Page 28 of Rescuing Ally, Part 2 (CHARLIE Team: Guardian Hostage Rescue Specialists #8)

TWENTY-FIVE

The Price of Resistance

ALLY

Jenna’s eyes lock with mine across the courtyard. Her expression holds no accusation. No horror. Only calm acceptance and the slightest nod.

“ It’s okay.” She mouths the words, telling me she understands.

Maybe one day, she’ll forgive me.

Guards move instantly, seizing her arms, dragging her toward the metal table. She doesn’t resist, doesn’t struggle. She maintains her dignity even as she’s forced to her knees.

Malfor approaches the table, lifting the cloth to reveal what waits beneath. The brutal simplicity of the tool empties my stomach—bolt cutters, industrial grade, handles wrapped in black rubber, blades gleaming under the tropical sun.

“Secure her hands on the surface.” Malfor’s command mobilizes the guards.

They force Jenna’s arms forward, palms flat against the steel. Zip ties lock her wrists to rings embedded in the table edge. She kneels upright, face composed.

“Dominant hand?” Malfor asks conversationally.

Jenna’s silence hardens her jaw, her teeth clenched against response.

“Irrelevant.” He lifts the cutters, testing their weight. “We’ll improvise.”

He positions the cutters’ jaws around the base of Jenna’s right pinky finger. The metal gleams against her flesh.

“Miss Collins.” Malfor looks up. “Understand why this happens. Your sabotage delays my project. Costs time, resources, and progress. So I take something equally valuable from your friend.”

Malia sobs openly now. Rebel strains against restraining hands, cursing through clenched teeth. Mia’s scientific detachment shatters, horror contorting her features.

“Stop.” The word rips through my vocal cords. “Please. I’ll fix everything. I’ll work without rest. Anything you demand.”

“I know you will.” Malfor’s voice softens. “That’s precisely this exercise’s purpose.”

The bolt cutters close.

The sound—metal cutting through bone and tendon—will haunt every future silence in my life. When Jenna screams, her voice is primal and raw, wounded, shredding the air between us.

Blood sprays across steel, across Malfor’s immaculate suit. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pause. He repositions the cutters around her ring finger.

“Please!” I lunge forward only to be caught and restrained.

The cutters close again. Another finger falls. Another scream splits the sky.

Jenna looks at me through her agony, and somehow, impossibly, she forgives me.

“Cauterize the wounds.” Malfor returns the bloody cutters to the table. “We don’t want her bleeding out before the lesson concludes.”

A guard advances with a device glowing orange at its tip. Burning flesh joins the coppery tang of blood as they press it against the nubs where Jenna’s fingers once were. Her screams intensify, and then she falls silent as she collapses.

“Return them to their cells.” Malfor turns away, already dismissing us. “Miss Collins resumes work tomorrow. The calibration will be corrected.” He pauses beside me, voice dropping to an intimate register. “Remember this feeling. Remember what defiance costs.”

Guards escort us back to our cells. Jenna is carried between two guards who dump her onto her bunk. Her injured hand hangs over the edge of the bed, blood dripping onto the concrete floor.

Hours pass in silence. The only sounds are Jenna’s shallow breathing and occasional sobs from Malia’s cell. It’s Mia who breaks the silence.

“We need to check her hand.” Her voice forces clinical calm. “The cauterization should protect against infection, but it looks like she’s still bleeding.”

“How? The guards won’t release us.” Rebel shifts on her bunk.

“Pass any clean fabric to me.” Mia’s voice steadies with purpose. “I’ll make bandages and feed them through the bars.”

We all respond, fabric tearing, small bundles passing cell to cell until reaching Mia, who fashions makeshift bandages.

“Jenna.” Her voice is insistent. “Jenna, wake up.”

A low groan from Jenna’s cell is the only thing we hear.

“Your hand needs cleaning and wrapping.” Mia folds the strips of fabric. “You have to get up.”

Jenna groans, then stirs. She moves off the small cot and crawls over to Mia.

Mia works through the bars, her voice guiding Jenna through the process of cleaning her wounds with water and wrapping the stumps in fabric strips.

I remain frozen on my bunk, guilt crushing my chest and stealing my breath. Each of Jenna’s pained inhales, each rustle of bandages drives my guilt deeper.

“This is my fault.” The words hang in the darkness between our cells. “I’m so sorry.”

“This is Malfor’s choice. Not yours.” Jenna’s response comes immediately, stronger than seems possible. “Don’t apologize for what he’s done.”

“I shouldn’t have?—”

“Stop.” The command in her voice silences me instantly. “He forced an impossible choice on you. There was no right answer.”

“I chose you. I let him?—”

“You chose the person most likely to survive.” Her matter-of-factness stuns me. “I would have done the same thing.”

“How can you not hate me right now?” The absolution burns worse than any accusation.

“Because hate is what he wants.” She shifts position, wincing. “He wants us divided. Broken. Turning on each other.”

“He’s succeeding.” Malia’s voice sounds small in the darkness. “In breaking us, that is. Not in turning on each other.”

“You’re right. We won’t let him pull us apart.” Jenna’s response carries surprising strength. “We decide that, not him.”

Silence falls again, heavier but somehow different. Not the silence of isolation, but of shared pain and shared resistance.

Later, when the guard patrol passes and the others have fallen into exhausted sleep, Jenna’s whisper finds me through the bars.

“Ally.” Her voice barely carries the short distance between our cells. “This isn’t your fault.”

“Two fingers.” The words catch in my throat. “You lost two fingers because of me.”

“Your sabotage might have bought Guardian HQ more time.” Her pragmatism shocks me. “Might have delayed whatever he’s planning. It was worth the cost. You and Stitch did what any one of us would’ve done. We all would’ve taken a chance to disrupt his plans. None of this is your fault.”

“I still feel terrible.”

“And I’ll still give you the biggest, strongest hug when we get out of here. Malfor wants to hurt us. He wants to drive a wedge between us. We don’t let him. No matter what he does…”

She means well. Jenna means to absolve me of my actions, but it will take time to forgive myself.

Sleep refuses to come. I lie awake watching the faint outline of Jenna’s breathing through the bars, the irregular rise and fall revealing the pain she endures despite her brave words.

Malfor’s strategy becomes clearer with each passing hour. He’s not just breaking our bodies—he’s breaking our bonds. Making resistance synonymous with another person’s suffering. Creating a prison where the walls exist in our minds more than in concrete and steel.

The worst realization comes in the darkest hour before dawn: he’s winning.

Not through the collars.

Not through beatings.

Not through psychological torture.

He’s winning by making me afraid to fight back. By making the cost of resistance too high to bear.

I stare at the ceiling, imagining Guardian HQ planning their rescue, unaware of the nanobots monitoring their every move. I imagine Hank and Gabe working together, preparing for an extraction that will fail before it begins.

I imagine the quantum network Malfor unleashed spreading through financial systems, government infrastructure, and defense networks—all controlled by a man who cuts off fingers to make a point.

Whatever resistance remains, it can’t be obvious. It must be subtle and invisible even to those closest to us.

Tomorrow I’ll return to the lab. I’ll fix the calibration. I’ll work diligently on Malfor’s quantum network. I’ll be the model prisoner, the broken asset, the compliant tool.

And somewhere beneath that performance, I’ll keep searching for the one thing Malfor doesn’t expect me to find.

A way to bring it all down.