Page 15

I hike through the forest for hours. Every part of me hurts. Sleep and food are luxuries I can’t afford right now, and by the time the orange and pink rays of sunrise begin to filter through the dense woods, my bladder is full enough to make me want to scream.

Alastor can’t be far. I’m confident in my ability to handle a 57-year-old man, but I won’t take my chances against an armored truck.

Don’t go back to base.

Sara warned me someone wanted me dead. She wanted to keep me off the mission. Maybe she knew it was a trap, or that Alastor was Fury.

The cold sting of a snowflake on my nose pulls me from my thoughts. Tiny snowflakes start to fall, sparse at first, dancing in the wind against the red-tinted sky.

The wind nips at my clothes, and my fingertips start to redden. With no shelter and no dry wood to make a camp, I’m running out of options fast. The wind whistles in my ears, a screeching, groaning sound that only adds to my unease. I start to shiver, my teeth chattering uncontrollably.

What am I supposed to do now?

The howling wind grows louder until I recognize a sound it can’t possibly make—a deep baritone voice, a man’s voice.

I whip my head in its direction, but the voice swirls around me, carried by the wind. The bite of the cold numbs my hands, and I blow into them for warmth.

“Where are you?” I shiver, my breath visible in the freezing air.

The wind dies just long enough for the voice to clear. A single scream, south of me. A man. The Codex. Any of them would be a welcome target. Especially that devil who dared to put his hands on me.

His face flashes in my mind—those cold eyes that seem to see right through me, the way he touched me like he had any right to my body or the pleasure he forced from it.

Bane’s orders echo in my head.

Find them. Kill them.

I’ll gladly kill Castor just for touching me.

I blow into my hands again, trying to keep them warm, and start running toward the voice.

The wind swirls the snow around me until soon it’s a blizzard that whips me back hard until I fall to the ground with a thud. Metal connects with my head, forcing a dull throb to warm my head.

Come on, Helena. You can do this. Just like climbing back home.

I push myself off the cold ground, my hands wrapping around rubber.

A tire.

Alastor’s truck.

I laugh in relief, brushing the quickly falling snow off the hood. It’s his, warm that the flakes of snow melt on contact with the engine.

The tracks are covered, and there’s no way of finding the direction with the dropping temperatures, but the knowledge of Alastor being nearby overrides the frustration of needing to take shelter.

I move past the truck, curling my fingers, that spark pain around them. They move like molasses, delayed from the rapid movements my brain tries to force on it.

Nature is the original killer and the cold is a silent death. The pain is what reminds you you’re alive. It’s when you feel nothing at all that should concern you.

A small shadow in the sky catches my eye. The wild whipping of the snow parts just long enough for me to recognize a small tunnel of smoke billowing in the distance.

I take off. I’m no stranger to the cold, or the effects it has on the human body. I climbed mountains before I could talk and Devil’s Paw was a common attraction for tourists near Juneau. A human can hallucinate anything in extreme weather and periods of starvation. A glacier is still a desert and a blizzard is our sandstorm.

I run, tripping over the banks of snow that are steadily climbing up to my calves.

Run. Run. Run. In. Out. Breathe. Run.

If this is a hallucination, then at least I’ll die pretending I was warm.

There’s a blur, barely visible between the whipping snow. It sits dark, a black still mass against the movement of the woods. My legs slowly start to lock up and my hands are beginning to numb.

The screams wail around me, echoes, phantoms of the ones I’d heard before. Ghosts trying to turn me away from the mass in the center of the storm.

My feet hit wood and I finally look up. A small, wooded cabin rests deep within the woods. Next to it is the fresh imprint of where a car rested, empty now just long enough to catch the receding tracks into the opposite direction.

Alastor.

I fall inside the blazing hot cabin, my limbs locked up tight from the cold. Instantly, my chilled skin heats and the door whips closed with a swirl of the wind. I curl in a ball next to the door, shivering and huddled near a large bear skin not yet finished. I stare at my hands, the tips glazing a soft purple over the reddened skin. The feeling comes painfully and every forceful movement to circulate my blood shoots pain up my arms and legs, but finally, I’m able to move them without the sluggish delay.

