I quickly switch my target from the tower to the chopper and let the arrow go free. The reaction time is a split second, and the helicopter has no time to react when the arrow explodes on contact, sending blasts of fire rising into the sky and pieces of steel falling to the ground. The back end of the chopper clips the high wall, knocking half of it to the ground, and the props spin out of control, knocking into the bottom half of the wall and the ground below. The spinning blades shatter into pieces, just grazing past my head as I fall to my knees with sheer fatigue. A dark plume of black fills the air above as fuel burns with intense heat; the fuselage begins to melt within minutes.
I rise to my feet and draw my swords one last time. I look toward the tower and stare deep into the dark glass that shades a rather irate General Iakov. Right then, hundreds of soldiers come rushing in front and to the sides of me, forming a line of attack.
The adrenaline pumping through my tired body has finally surrendered, and my fate has taken a toll through weathered emotions and calloused hands. Iakov and I stare at each other through the tower window, and we have a brief emotional standoff until I lower my arms, drop my swords to the ground, and fall to my knees.
“Nice to see we have some viable means to an end,” General Iakov says. “Bring her in, and Lieutenant, I want her bound. Do you think your men can handle that simple task?”
“Yes, sir.”
I take the earpiece off and realize I’m about to finally meet the man I desperately want dead.
About a half-dozen soldiers cautiously approach me, not sure of my intentions nor trusting my position. While still at gunpoint, two men forcefully pull back my arms and cuff me.
Lieutenant John walks toward me and looks upon my face with fear in his eyes, but he’s still disgustedly angry. With a cold, stony stare piercing deep into my eyes, he removes his leather gloves and slaps me with unforgiving antipathy across the face. The sting of the leather numbs my jaw momentarily, but is shortly replaced by the backside of the lieutenant’s hand punching my face and splitting my lip. He smiles while blood drips from my mouth.
“You’re mortal after all,” he says, rubbing the blood off his knuckles. “He’s waiting for you.”
I turn my head up and spit whatever blood has filled up in my mouth at the lieutenant’s face. He heatedly wipes his cheek and draws back his fists, possessed with anger.
“Lieutenant! Stand down your place!” shouts General Iakov from a distance.
Lieutenant John firmly stays in his pose, guarded with reverential hatred. “That’s an order!” Iakov yells. The lieutenant retreats back to the line, while General Iakov stands there with his silver eyes gleaming from the shadows toward me. He takes a step forward, revealing his long, jagged face and menacing scowl that can only be drawn by a man of incomprehensible hatred. His eyes glow like that of a wolf in the night. His physique is of a soldier bred for battle. Only the gray in his hair and scars on his face hint at his age.
“Take her to my chambers and prepare the infirmary.”
CHAPTER 35
I’m taken through the main complex to an elevator that shuttles us down two floors beneath the ground. I’m then thrown into a small glass chamber the size of a closet that quickly fills with gas, most likely a sedative. I guess they don’t trust me enough to use the traditional needle method.
I drop to the floor, my face painfully stings, and my bruised body agonizingly aches. I hold my breath as long as I can while I desperately try to shake out the pill from the pocket on the top of my jacket. After struggling for what seems to be an eternity, the small pill falls to the floor. I quickly grab it with my teeth and swallow, hoping at least to mask the pain that may soon follow.
I’m immediately affected by the gas when I take in a deep breath, falling limp into a state of hypnotic slumber. I briefly experience a moment of sleep psychosis and surrender my mind to a string of nightmares as I’m pulled into a dark, deep torment.
It’s not until the drug begins to kick in that I struggle to combat the riddling terrors, and if they do not stop soon, I’m afraid I’m going to die. Gradually, the tormenting images of demonized beasts feeding on dead children and wingless angels falling to the earth dissolve and fade to a black canvas of emptiness.
What seems like an eternity has only been minutes of subdued pain as I’m taken to a new state of unconsciousness. Thoughts and memories that have been kept tucked away in my brain resurface, but the images before me are only just that—memories that haven’t been forgotten.
