Book 2: Swansong

Being dead hurt a lot more than Wolf thought it would. His eyes fluttered open, cheek against hard concrete and ash between his teeth. The corpse next to him had taken a spoke of rebar through their skull and the blood was creeping ever closer to Wolf’s face.

Not dead yet.

He took quick inventory of his body, relieved to find no adrenaline numbed mortal wounds of his own. The floor above had collapsed, taking the staircase with it. (He had been so damn close to the exit -)

He couldn’t move.

Wolf’s panic burned bright and burned out quick. If he was paralyzed, he wouldn’t be in so much pain. He could still wiggle his toes and his fingers. His right hand was pins-and-needles where it was trapped between his ribs and the handle of his pistol. Wrist might be fractured. No spinal injury.

‘Set the charges and get out - short fuses have their use but they’re a lot less useful if they kill you with the targets.’ Ghosts words echoed around in Wolf’s skull, a groan slipping between his lips. He wanted to blame Ghost for not calling out the guard’s position in the compound so he could avoid them - but it was his fault alone.

He got sloppy, and he had to face the consequences.

Ghost hadn’t called out their position because this was a no-comms job. The target could pick up their channel, so comms were limited to emergency use only.

Wolf’s mic was pinned to his vest, silent.

Did getting trapped in the rubble of your own bombing count as an emergency?

His left arm was braced palm down beside his head (the blood from the dead man beside him was beginning to soak into his sleeve). Wolf strained, elbow contorting and his fingers just barely brushing the side of his mic’s toggle.

“Come on…you son of a…bitch…” Breathing was going to become a problem. The weight on top of him kept him from drawing anything more than shallow, panting gasps. But finally, finally. His finger caught on the toggle and static whispered to his earpiece (it was a miracle it wasn’t broken or lost or - )

“How copy…G?” He knew his breathing would sound panicked, frightened, unprofessional in all the ways his mentor despised. But Wolf knew Ghost would answer, and would understand.

The static whispered, soft and crackling in the silence of the rubble.

Wolf was not panicking - that would be unprofessional - but not being able to take a deep breath certainly made his repeated call out feel desperate.

“Target terminated. Assist. Needed.” It was easier to bite out the words, to force stability to his breathlessness.

The blood was warm as it lapped at his cheek, shallow but thick. Wolf didn’t mind a bit of blood, but it certainly was far from comfortable. His skull wasn’t actively being crushed, but he didn’t have enough space to lift or turn away from the limited scene before him.

There was light filtering through the air, dust and smoke fragmenting the dim moonlight. That was good - at least he wouldn’t suffocate. As poorly as he could breathe. The dead man was a meter to his left; he had nearly sandwiched Wolf between the guards pursuing him from below. The rebar through his skull left it a bloody mess, and the rest of his body was hidden between a portion of the upper concrete stairs. His gun lay useless in the space between them - an island of black metal in a red sea.

The static was quiet.

Wolf wasn’t panicking.

But he was going to start screaming if Ghost didn’t answer the damn -

“Channel 42, we hear you, how copy?”

Wolf felt his blood run cold at the English words tumbling over the static in his ears. Just his fucking luck tonight.

“Channel 42 identify yourself - you’re communicating on a closed channel.”

He could lie - his American accent was getting good - but he couldn’t see the name tag of the dead man next to him. And they certainly wouldn’t recognize him when they pulled him out.

“When was the last contact?…Around the time…other survivors…” The voice in his ear wasn’t talking to him anymore, the static filled with shrill English.

Wolf was now panicking.

His heart thrummed in his half crushed chest as though he had broken into a sprint. His panting gasps weren’t getting enough air to his lungs - he needed to kill comms - turn off his mic - he needed to get out before they got to him.

“Channel 42, how copy?” They asked as though they couldn’t hear his panic attack. “Retrieval team inbound. ETA is an hour out. Can you give us anymore information on your situation and location?”

He couldn’t - he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t fucking move -

Where the hell was Ghost?

Ghost had to have noticed the premature explosion. Was he waiting at the rendezvous point? He would have heard Wolf’s comms. He should have heard Wolf’s comms.

Where the hell was he?

Comms-off ops were freeing in a way Ghost had forgotten.

It wasn’t that he disliked working with Wolf or that he thought the apprentice was slowing him down. (On the contrary, he thought keeping the young gun around was improving his own instincts and skills). He simply…forgot how comforting the silence was.

No sitreps, no copies, no static crackling at his peripheral - just night air and blood on his hands. There was something primal about it, something that reminded him he was no avenging angel working to remind wicked men why they should fear the shadows.

He was just another weapon with a price.

And weapons didn’t have to think, didn’t have to worry - he just needed to complete the job and move on.

Perhaps that’s what motivated him to be so ruthlessly efficient that night. Kill the guards. Enter west wing of compound. Descend placing charges. Set the fuse. Return to the surface.

Watch the world burn.

And repeat.

Their targets were spread across hundreds of hectares, but the flat desert plains let the crack of shattered concrete and screams of warped rebar echo like fiery thunder in the distance.

Ghost had cleared the south bunkers with time to spare. Time in blissful, terrifying silence with nothing to do but pace the rendezvous point and admire his work from afar.

Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.

His pacing intensified, his track making a rut in the sandy soil beside the freeway. Wolf should have finished by now.

His apprentice was more than competent- he wasn’t supposed to worry about him, even if the kid wasn’t good at what he did, but -

Ghost had a bad feeling about this, something heavy and cold sinking in his gut.

He flicked on his comms, pulsing his connection in the static. He couldn’t risk speaking on the channel but Wolf should recognize the coded message -

“Bravo-1, we’ve got confirmed survivors at the north end.” English snapped, loud and clear over the dim static. The ice in Ghost’s gut coiled tighter. “Exercise caution - it’s believed a hostile is still on the scene. H through K have been evacuated but over watch has no eyes on potential hostiles past G.”

