitriol came from, but I regretted the words as soon as they came out of my mouth. I hadn’t intended to be as vicious as that, but there was more hiding under the surface of my emotions than I had been aware of.
He looked at me, and then I saw a profound lack of care glaze over his eyes. He stopped caring in that moment whether or not I lived or died. The immediate detachment on his part was frightening, but I also felt a sense of liberation. If he didn’t care about me, then I was on my own, which suddenly gave me a rush of that old self-sufficient power.
The awareness that nobody is going to look out for you any longer has a way of pushing you toward a place where your actions take on more significance. ‘Good enough’ is not a viable option. If nobody else is there to bail you out, or invest themselves taking care of you, everything seems to matter that much more.
I didn’t know what I would do at that point, but I started by asking myself what I needed, and moved forward from there.
I saw a pistol in the glove compartment, and grabbed it. I also noticed a set of spare keys, which I grabbed and threw in my coat pocket. I didn’t know how to load the weapon, or make sure that it was able to fire more once whatever bullets inside of the magazine had been spent. I figured out the safety, and I knew how to pull the trig
ger. With aim, and a bit of luck, I hoped that would be enough to get me to where I needed to go.
Looking up, I saw that Aden had been watching all of this unfold with a look of incredulity on his face. He couldn’t seem to believe that I would want to take this course of action, but he at least had the respect to not oppose my decision.
He shook his head to himself, and loaded up his own gear. Then I followed as he led me toward the bunker.
We had to walk through about two miles of brush, because he refused to park anywhere near the facility. The entire walk, he didn’t say a word to me, and winced any time I stepped on the snow in a way that wasn’t silent. I began to second-guess myself then, because I realized that it was possible that my coming with Aden could kill us both. For the first time, humility was beginning to eek its way back into my consciousness. I have to say, it was not at all pleasant.
When we got into view of the building in question, he ducked down to the ground, and stared in the direction of the building. I held my breath, not wanting to make even the slightest noise, but it was no good. My blood was racing, and the anxiety just used up what oxygen I had available. The anxiety killed my composure once more, and I’m sure I was too noisy again.
The noise didn’t stop Aden from doing his job like a professional though.
There was an aloof way that he presented himself during our casual time with one another. Beyond his initial presentation, there was a sheer form of professionalism that was frightening to behold. Every move was determined and laser focused. There was nothing that he was not capable of managing, and no obstacle that he was afraid of mounting.
I realized, then, how I had been attracted to him in the first place — how I had so easily let myself be taken in by that charm. In any other context, being in this situation would have brought a knot in my stomach the size of a grapefruit. For some reason, I knew we weren’t going to be dead on arrival. Aden’s posture had given me a sudden burst of confidence.
With his bow ready, and his boots falling though the light snow, he moved in toward the bunker. I followed, at a slight distance back, not wanting to get left behind. We were pushing toward the edge of the brush, and approaching the clearing where the bunker sat. At the last minute, I held myself behind. I clung to the cover of the bushes, while he burst into the clearing and headed straight for the curved dome of the structure.
I don’t know exactly what held me back, but Aden didn’t stop long enough to show any sense of concern that I wasn’t right behind him. I watched as he strode toward the back of the building. There were no windows on the rear side of the bunker. When I looked along the walls, I saw a hand full of rotating security camera bubbles set in along the corners of the outer wall.
The building itself was about the size of a small warehouse, with outer walls that were approximately eight feet high. The top of the walls curved inward toward a roof that was arched in the shape of a dome. There were no external marks on the building. I could see nothing to indicate what sort of people might be inside, or what the building’s function might be.
I remembered flashes of the building from before I was abandoned in the woods. The images only came back as I arrived. The sense of the place, and more than a few vivid memories of being used by the people inside of the building.
I imagine if Ryan had his way, they would have assassinated me, or dropped me into the bay with an anchor wrapped around my waist. But no, they took me here, and had more fun with me than perhaps was smart for men in their position.
Gritting my teeth, I watched while Aden climbed up onto the roof. He clung to the surface of the dome with as many points of contact as possible in order to prevent his body from slipping back down to the wall.
He looked ridiculous, but he continued regardless, until he reached the peak of the dome. At that point, he pulled his body into a squat, and brought his bow out from over his shoulder. He armed the bow, swiftly, pulling out a handful of arrows from a case he kept around his shoulder. The arrows were loaded, and fired into the front of the complex, one after another. I held my breath, waiting for the sound of alarm to go off, but heard nothing. I was too far away to hear to bodies fall to the ground. I had seen how effectively he had shot down his enemies before. I knew that as I sat there, crouched in the bushes, there would be fresh blood spilling out onto the white snow.