I tilt my head up and peer through the tiny slit of my eyes as bright lights instantly blur my vision. Have I met my Maker? I ask myself, as I see my mother reach out to me through my warped hallucination. I cry out to her, but she does not respond—she just reaches for my hand, grasping into thin air. Out from my body a little girl appears and grabs her and walks away. I see myself emerge from my own body as a young child, walking out in a field of flowers alongside my mother, a memory I’ve kept with me to comfort my pain on the dreariest of days.
The image fades and another materializes before me, but this time it’s too recent a memory that I wish not to remember, yet the drugs are forcing me to anyway. I see Jacob and Myra sitting down at the table during our first dinner date, smiling and laughing. My hands and feet begin to tingle as the drug slowly wears off. There’s a growing reassurance that my spirit is still connected to my body, as blood rushes back into my veins untainted with those sedating toxins.
Reality begins to emerge and my mind resurfaces to the world I know. I wake up to find myself in another room, in a real nightmare, and all alone. Everything in this space is in pristine order, and no trace of neglect exists but that of a person with OCD.
I see my weapons sitting on a bar top to the left and a large leather couch to my right. I search the walls, ceiling, and corners, but I see no cameras, which leads me to believe that whatever goes on in this room is strictly private.
My hands and feet are bound to a metal chair, and there is no way of sliding the cuffs from the legs or back brace of the chair. I look down to see my jacket undone, and I shudder at the thought of my virtuous body being spoiled by any man who should violate my innocence and take advantage of my helpless state under such heavy sedation.
I try to stretch forward and slide my petite hands out of the cuffs, but the steel rings are closed too tight. I lean over to the side just enough to get a glimpse of my cuffed ankles. The braced bars on the chair leg keeps me from sliding the cuffs off the bottom, so I slam down the cuffs hard against the braces, trying to break through. After several attempts, my ankles painfully weaken, but I do have success in breaking through most of the welds from the metal bar.
I can still feel a slight snag where the cuffs are hanging on a small barb of welded steel. Although my ankles are badly bruised, and my boots are probably filling up with blood, I continue to try to free my legs from the chair. I raise my knees once more, slamming down as hard as I can through the steel supports. The sheer force of the cuffs crashing against the metal finally breaks the support bars from the legs, but the cuffs are now stuck between them. Suddenly, the door flings open and standing there with an ominous grin is General Iakov.
I quickly pull my head back against the chair and return his menacing smirk with dead calm and a cold dreadful stare.
My stomach churns with every step he takes toward me. The natural scowl on his haggard face keeps his permanent wrinkles from flexing, giving him one emotion—anger. And the thought of this repulsive man smiling would only deform his stretched skin, creating a face of a goblin.
“So, this is our Black Death they speak of,” he says while he fixes himself a drink at the bar. “A vixen of venom spreading terror among my men.”
Avoiding eye contact, I look toward the door while he slings back a shot of vodka. He walks over to the table where my weapons sit and picks up my scorpion dagger. “Such crude weapons for a talented marksman,” he says.
“I thought you would be much ta
ller,” I say in Russian. He immediately drops the dagger with extreme prejudice, as I have purposefully emasculated his stature.
“Yes, and I thought you would be much smarter, especially a fine specimen like yourself who seems to have abandoned her comrades,” he says while pouring another drink.
“The only thing I’ve abandoned is the will to die,” I say.
“Hard to survive when you’re bound to a chair and surrounded by men who want nothing better than to see you bleed to death,” he says, laughing. His laughter makes me shudder with disgust as the vile shrill crawls up my skin.
“I’ve seen enough blood from your men; some of it is on my boots,” I retort.
“Enough!” he shouts, throwing his glass toward my chair and breaking it. “Your reverence for my men may be lacking, but you will show respect in here.”
“Don’t you talk to me about respect. It’s the lack of it that got your men killed.”