“Solid copy, Hera. Bravo team inbound - few minutes out.” The American man’s voice grew dark with a chuckle. “I take it you want him alive?”

“Correct, Bravo-1. No field executions tonight.”

Ghost shuddered, the chill of the desert night not responsible for the ice seeping into his veins. Wolf was down - dead or otherwise (dead would be a mercy, a relief, a miracle he didn’t deserve - )

Ghost couldn’t reach him in time. Bunker G was too far, and he could already hear the distant churn of helicopter blades. He repeated his desperate, subtle message.

“Wolf, are you broken?”

If his apprentice was alive he would answer. If his apprentice was alive Ghost would come for him, against all odds, even if failure was guaranteed.

If he answered.

If he was alive.

The static was still only punctuated by snappy English orders and the barking replies of loyal dogs. No response code. Not even a verbal acknowledgment - the kid had to know he was already made, why not speak? Why not respond to his mentor’s increasingly desperate question?

Ghost knew why - but he wasn’t ready.

He wasn’t ready to bury that kid yet.

Ghost sat on the side of the highway until the first violet threads of dawn began to crest over the eastern horizon. He didn’t care that he would be easy to pick out if the targets were doing a perimeter sweep. He just kept clicking his mic, the coded message repeating over and over and over.

“Wolf, are you broken?”

This was fine. It was fine. Everything was fine -

Until it wasn’t.

Wolf wasn’t too proud to cry, but he was cautious enough to stifle his sobs. The last thing he wanted was to draw his captor’s attention. Though, a traitorous voice told him that he would feel better with a few new bruises. Something worth crying about.

Every man had his breaking point - the final straw, the weak link shattered.

Wolf’s happened to be one night too many trying to sleep with a light over his head.

They weren’t actively torturing him, here in his cell, the closest place he had to safe these days.

(For how long? He could see Smith spying the cameras, inquiring about guard duty schedules. Fuck, he couldn’t - he couldn’t survive that man’s gleeful hate-)

But he couldn’t sleep, the caged light above him always humming with electricity.

Another ragged sob choked in his throat, exhaustion and pain and childish sensitivity to a simple light making him feel as worn as the threadbare mat he lay on.

It was fine. His broken ribs were starting to heal, lungs scraping against tender bone. His concussion was fading, focus and light and thoughts coming easier to him with each passing day.

He should have started planning. He should have started paying closer attention. He should have used this time to rest and heal and lie in waiting for his captors to make the fatal mistake of complacency.

But tonight, lying on cold concrete under a yellow light, he cried as quietly as he knew how. Tomorrow he would plan, scheme, prepare. Tomorrow he would get out, go home, and openly grieve the pain and fear and broken bones he didn’t have the luxury of mourning now.

Ghost waterboarded him before. For training purposes, of course. Even feeling half drowned, unable to breathe through soaked fabric, Wolf trusted his partner. Ghost trusted him the same.

There was no trust here; just icy, bitter water filling Wolf’s nose, his mouth as he convulsed, struggling to stay conscious under the soaked rag. Smith didn’t care if he lived or died - not as far as Wolf could tell.

It was Anders who signaled for a break, tilting Wolf’s chair forward so he could attempt to clear his water logged lungs.

“The hell you do that for?”

“Can’t get intel from a corpse, Smith.”

Wolf’s breathing wheezed between the water running down his face. His vision was spotty, stars dancing at the corners of his eyes. He focused on the water beaded in his hair. Like living crystal pearls, climbing down the tangled black locks that shrouded his face.

“Well, what do you say then, Wolf?” The jeweled water droplets scattered as a hand tangled in his hair and yanked his head up, clear blue eyes cruelly smiling down at him. “Got any answers for us?”

Wolf’s shivering mumble was hardly intelligible to himself, so he wasn’t surprised when Smith yanked at his air, leaning in closer.

“Hm? You say something?” Wolf grimaced at the tobacco smoke rolling off Smith’s breath, teeth bared as he glared up at the man.

“I said go fuck yourself.” He punctuated his growl with a head-but, forehead cracking against Smith’s too-close nose. Wolf wheezed a laugh and leaned back as the torturer released his hair, stumbling back to cup his aching face. Wolf didn’t have enough freedom of movement or strength to break Smith’s nose, but the bruise was already blooming, tender under his pale skin.

He was braced for the retaliation but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt when Smith’s punches broke his nose. The fresh flush of blood down his face was warm, already haggard breathing bubbling as he tried to lean forward and keep the blood from running down his throat. Which is why his keening whine turned to a whimper as Anders tipped his chair back again, holding a damp rag over his face as he weakly struggled against his restraints.

The sound of running water once again echoed in that cement room, and the blood stains on the rag ran pink as the stream drenched Wolf’s shrouded face.

“Oh, is the little pup afraid? What happened to the big bad wolf?” The glare Wolf shot him was too tired to do anything more than make Smith laugh, gold tooth catching in the light like fire in his mouth. “No bark, no bite. What kind of dog are you?”

A tired one, strung up with his arms behind his back - shoulders dislocated, muscle tissue slowly tearing as he grew too weak to hold his weight on the broken glass below his feet. His shivering was as much from the cold as it was from the pain and exhaustion, but fear? The Wolf wasn’t afraid of Smith.

The Wolf hated him too much for that mercy.

“How long has it been?” Anders didn’t have as much fun as Smith, but he was sure to let his colleague take out his demented pleasures on the clock.

“Two, three days if you count the night he went up.”

Night. That didn’t mean much to Wolf. He couldn’t remember the last time he was somewhere dark, somewhere he could actually sleep in the blissful void.

Smith snatched his jaw, dragging him forward. His bloodied feet slipped over the glass, drawing a cry from his clenched teeth as he felt something tear in the back of his left shoulder.