It’s then I notice the cabin is empty.

The hearth is burning hot, blazing a fresh fire, but the car lot is empty. Inside, several rugs cover the hardwood and two couches corner one end while an empty glass cabinet covers the other.

But it’s silent. The crackle of the hearth is barely heard over the whistling storm outside. Any movement inside the cabin would’ve been heard. Any footstep or shuffle, even the shifting of my own weight as I stand causes the boards beneath me to creak and groan.

I move towards the small opening next to the door. A small kitchen rests inside, the floor morphing from a dark hardwood to a plain white tile. The counters are pristine, the laminate countertops freshly wiped and the faucet of the sink drips irrythmically onto the stainless steel surface.

“Hello?” My voice echoes across the small space. It’s cold, painfully cold, despite the warmth of the fire in the other room. It’s silent and sinister, the odd kind of quiet that would happen just before a disaster. There’s an old saying that you don’t hear the bullet that gets you, but there’s always a moment of calm seconds before you’re struck down. And it always happens, without fail. Those seconds of violating silence. Every single time.

So why is it quiet now?

My knife is dull from stabbing too many people, and the sharp tip of the blade broke off into the man’s skull when I killed him. The weapon isn’t completely useless now, but fuck, would I kill for a gun right now.

What kind of man lives alone in the middle of the Alps and doesn’t carry any kind of gun?

Still, I clutch my knife and move through the area.

“I’m sorry for intruding,” I call out into the empty space. “I just needed shelter until the storm passes.”

Clearing a room is meant to be done quickly and efficiently. Typically, there are at least three or four in a group moving under the direction of the recon or satellite specialists, but even in this small space with only two rooms, walking into a space blindly with half a weapon is about as smart as baring the storm without a coat.

The last room is blocked by a door, unlike the kitchen, it’s completely sealed off from the rest of the cabin. The thick dark wood makes it impossible to listen to any movement of breathing on the other side.

I press my hand against the door, feeling for vibrations and watching for shadows on the crack of the door underneath. I nearly jump back when I see the round black shadow forming near the edge of the door. It’s barely visible, even with the light provided by the hearth. It molds in with the dark wood of the floor.

“Is anyone there?” The question isn’t answered, but it’s evident someone is there. They’re silent as the rest of the house, waiting. Watching. The hardest part of clearing a high-risk zone is differentiating the civilians from the enemies. The question is a formality, and offering to any innocent parties to back away, but he doesn’t. The shadow gets bigger, closer, until it’s right up on the door.

I grip my knife tightly and take two steps back, foot raised and ready to kick the door in when I look at my knife.

It’s stained red, a dark crimson covering the silver of my broken blade.

I drop the knife. My hand is covered in blood, painted in it, but there’s no cut.

My hand. The same hand I had on the door.

Is this another hallucination?

That’s when I see it—the bloody handprints on the door, the small speckled dots of blood on the wall and the shadow underneath the door is not a shadow at all. It’s a puddle of blood.

I slam my heel into the latch of the door and the wood splinters as it falls away.

The entire room is covered in it. Sprays of blood from where a throat was cut stains the walls in a sick gruesome scene. The bed sheets are soaked and the wood planks are wet and stained with it.

And sitting on top of the dresser, skewered into the blade of a knife, is a man’s head.

I fall back, hand over my mouth to stop the bile from coming up. His eyes are rolled back, the pupils barely visible and his mouth hangs open as a trail of ants and maggots climb inside of it and biting along his peppered hair.

I run to the sink just as I manage to choke down another threat of bile to add to the putrid scene. I open the faucet and water pours out, filling the sink quickly. I gulp down the water, but the scent is unbearable. Even here, it lingers throughout the cabin—a poor old man just living his life, likely murdered by the same men I’m hunting.

I turn off the faucet just long enough to hear footsteps on the wooden steps outside. Two pairs of feet, trudging up the stairs.

Shit.

The cabin is too small to hide in and no other exits to escape from. Where is a gun when you need one?

Step…

My eyes land on a large deep freezer resting in the corner of the kitchen. I rip it open and nearly scream when I find the rest of the dead man’s body hidden inside in a frozen bloody heap.