He sat there, perched on the roof for a moment longer, arrow in hand, ready to strike out, should any new threat appear, but nothing was forthcoming. The bow and the free arrow were replaced, over his back, and he slid down the back of the dome. His body came to a stop at the slight protrusion that the surrounding wall made at the edge of the slope. I watched, with tension, thinking he would slide right off, but he never once indicated a loss of control.
I bit my lip, impressed by his precision.
A knife appeared from his belt, catching the light of the sun on its blade. I watched the blade edge into the surface of the roof, and wedge itself between the camera dome and the structure of the building itself. Immediately afterward, he sprinted along the narrow ledge of the wall. I watched him repeat the same motion with the other camera on the far ledge of the building. Now that they were blind from the back, and presumably dead from the front, Aden sprinted along the roof toward the front of the building. When he disappeared from view, I began to feel comfortable enough to move myself from the cover of the evergreen shrubs I had been hiding behind.
I heard a sharp cry from the front of the building, followed by a second, and my heart seized within my chest. As fast as my feet could carry me, I sprinted toward the front of the building. When I arrived, I found that not only had two more security cameras been disconnected, but there were two bodies at the building's entrance.
Aden was already inside of the building by the time I got there. All I saw was a trail of blood leading away from an open wound on man’s neck. I realized that there was something far more dangerous about this man than I thought.
Looking around at the scenery, I saw the bodies out on the snow, available for anyone on the highway to come by and see. I saw the pools of blood coagulating and soaking into the ice around each of the bodies. I saw the arrows, impeccably placed, jutting up from the necks of their victims. The arrows, no doubt, taking lives with no more than a hiss of air, and a wet gurgle. The snow would absorb the lives of the fallen. Anxiety flushed my body, as I heard gunshots from inside of the building.
He’s going too fast… the thought came in through my mind quickly, and I rushed into the building without stopping to think if it was a good idea or not.
As the shots sounded off within the hallways of the building, I pushed my body toward the fear. I’m still ashamed to admit it, but in that moment, I realized that in spite of what he may have been telling me — in a way, he was doing all of this for me.
Chapter 17 - Lorin
I followed him inside, though the palms of my hands were covered in sweat. My hands readjusted and steadied their grip on the weapon. Ahead of me in the hallway, I could hear the sounds of pain and the deafening sound of gunfire.
A demon had been let loose within the building, and I wasn’t sure who was getting the worse end of the bargain. All I knew was that there was pain, and there were more dead bodies than I had seen in my entire life.
Within these concrete walls, humans suffered cries of agony. Blood splattered out onto the concrete floor beneath my feet. My mind focused on the layout of the warehouse. I knew what would happen next. The knowledge of the impending change in power made me move so quickly that I stopped being aware of where my feet were landing, and slipped.
The floor rose up to meet my face, just as I heard the dull, sickening thuds of human flesh being beaten.
Aden had created a blood pool on the floor that was thick enough for me to lose my footing. The gun was gripped within my hand, so I wasn’t able to stop my cheek from getting a solid blow to the floor. I lost my breath, and then came up with a bloody cheek — the crimson color not even belon
ging to myself.
The dull sounds of blunt impact and visceral groans came to me from just around the corner. My head ached from the impact against the floor, and there was a rush of adrenaline through my body. I heard a shot go off in the room with the fighting, and scrambled to my feet.
Words came to my lips, and I wanted to reach out with my voice. I wanted to call out to Aden — to see if he was alive. I wanted to make the sounds of pain in the next room stop.
Turning the corner, I saw that my worst fears were in the process of being realized.
There was a man in charge of the facility here; a beast of a man, larger and more fierce than any I’ve ever seen. The whole lot of them took turns raping me before they took me out into the forest and left me to die. A lot of the men were unremarkable, and used me in the same way as the others did. Some of the men had particular kinks that they wanted to get off on, and once they had their fill, they were done. The man down the center sights of my handgun was different. I pulled the trigger once for every time he ravaged me, and I was still listening to the flat click when the magazine was all used up.
I watched his body slump forward, while Aden fell down to the floor once more. The man I shot had been holding Aden by the throat, up high against the back wall of the warehouse. The roof curved over our heads in the huge room. Munitions and whatever other supplies these people had gotten out of Ryan were strewn about on the floor. Boxes were split open, and all over the ground, shiny bits of bullet casings reflected the bright fluorescent lighting.
Aden gasped for breath, and coughed on his hands and knees. He would have died if I hadn’t shown up. Blood poured from his body, as new wounds bled, and old ones opened up. There was a medic box on the wall, but I had no idea how to use it. I brought it down to the floor, and gave him a hand on his back to let him know I was there for him.
The place smelled of death, and I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. The bow was cracked in two, and the weapons were all empty. There were enough resources around me to where I could have restocked everything we had, and made a mint on the black market with the rest.