“Think it’s time to introduce our friend to The Box?”

The Box was new. New couldn’t be worse than this, could it?

“No. Give him another day.” Anders pushed himself off the wall, turning to the door. “And clean up after yourself this time for fuck’s sake - this room doesn’t have a damn drain.”

Military steel toed boots crunched on the blood soaked glass as Smith stepped closer, smiling down at Wolf. This close, Wolf could see the pale scar on his chin where he had almost succeeded in putting a bullet in the bastard American’s skull.

‘The difference between surviving a job and dying badly is measured in millimeters.’ Ghost had told him, a lifetime ago. Dying badly was taking too damn long for his liking. Smith’s breath stank of cheap cigarettes and something rotten.

“Oh, don’t worry Anders. What do we pay janitors for if they aren’t mopping up some blood?”

“Please!” The scream tore from his throat before he could stop it, terror crackling like lightning in his skin. His ears didn’t process what he had said until Smith was holding a fistful of his hair, waving the red hot iron too close to his already burned throat.

“What was that, hm?” His voice was thick with amusement, a chuckle rumbling in his chest. Wolf shivered, squeezing his eyes shut. He didn’t beg. He wasn’t broken - not yet, not yet -

His world flashed white with agony, the branding iron pressed against his bloodied cheek and rolled down his face and neck, bubbling skin sloughing away as his blood sizzled, burning black on the glowing metal. Wolf came back to himself slowly, the pleas on his lips interspersed with choked sobs that only made the burns stretch and warp over broken flesh.

“Please, please - please stop. I can’t - I - I - please. It hurts, please, I’m going to die I can’t - I - I - I can’t - “

“Shush, shushhh.” The branding iron clattered, set back in the glowing mouth of the furnace. “Shut up and maybe I’ll be gentler on the other side.”

That was different. Different was new and new was bad. Smith was supposed to ask him - name, who hired you, who do you work with - but all that came was a hand grabbing his burned face.

Wolf screamed, tears blurring his vision at the contact, singed nerve endings glowing with blinding pain. He flailed, trying to pull away, dislocated arms useless to pry the hand from his jaw as another closed around his throat, nails digging into the tender, exposed flesh.

“Please! Let - don’t touch me, please, I can’t - stop! Just stop, please!” He was nauseous, brain muddied by the agony but still aware of how deeply unpleasant it would be to retch while Smith was still holding him. (Smith would make him clean it up however he saw fit -)

“You want this to stop, little wolf?” His keening whimper was the only reply he could make, words dead on his tongue as Smith dug his nails deeper into the fresh burns. “What would you do to make it stop?”

The rational part of Wolf’s mind snapped back into place, pain distilling terror to understanding. Smith wanted to hear him say ‘anything.’ And, to his disgust and shame, he was ready to say just that.

But his moment of hesitance was too long.

Smith threw him to the ground, Wolf’s broken ribs scraped across already bloodied glass shards. The ringing in his ears almost drowned out the sound of metal scraping against metal. A flush of sickly warmth told him the furnace had opened again, the iron glowing as gold as Smith’s false tooth.

“Slow on the uptake, hm?” Wolf curled tighter into a ball, ignoring the glass shards digging into his side and legs. His whines were dissolving into sobs. “Quit your cryin’ you little bitch or I’ll…I’ll give you something to cry about.”

The sound of the branding iron being set down shouldn’t have made Wolf weep in relief, but he did so anyway. In his petrified fear of the fire, he forgot there were worse tortured than bloodied skin and broken bones.

A hand wrapped around his ankle, dragging him away from the broken glass and blood to a (so far) unsullied stretch of concrete.

“Ready for something to cry about, bitch?” Smith’s whisper growled too close to his ear, the man’s weight straddling his back and a hand digging nails into his burned shoulder pinning him down. The clatter and rustle of a discarded belt was drowned by his frenetic heartbeat and panicked sobs.

At least it wasn’t the fire.

He would retch if his stomach had more than bile to give, every inch of his body crawling with fear and disgust and pain. Wolf couldn’t see - couldn’t hear anything but his own nasally breaths.

But he could certainly still smell and taste the ash of cheap cigarettes and sweat soaked skin and - worse.

His stomach clenched, a gag croaking weakly in his raw, sour throat. Wolf couldn’t find anything to distract himself from the mounting despair this small place instilled in him. He was alone with his broken body and fraying mind.

The Box was a shallow depression carved out of cold, jagged stone. It was just deep enough for him to stand in, maybe another smaller person could squeeze in as well.

(Wolf would kill the next person who touched him, or himself the next time someone touched him. The very thought of it made him shudder violently.)

He could have sat down, but then the burns across his back and shoulder and jaw would scrape against the rough hewn stone. There was no flesh that wasn’t bruised or bloodied or burned. Even the two feet he stood on were still stiff with the glass fragments embedded in his flesh.

But that pain was grounding, that pain was present and real and minor compared to the aches in his body he wasn’t aware he could feel.

(Or maybe he was aware of the possibility - he just never thought he would experience this brand of abuse. Of violated autonomy.)

Wolf pressed his forehead against the icy stone of the door, heavy and without a window to so much as let a shred of light in.

He had wanted darkness, hadn’t he? He wanted to be left alone, and he finally was.

Little miracles felt like mockery in this hell.

It was too dark.

The hand made of shadow reaching for his face wasn’t there, he knew that to some degree, but that didn’t stop him from flinching back from the door. His brain was making shapes of the invisible shadows, outlining hands he knew weren’t there, the pressure of his back against the wall made into phantom nails digging into tender, skinless flesh -

His sobs broke anew, pain and fear and self pity boiling over as his mind tormented him almost as badly as his torturers did. Almost.