Step…step…

Fuck it.

I climb inside the freezer just as the front door opens and the two Codex leaders step inside.

The freezer is insulating and the cooling fans blast the putrid decay into my face. His bones crunch underneath my own weight, and I can barely move between the two of us hidden in here.

I crack the freezer a hair, just enough to allow fresh air for me to gulp down.

“Dietrich!” The man, Baron, calls out into the dead air.

Castor doesn’t speak, but rather turns the entire cabin inside out. Dust scatters and wood breaks as couches and tables are upturned before a crash sounds as the bedroom door is broken into again.

“Baron!” He finally speaks.

Wood snaps and flings about, some planks landing into the kitchens they burst into the room.

I assumed they’d figure out the door was broken into and the locks were shattered from the force of my kick–for them to tear the place apart until they found me frozen and shivering in the freezer, using a headless body as a fucking pillow.

But the scream that erupted from Baron was more chilling than if I’d been found. It was anguished, angry. This was the scream I’d heard from soldiers’ families when they received a casualty notification. The same screams that came from me when I lost my father.

“Dammit!!” His screams are barely audible over the crashes that sound after, wood breaking and glass shattering from the anger. His footsteps move closer and his heavy breaths are visible in the cold air. “Where are you, you piece of shit?”

I shrink down into the already small space. The Codex didn’t kill the cabin owner, that much is clear, but I’m not sure they’d be very forgiving seeing me hiding with the rest of the body.

His feet move closer, thumps against the ground. His fingers grip the underside of the cracked freezer. His gloved hands flex, his fingers gripping so tightly, the material groans under his grip.

I’m fucked. I’m going to die in a fucking freezer, with some headless body—

“Baron!” Castor shouts.

Baron freezes, the freezer lid barely open enough that I can just barely glance at the lean frame of the man and the gun holstered to his thigh.

“The car is gone…”

My head is swimming from the lack of oxygen. One more inch and he’d see it. He’d smell it. How can he not smell it?

He drops the lid of the freezer and it slams shut. His footsteps recede towards the living room. I don’t open it. I only let out a slow measured breath, straining to hear their conversation.

“There’s nothing more you can do for him,” Castor says. “We don’t need any more distractions. Call Fury and regroup.”

The front door slams shut shortly after.

I don’t move. I stay there, taking as quiet of breaths as I can. They could be waiting, bluffing me and waiting for me to show myself so they can give me the same treatment as they did to the cabin owner.

Only when my hands start to redden again do I open the door of the freezer. Fresh air floods my nostrils and I take in gulps of the air. The cabin is in complete disarray. The couch is upturned and the bedroom door is ripped off its hinges. Several walls have holes punched in them and the head is gone.

The storm outside has broken up, leaving a foot of snow in its path. From the window, their large footsteps leave a thick trail leading down the hill of the forest. Their black uniforms penetrate through the mass of white, moving slowly down towards the clearing we’d attacked them in.

The front door opens silently now, hindered only by the thick snow. I walk in the path of their own footsteps, careful not to leave a trail of their own. The cold still has a bite, but the wind is gone, and the snowflakes fall peacefully to the ground.

When they round a corner, I lose them. The tracks stop, as if they vanished into thin air. Is this how they got away last time? Some trick to evade capture? The entire forest is blanketed in white, bathed in snow. They just vanished. Their black uniforms are nowhere to be found.

When I move steps closer, my body slams into a broken fence. It’s small, invisible in the snow.

I tug on the broken chain links and they hold steady enough for me to support myself on the rungs as I hoist myself over and stumble onto the hill.

I nearly fall as a gap appears on it. It’s hidden from the snow and moss covering the opening, where a trail leads inside along with two pairs of snowy footprints.

A mine.

“Got you,” I whisper with a harsh grin.

Death and the devil tortured my friends, killed them without a second thought. They killed my dad, my best friend, and they tried to kill Bane. They thought they could hide Alastor’s intentions in our own military. Fury. Baron. Castor. Three men that tried to burn our corps from the inside out.

Find them. Kill them. Soldier or not, I will find you.

Run and hide, Codex. Only one of us is walking out of here.