“I admire your confidence, but your pride will be the death of you. Alluring or not, it’s your skills that I seek. Soon, you will succumb to our program and be one of us,” he says.
“Then you’ll have to kill me.”
He strokes the back of my hair with his cracked hand. “If I wanted you dead, I would have done it already, but why waste death on such a fine killing machine,” he says, sliding his hand down my chest and over my breasts. “There are always medical persuasions, and the alternative would just be pointless.”
All I can think about is what form of psychosurgical terror awaits me. The vile stench of his warm breath on the back of my neck reeks of wretched evil, and even the darkest of demons that scurry along the Earth are not as revolting as this man. As he licks my cheek, I recoil in disgust. “The taste of honey spoils my tongue,” he foully says.
“Shouldn’t you be reporting to your … Head of State, or has he lost his mind too?” Iakov smiles with disgust, but it’s the crude laughter beneath his breath that shares a disposition of equal respect.
“You did us a favor. Kriel was weak, and had no business leading this regime. Only a fool would follow.”
“He led you,” I simply say. I think I’ve just reaped the attention I was looking for now, because the permanent wrinkles on his already gnarled face has suddenly multiplied.
“Nations are not built at the front to which a leader is given. They are won behind the lines where a leader is born.”
If the killing of his men didn’t question his abilities, I’m sure to have emasculated his leadership now.
“Kriel was the least of your worries,” he continues.
“You’re no better than him—”
“He was careless! And it got him killed. I don’t suspect we’ll make that same mistake here.”
“What makes you so confident?”
“I’m not an American.”
“Yet he’s still dead, and I—”
“You didn’t do anything that would have soon been done.”
“Yes, but by a fifteen year old girl?”
“Oh, I applaud your effort, but it won’t garner you any favor here.”
He walks back over to the bar, pulls out two shot glasses, and pours vodka in both. I quickly tuck my knees back and try to push down on the support bars one more time with the heels of my boots, but the cuffs only move slightly; they are still wedged when he turns back around.
“The least you can do is have a drink with me. It will make the pain tolerable,” he says, unzipping his pants.
“Pain, I can tolerate. It’s your uninviting nature that I will take wrath with.”
He shoves the glass to my pressed lips, but I resist, so he pinches my nose until I open my jaw. I can hold my breath no longer, and I surrender as the liquor slides in down my throat.
I sit there struggling to hold the vodka burning in my mouth while he shoots his down. I wait until he’s finished swallowing before I vehemently spit the mouthful of liquor in his face. He reacts with extreme rage, pulling back his hand, and violently sweeping it across my face, bloodying my nose.
He grabs the sides of my jaw with his gnarled hand. “I’m going to break that virgin body of yours whether you like it or not.” He leans into me, puts both hands on the sides of the chair, and looks into my eyes while I stare back at him, laughing.
“Is it laughter that rejects the truth?” he irately asks, slapping me across the face again.
My laughter quickly turns to silence. “No, but you’re going to die today.”
He gently grabs my throat and leans me back, as I’m balanced on two chair legs now. “I’m going to thoroughly enjoy your young body ravished, spoiled, and bled.”
I push down my boots as hard as I can, trying to free my cuffs, but they are still stuck. He grabs my breasts and fondles my skin with his course, gnarled hands as I try once more pushing down using all the energy I have left in me.
A snap of the chain whips toward my ankles, releasing me from the chair legs. The anxiously awaited freedom releases a surge of anger as I furiously thrust my boot into his crotch with unforgiving rage.
He quickly grabs my leg and looks down to see my broken cuffs. “You tricky little bitch. Unfortunate for you, I’ve got balls of steel,” he says, pointing to his padded uniform. I stretch my right hand and extend my fingers toward the left cuff where the remote is attached for the retracting blade in my boot.
“We Russians are full of surprises,” he says, smiling.
I stretch out, almost pulling my arm out of its socket, and press the remote under the cuff. Out pushes the blade from my boot and into his tender skin. “Surprise,” I say, as his smile quickly flattens.