Wolf knew this feeling well, a suitor that didn’t take no for an answer. He was both hollowed out and drowning from within, overwhelmed and unable to act in anyway to sufficiently diffuse the tension. With it came memory, sharp and clear in ways no one should remember their childhood.

He could see the injury - blood pooling below a skull, a bullet hole weeping between open eyes. He couldn’t make out the details of his father’s face in the memory. Perhaps it was better not to look too closely when he could smell the iron and damp of his own blood.

His mother’s scream felt harsh enough to shatter the fogged window pane of the apartment. He could see her tear filled eyes darting to him, and then to the men in gray uniforms standing around his father’s body.

Wolf remembered one of them had a red pin on his lapel, a gold piece of metal glinting under the flickering yellow of the lamp.

He hid. It was all he could do; it was all his mother’s pleading eyes asked of him. He scrambled down the hall to the bedroom and pressed himself in the closet, breathing through his mouth as slowly as he could.

(His grandmother taught him this - her eyes sharp with fear, telling him of how her brother was caught for the way his breathing whistled through his nose. At the time Wolf’s mother laughed the way adults do when they’re both embarrassed and anxious, assuring his grandmother nothing like that would happen to him.)

All he could do was listen, waiting in the dark cedar box, surrounded by clothes that smelled like his father’s favorite cigarettes, his mother’s rarely used perfume. He focused on the smells; the sounds of his mother’s wailing, the men shouting, the thunder rolling in the sky outside were making his breathing uneven with fear.

He pretended he was playing a game. His parents searching for him while he stayed as quiet and still as he could. It was just a game.

But that fantasy dissipated as he grew hungry, and the apartment grew silent.

Everything after that was blurry. Brief, flashing images of his mother, flush with anger and grief and half dressed on the floor, turning her face away from him as he crept down the hall. There was a neighbor, burly and blonde, helping carrying his father’s body out of the kitchen, and another, her curls dark and coiled where they framed ebony eyes, attempting to console him where he sat in silence.

Wolf didn’t remember what he had said, but he remembered the neighbor’s reply.

“It’s how things are. They believe we’re beneath them. There’s nothing we can do but endure. And even then, surviving is as much a crime in their eyes as fighting back.”

Then why not fight? He wasn’t sure if he said the question aloud at the time, but he knew well his mother’s reply to the same question weeks later when she watched him with a withering stare.

“It’s worse when you fight back. Take what comes, and survive.”

In the present, locked in the Box, choking on the stench of his own blood, Wolf pushed the memory back with a vengeance. He was far from a helpless child. He wasn’t hopeless. He would survive - he would fight them, kill them, and burn their world to ash when he got out.

(Because he couldn’t stomach a future where he didn’t.)

Wolf kept his jaw locked right, lips pressed in a thin line as he sneered at the medical officer. The medic was a young man, probably younger than Wolf, shiny black hair framing his round face.

“I’m not allowed to give you proper anesthesia, and they don’t want your screaming to upset any of the other patients.”

Wolf ground his teeth together, stiffly shaking his head as he tried to subtly test his restraints. They had finally - finally - taken him from that hell they called the Box and dragged him to this white, bright medical wing for treatment. Given his last experience with human touch, Wolf had promptly punched the first medical officer as soon as he was lucid enough to realize what was happening.

And now he was shackled to the bed, wrists and ankles in padded cuffs that still chafed as his weakened body fought against them. He was helpless, weak, vulnerable -

“This isn’t working. Just sedate him already.”

Wolf’s lips curled back in a snarl as he glared at Anders. The glare shifted to the medical officer, who had something between pity and annoyance in his voice as he turned to face the agent.

“Do I tell you how to take him apart?” Ander’s averted his gaze, eyes rolling. “Then don’t tell me how to put him back together. Go be useful and get a coffee - or some cigars. Hell knows Smith’ll need ‘em when he gets out of that disciplinary meeting.”

Wolf hated this. He hated being talked over and ignored, but more importantly he hated being reminded of Smith’s existence. Panic was building in his throat, nausea rising as his mind brought memories he wanted buried back to the surface.

He was shaking when the medical officer approached Wolf’s bed again.

“Christ, maybe you could use some sedatives…”

“No.” Wolf rasped, teeth clacking together when he realized he opened his mouth. But the medical officer wasn’t making any quick movements; the gag wasn’t even in his hands yet. “No sedative. I won’t scream.”

“You need stitches - and that shoulder of yours needs to be put back in place.”

(For how long? He wondered to himself.)

Wolf didn’t let his gaze waver, grounding himself in the pain of the too-tight cuffs around his wrists and ankles, the way the medical officer’s face pinched in thought, and the knowledge that Smith wasn’t here.

(And Wolf needed to be ready to kill that motherfucker the second he saw him.)

“Fine. You make a peep and I’ll twilight you - which I’d rather not do, Anders won’t let me live it down if he was right about this.”

Wolf nodded, steeling himself as the needle kissed his skin for the first suture. He would cry, but he wouldn’t scream. He wouldn’t break. He wasn’t broken yet.

(He wasn’t - was he?)

He was starting to feel crazy, which he knew to be distinct from actually losing his mind, but damn if it wasn’t too close for comfort. The only human contact he had for days (maybe weeks?) at a time was with Smith and the other soldier that accompanied him on more tame torture sessions.

(His mind was so blurry with exhaustion and pain these days he counted himself lucky to remember his own name.)

The other one never spoke to him, only over him - questions for Smith, complaints about Wolf’s behavior and responses as if he were an incorrigible lab rat. And when Smith directly addressed Wolf it made his skin crawl and stomach cramp - any attention from that fucker was enough to make his blurry brain completely disconnect from the situation.

How long had it been since he talked to someone else? How long had it been since there were words to his screams? How long had he been here, in this cell?

(At least it wasn’t the Box.)

What he considered a small mercy here was always warped into a torture beyond his expectation, and the security of being left alone in his well lit cell was starting to become maddening.

Wolf shivered as he crawled from his makeshift bed, the thin blanket over his shoulders offering little warmth. His cell wasn’t cold - far from the icy chill of the Box - but Smith had the ‘mercy’ to hose him down before tossing him back to his cell, which had him shivering for hours before sleep finally claimed him. By now his hair and skin had dried, but his starved and exhausted body had hardly the energy to shiver.

The door had no interior handle, no keyhole to peer through - just a thin slit at the top and base where air could circulate into the room. Placing his hand at the base of the door he could feel the gentle draft of warmth outside.

Bloody, black scabbed knuckles rapped against the solid weight of the door. No response. Not that he expected one.

With a shuddering sigh Wolf crawled back to his sleeping mat, the surface still warm. He couldn’t go back to sleeping - his hunger wouldn’t let him find rest, and it wouldn’t do any good for his battered body without any fuel to stitch itself back together with.

Wolf took an uneven breath, licking his lips. There was no one outside - they would have struck the door and told him to shut up, or worse. He knew there were cameras in the corners of the ceiling, but he wasn’t sure if they captured audio too.

He would find out later, because if he didn’t hear something other than his own heartbeat, breathing, and the whine of that light bulb, he was going to lose his mind.

“My name is Wolf.” His throat was raw, voice hoarse and alien to his own ears. “No one hired me.” He wondered if this gravelly baritone was permanent - he almost remembered his old voice, whole and healthy. “I work alone.”

He swallowed back iron, throat sore from the soft spoken exercise in sanity. But he couldn’t stand the quiet.

“My name is Wolf.” His name wasn’t Wolf - that was just his call sign. A pseudonym to use on comms and give to employers.

“No one hired me.” He never met the employer for this job - Ghost had handled the negotiations. He was far more intimidating and persuasive than Wolf could ever hope to be.

“I work alone.” And Ghost - god how he missed the man. Wolf could trace that face in his mind’s eye: the worry lines across his forehead, the silver starting to creep into his beard and streaking white at his temples. He could remember those hard, dark eyes that always held an air of professionalism.

What would he say if he could see Wolf now?

He choked on his mantra, half a laugh and half a sob. He had spent sleepless nights waiting - listening, anticipating - for a rescue attempt. He knew one wasn’t coming, logically; there were too many hostiles, too little information, and men like him were a dime a dozen. But selfishly he had hoped - imagined - Ghost would come with some brilliant plan to save him.

Wolf didn’t hope for rescue now. (He could hardly stand the thought of Ghost seeing him like this - bloodied, weak, broken - )

All he hoped for was that his captors would cross a line - that Smith would push him too far, that Anders would let him bleed out in his apathy. He hoped he could see their faces when he escaped this hell the only way he could.

(An escape he didn’t deserve.)

“Lesson number one, pup: do as I say. Simple enough, right?”

Wolf looked at the wall, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. It wasn’t worth provoking Smith, not when his injuries were still tender. Even the calloused finger lifting his chin made his jaw ache (more from an unwanted memory than from yellowing bruises).

“Stand.” Wolf begrudgingly crawled up from his knees, legs unsteady as he hauled his abused body from the cold, bloodstained ground. The way Smith smiled at his instant obedience make his breathing stutter. “Good boy.”

Wolf could feel his face twitch in anger, but focused on clamping his jaw shut. He tried to think about the microscopic fragments of broken glass that were under his bare feet, about anything other than the man in front of him.

“Sit.”

He dropped to his knees harshly, new bruises layering over the old in a familiar, tender pain. Wolf sat back on his heels, hands limp in his lap. At least he couldn’t smell the cigarettes on Smith’s breath down here. But even that minor relief was ripped away as the agent crouched in front of him, too-white teeth in a perfect smile.

“Roll over.”

Wolf couldn’t stop the scoff from rolling past his lips, exasperated expression flashing to terror as Smith’s smile fell and the man stood. For a split second, Wolf considered following the order, but he knew it was too late. Anything but immediate and complete surrender wasn’t good enough for Smith.

“I gave you an order, Wolf.” He hated the way his name curled on Smith’s lips. But Wolf swallowed back his pride, glancing up at the agent as meekly as he could.

“Sorry, I thought I misheard - ”

Wolf’s words were cut off with a gasp of pain, ribs cracking as Smith drove his steel toed boot into Wolf’s chest. The wind was knocked out of him, panicked gulps of air not reaching his lungs as he pitched forward to the ground. He wasn’t given time to recover between blows, one kick to his side digging at the stitches along his hip, another catching the side of his jaw and bloodying his lips.

Thankfully, it didn’t last long. (Smith probably didn’t want to lose his pet project to a few days in the medical wing. Again.) Wolf lay curled on the ground, trembling, dazed with pain. Fear coiled hot and heavy in his gut as Smith grabbed a handful of his hair, hauling him back up to his knees.

Wolf made sure not to look at his face, focusing on sucking down breaths and ignoring how his ribs protested at the movement. Smith leaned down to face him, shaking his head and softly tutting in disappointment.

“Tsk tsk little pup. I didn’t give you permission to speak.”

The hand that cupped his freshly bruised jaw was too gentle to be comfortable, the thumb wiping Wolf’s bloody lips causing a shudder of disgust to wrack his aching body. Smith stood, fingers tilting Wolf’s chin up as he did so. Those awful white teeth bore their Cheshire grin as the agent’s eyes gleamed with amusement.

“Lesson number one: do as I say. Not as simple as I had hoped. But, we can try some…alternative instruction to help you remember.” The hand at his chin was withdrawn, and Wolf’s head immediately dropped, eyes on the bloodstained concrete below. The mere sound of Smith’s belt buckle unlatching brought tears to his eyes. His breathing grew unsteady, panic blinding his knowledge that begging was useless.