I slowly pull the blade out from his testicles, as blood pours from his crotch and onto my boot. He immediately falls to the floor, screaming expletives while trying to grab my other leg. I swing the side of my boot into his face, striking him down with a hard blow as I jump my free legs onto the chair. I pull my legs over the back of the chair and over my cuffed hands where I now stand behind the chair, swinging it toward him, knocking him out cold.
I grab the keys hanging from his belt, and race to find the right one to unlock the cuffs. I hear a small scuffle outside the room and turn to see the door handle slowly turning. I quickly find the key and un-cuff my hands just as two men with guns walk through.
“What the hell …”
I throw the chair in their direction, knocking the first man in the face and tripping the soldier behind him. I race toward the table for my weapons, and just as the other soldier gets up off the floor with his gun raised at me, I sling a dagger into his eye. I pull the dagger out and plunge the point into the skull of the man I hit with the chair, and like a coconut, it cracks and splits open.
I quickly gather my weapons when out of nowhere sirens scream down the halls. I recognize that hellish shrill from that day when students were sent running the halls at school in a panic. I shove the last knife in my jacket. I look over and see Iakov trying to slowly get up. I push him back to his knees and his head tilts back. I press the dagger firmly against his prickly throat, deciding whether or not to let his pain linger.
“Some men are reborn or remade while others are redeemed, but you have left nothing to offer that would convince me otherwise. Only the Creator can decide your mercy,” I say into his ear as his neck bleeds from the sharp blade.
“But I’m not your Maker,” I say, sliding the knife across his ragged neck, spilling his blood onto the floor.
Suddenly, a large blast shakes the building, nearly knocking me to the ground. I race out the door and down the hall, searching for the elevator that I came down on, but this place is so large and every corridor looks the same, just as it did in the prison. I continue down the same passage until I pass a large open room encased in glass. There is a sign near the door the reads: Special Medical Research. I press my face against the glass wall and see medieval machines waiting to indoctrinate the next helpless victim; I stand there wondering if the next experiment would have been on m
e.
Through the glass, I notice a blur moving in its reflection. Screaming soldiers are running down the hallway toward me, but I realize they’re running from something. I hide around the corner and hear gunfire rapidly popping off round after round. I draw my guns waiting for the soldiers to go through, but not one passes by; in fact, the screaming has stopped and silence has replaced the running pace of the men’s boots stomping in rhythm.
I hear the faint sound of shoes scraping the glossy floors and heavy breathing getting louder and louder as the soldier gets closer. I crouch down and prepare to lunge forward, but the steps slow to a slothful stagger. Just as a large gun protrudes from the side of the wall, I leap out and swing my elbow across the man’s head.
“Gabe! I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was you. Are you okay?” I ask, trying to pull him up off the floor.
“I’m okay, but I have a headache now.” He stands up with bended knees, panting and holding his chest.
“Are you sure you’re okay? Why are you breathing so hard?”
“Besides being attacked by my sister, I’m a little out of shape. That gun is heavy—the damn pack weighs nearly thirty pounds.”
“Where’s Finnegan and Harold?”
“They’re not far back cleaning up my mess.” He dumps the heavy ammo pack on the floor. “Come on, this way. We’re not in the clear just yet.”
Running through these hospital-like hallways, we twist and turn around corners, jumping over dead bodies until we reach the stairs. We climb to the first floor, and hear gunfire right outside the stairway door, followed by a high-pitched scream.
“Juliana!” shouts Gabe.
“It can’t be.”
“I know that voice.” He aggressively rushes out the door, and just around of the corner, a man is pulling Juliana, her legs dragging on the floor through the cylindrical hall.
Gabe races toward her, but he is quickly stalled by gunfire. Before he takes off around the curved corridor again, I hold him back. “No, don’t do it, you have no weapons,” I say, persuading him to hold back. Just then, Henry comes racing around the hall behind us panting.
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