“Please, I’m sorry - don’t - ”

The hand that grabbed his jaw was harsh, nails breaking skin. But there was sadistic satisfaction in Smith’s icy blue eyes.

“I didn’t give you permission to speak.” He growled, biting his lower lip with a smile as tears trailed down Wolf’s face. “Let’s fix that, hm?”

Smith chuckled as Wolf’s teeth chattered, fighting to sort the desperation to satiate his torturer and the stubbornness to keep his jaw clamped shut. Wolf sobbed, trying to keep quiet as Smith looked down on him, entertained by his agony.

“Oh, quit your crying and relax. Just think about the lesson: do as I say. And I say: kneel.” Smith was practically purring with satisfaction and the Wolf had yet to even open his mouth. His legs shook as he pushed himself to a full kneel, Smith’s hand softening as it wiped away a few tears.

“Good boy. Now: head back and mouth open. You’ve done this before.” Wolf’s jaw still trembled as he parted his lips, breathing shallow and too fast. “Don’t even think about using your teeth, Wolf. We can pull them out one by one and do this all over again. Understand?”

Wolf nodded, gaze glued to the ceiling above Smith’s head, watching the way the light caught in his pale hair and accepting his punishment with glassy eyes.

How did it happen again?

How did he let it happen again?

Why was nothing ever good enough for Smith?

(Because this was the only thing that satisfied him.)

Wolf focused on his breathing - his lungs felt like the only part of his body that was still his, that wasn’t bruised by Smith’s hands. In, out, in, out. He couldn’t breathe slowly or deeply, ribs broken and heart still racing as he came down from the adrenaline high.

He flinched at the soft click, the mechanisms of a camera hissing above him.

Nausea rolled in his stomach, fresh tears springing to his swollen eyes. He knew what Smith was doing - but why?

(Why did Smith do anything that he did to Wolf?)

(…)

(Because he could.)

“Hey, look up here dumbass.”

Wolf cracked his eyes open, glancing up at the fluorescent light haloing Smith’s blond hair. He was too tired to be upset with himself for obeying. A boot teased his face, a groan in the back of his throat strangled to a whimper as Smith rolled him over to his back. The boot on his throat was feather-light over the already purple bruises left from Smith’s hands.

“What, no smile? I’m sure your friends would like to see a smile.”

His friends?

Oh god how did he - did Smith know - Ghost - he didn’t want Ghost to see him like this -

There was a click and a hiss, the camera spitting out another Polaroid of his tear stained, hopeless, terrified expression. Another picture of his mangled, violated body. Another physical manifestation of this hell he couldn’t escape, couldn’t forget.

“Well, I’m sure your friends would like to see any of these, to know you’re still alive.” Smith crouched down, weight shifting to press the boot down on Wolf’s throat. “Or maybe they wouldn’t care to see these - no one’s come looking for you yet. Seems like you were the disposable one.”

Wolf tried to bare his teeth in a snarl, but he choked on his own breath, blood bubbling on his lips as Smith cut off his air.

“They were ready to cut you loose, throw you away, sacrifice you to save their own skin. And you won’t even tell me their names.” Smith’s blue eyes shadowed in mock pity. “A kicked dog too loyal to its master to know hurt from help. You know we can help you, right?”

The pressure on his throat was relieved, breaths sucked down to spasming lungs as Wolf curled in on himself, crying. He knew it wasn’t true. He knew Ghost was his mentor - friend? - whatever they were to each other, they were partners in their work. Equals. He knew Ghost wasn’t coming for him because that was an agreed upon condition of that work. Wolf wouldn’t have come for Ghost if he had been caught.

(Or so he had said. Lied. He hoped Ghost had been lying too.)

That didn’t make the present moment any less horrible.

Wolf’s traitorous heart still hoped for rescue.

(He didn’t want to be rescued. Not like this. Maybe if Ghost had come before - before the Box, before he broke - )

“You’ve got new friends now.” Smith chuckled to himself, snapping another picture. “Same bitch, new collar.”

Wolf was dimly aware he was concussed.

Again.

The sounds around him were words, probably. Everything was muffled and dulled, his body a distant ache. Maybe he was more than concussed - now that would be a stroke of luck.

As Smith’s boot came crashing down on his already cracked ribs, Wolf was snapped back to the present at the crunch of his bones. His left arm was broken, humerus snapped and crooked. His right hip burned hot under the skin, as though there was broken glass he couldn’t pull free. And every breath tasted of iron and felt like fire in his shuddering lungs.

“You lied to me.” Wolf tried to inch away from the voice, but the boot slammed down on his ribs again. “I told you to stay and you said ‘yessir.’ Lesson, number, fucking, one.”

Wolf was drifting away from the pain again, body convulsing as blood choked in his lungs and his broken limbs twitched helplessly. He could taste the ash on Smith’s breath as the agent crouched over him.

“Slow learner.” Smith’s voice dripped with disappointment, muffling as a radio crackled to life. “Anders, call medical. Yeah, I didn’t kill him.” Wolf could just barely make out the white toothed grin above him as his vision greyed and dimmed. “I’m going to make you wish I did.”

“No, no no no you don’t, you fucking bastard.”

This dream was familiar. A nightmare from Before, when Wolf was scared for someone other than himself. When he could save someone else. (Now he couldn’t even save himself.) But tonight he was a witness, watching a copy of himself kneel over Ghost in a dark alley.

Ghost wasn’t moving. Ghost wasn’t breathing.

His body did what he knew to do - checking for breathing, a pulse - and starting compressions. There was no use calling for emergency services; Ghost would rather die here than let a hospital have him on its record.

(Wolf always thought that was a stupid rule, but Ghost was entitled to his paranoid protocols.)

Usually, he woke up from the dream before Ghost started breathing again. Or Ghost would come to and the relief would send him back to blissful, dreamless sleep.

But tonight Ghost didn’t stir, even as Wolf’s dream dragged on and he could see himself growing tired and frantic. That wasn’t good.

Wolf, with the terrible clarity that he was dreaming, tried to remember why he was asleep.

What had happened?

The distinction between his dream self and conscious self began to blur; his arms ached, chest crackling with every breath. The pain was blinding for a moment, shooting across his chest to his side in a blaze of white.

What had he been thinking about? He was dreaming, right. Odd that he was in so much pain - when had he fallen asleep?

The flashing pain seared through him once again, the dream growing watery as he felt his waking lungs spasm against his broken ribs. Right. His ribs were broken - badly. He could remember the sickening crunch of bone under Smith’s boot.

(Was he dying? He hoped he was.)

His world alternated between darkness and those flashes of pain and light, sounds far away and unintelligible.

(He had hit his head pretty hard on those concrete stairs. Maybe he was lucky and wouldn’t wake up.)

But the pain started to persist even after those flashes, the electric agony of every heartbeat consuming what few thoughts he had.

(It hurt. It hurt so much and he just wanted it to stop - please - )

At least his heart was beating again. Wolf was exhausted, even though he knew he hadn’t moved on his own since he tried to flee up the stairs. Pain was tiring. And as far as he could tell his whole body was in pain.

It was coiled around his bones, embroidered in his flesh, traced upon his skin. The smallest twitch and shallowest breath burned, fire simmering hotter with every passing second.

A voice he knew but didn’t remember told him pain was good. Pain meant he was alive.

And god, how he wished he wasn’t.

Wolf had taken care of bees, a long time ago. His grandmother kept them behind her house, a white box barely a meter tall. He could remember the smell of summers there in the country, honey and hay and the hum of thousands of wings.

Here and now, there was blood and tobacco smoke and the hum of electricity behind his ears.

Close enough to his childhood summers, he supposed.

The sounds - he was pretty sure they were sounds - were swarming in his ears. An alien sensation buzzing in his well drugged brain. Hearing without sound, like touching without feeling. There was a numbness to it that was far more frightening than the voices (he was pretty sure they were voices) hovering around him.

“And how long until he’s recovered?“

“Recovered?” Wolf couldn’t understand the words, but he knew he was hearing them. “Fuck knows if he’ll ever - ”

“What Andy means to ask is how long until he’s stable?”

That voice. The sound - something in those reverberations made his skin crawl. It didn’t help that the familiar stench of cigarette smoke was breathed over his face.

“He needs a few weeks. At least two - maybe three. His ribs were a fucking jigsaw puzzle, thanks to you. Not to mention - ”

“Two weeks. How long until those implants start working?”

If not for the drugs in his blood Wolf would have flinched from the sharp sound snapping next to his head. His natural hearing caught it, a soft snap of deft fingers, but the humming behind his ears turned it to a piercing blade that buried itself in the soft tissues of his brain.

“They already are. We won’t be able to calibrate them until he wakes up - ”

“How long until he’s awake?”

“Given his injuries he should rest - ”

“I didn’t ask how long he should rest, how soon can you wake him up?”

Wolf couldn’t wait for them to shut up. Everything was too loud - he couldn’t wait to go back to sleep. He had been dreaming, dreaming about something he could almost taste honey sweet past the iron on his tongue.

“24 hours. But sir - ”

“Good. Get him up and let me know as soon as he is.”

“Sir, he may not be completely lucid until his injuries have had time to heal. Physically, he can’t - ”

“Don’t worry doc. I’m not taking him out of medical. And I won’t lay a hand on him until you give the all clear.”

Another sharp sound - cruel laughter that barely registered as anything other than a painful cacophony in Wolf’s brain. “We just need to have a little…debrief about his situation.”

Wolf wasn’t a fan of the medical ward but he would admit - it kept Smith’s hands off him, and that much was a blessing he would count in its favor. For all the uncomfortable restraints, itchy gauze and IVs and catheters, at least he was allowed the privacy of drifting off without the threat of waking to unwanted hands.

Or so he thought.

At first he thought it was a hallucination - the Box had made him intimately familiar with phantom hands and whispers. But the fingers tracing over his chest were too persistent, the palm pressed against his bruised throat too warm. With a shuddering breath he managed to crack open his eyes, the silhouette above unexpected but familiar.

“Shhh you’re alright Wolfie.” Anders? “What a mess…”

The agent clicked his tongue in disappointment, a gentle hand holding Wolf’s face. He fought against the painkillers and sedatives in his blood. He was due for a fresh dose soon and he didn’t want to slip back under with - with whatever was happening. Wolf managed to turn his face away, but Anders’ hand followed, easing him back to face the agent.

“Don’t worry Wolfie, he’s on probation. It’s just you and me.” Wolf wanted to bite the hand cradling his jaw. He couldn’t so much as wheeze a word past chapped lips. “We’re going to get along just fine I think. Smith doesn’t understand that pain isn’t always the best incentive.”

There was a nearly imperceptible click, a fresh dose of painkillers flooding Wolf’s blood. The already hazy sight of Anders’ face blurred to a shadow against the white light of the medical ward lights. But Wolf could still feel his hands, roaming down Wolf’s throat, featherlight fingers tracing down his aching ribs.

“It’s better in the long run for you to associate pleasure with your work, after all.” Those phantom fingers settled on Wolf’s hip point, a prick of fear in his heart at the knowledge that his hip had been broken and was far from healed. “But we’ll save that for another time. You get some rest. Heal. You’ll be enjoying our time together before you know it.”

Drifting in and out of consciousness, Wolf wasn’t sure how much time had passed. All he knew was that through it all, Anders hands were lingering, caressing fresh stitches and tracing the outlines of thick bandages. Persistent, and inescapable.

And all he ever thought was how relieved he was that at least it didn’t hurt.

Wolf may have not remembered what Anders did to him when he was drugged, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know what happened. And that was the worst part, wasn’t it? Knowing he felt good, felt cared for, felt safe enough around Anders in that state to just let him -

He knew it wasn’t his fault for being drugged, for being helpless and unable to shirk off unwanted hands, but the shame that burned in his throat didn’t understand that. He couldn’t remember saying no, so who was to say he hadn’t said yes? He should have been strong enough to say no, no matter the poison in his blood. He let this happen.

And he felt better for it.

(Did he deserve to be violated like that, just because his body found pleasure?

Did he deserve to feel pleasure, when he was supposed to be scared and disgusted by what Anders was doing to him?)

Wolf was scared and disgusted by himself. His intermittent memories. The way he automatically relaxed into Anders’ touch - the only gentle touch he had come to know here. Why couldn’t he just resist? Why was he so weak?

“Good morning Wolfie - well, early afternoon. They should really get a clock in here; when was the last time you knew what time it was? Or, well, ha, that’s a bit of a self answering question, isn’t it?”

Wolf glowered at Anders as he pulled a chair next to Wolf’s bed. The drugs had been filtering out of his system for a while now, but the restraints around his wrists and ankles kept him pinned down to the bed.

(A frog prepped for dissection.)

“Don’t look so glum, I know you missed me.” Wolf swallowed back the shameful tears as Anders playfully ruffled his hair. He would rather be solidly drugged and not remember this - then again, who was to say he would remember this hours from now? “We’re doing something different today I’m afraid. Running short on time - your handler, Smith, is coming back from his vacation and you’ll be back in his care.”

(If Wolf was disgusted with himself for relenting to Anders’ drugging and twisted comfort, he was repulsed by the knowledge that he would prefer Smith to the man next to him.)

There was a click, a new poison leeching into Wolf’s veins; his heart sank.

“You said - ”

“I’m doing as I said, Wolf. This is different. I’m here for a strictly a business related visit.”

Wolf weakly tested his restraints - ever hopeful they would one day be left undone so he could strangle Anders with his bare hands.

“After all the good times we’ve had Wolfie?” Anders scoffed with feigned hurt, and Wolf’s eyes grew wide with understanding. He had said that out loud. He was saying everything out loud -

“Truth serum?” He rasped, trying to quiet his rushing thoughts (and failing). “Hm. He had me try it a few times before - wanted me to be familiar with how it felt, see what I could keep secret. Not sure if I recognize it to be honest.”

“Who?” Anders’ smile was soft, eyes gleaming with satisfaction. This is what he wanted - Smith was always looking for submission, not answers from Wolf. “You’re correct but please, focus Wolfie. Who trained you to recognize truth serum?”

Wolf opened then closed his mouth, hyper aware of his tongue and the weight of his jaw. His brain reached for the answer Anders so desperately wanted - so easily could acquire - but there was nothing.

And that was far more frightening than the thought of betraying…whatever he once knew that Anders wanted to know.

“I don’t know.” His words wavered, small between gritted teeth. He didn’t want Anders to know he didn’t know - he couldn’t remember - why couldn’t he remember - ?

“Hm, tell me - what’s your real name Wolfie?” Wolf stared up at him, defiance morphing to terrified desperation. Anders’ frown deepened, his satisfaction fading to disappointment. “You don’t know, do you?”

“I know you’re an asshole. And Smith is a motherfucker. And I’ll kill both of you when I get the chance.” Wolf felt a snarl curl onto his face, teeth bared in a challenging smile. “I’ll remember. I’ll remember when I get out of here - after I kill you and burn this place to ash. I will. I will remember. I just - I just need to get out of here and I’ll remember.” He wasn’t sure if he was taunting Anders or trying to convince himself it was true.

The agent stood with a frustrated sigh - for the first time show an emotion outside of the indifference and smug self satisfaction.

“Well, maybe that answers some long term side effect questions… If your idiot brain has no secrets to dig for, then I have no reason to keep you lucid.” He glared at Wolf, who still bore his teeth in a tight smile. Even if the threat made his heart hammer and thoughts tumble unfiltered.

“No - no I don’t want that. I don’t want you to touch me you fucking pervert - don’t. Don’t you dare - please, please don’t, no.” His pleas went unacknowledged as there was another click, a static rousing in his blood as the two poisons mixed into an uncomfortable cocktail. “I - I’m sorry, sir. Please, please don’t - don’t touch me, sir please - ”

But words suddenly felt like cotton candy on his tongue, dry and fluffy and dissolving to a film of sweet nothingness when he tried to taste them.

What did he care if Anders did this again?

It wasn’t the first time.

It wouldn’t be the last.

It wasn’t like he would remember it anyway.

Hm. That wasn’t good.

Wolf couldn’t remember his name. He knew he was ‘Wolf’ but that was as much a name as he let it be. He had a real name - he must have had one, at some point, why else would they keep asking -

Actually, how long had it been since they asked him anything?

He could hear their voices ringing in his ears.

“Name. Who hired you. Who do you work with. Name. Who hired you. Who do you work with. Name. Who hired you. Who do you work with.”

An echo. A memory. They didn’t ask him anything anymore.

They just hurt him.

And he was starting to just let them.

Wolf knew he should have been angry about that, afraid. He was supposed to care, have an opinion. But knowing he was supposed to have something wasn’t the same as having it.

Like a name he couldn’t remember.

A feeling he couldn’t shake.

They were still hurting him, wearing him down like acid over stone. It wouldn’t crack, wouldn’t break - but it would weather, dissolving, breaking down into its base components.

Melting away its identity, making something new. Something different.

The pain wasn’t meant to make him talk - not anymore, not that he could remember what secrets had been so precious to him he would rather lose them than share them.

(He had a name, once. Did he have a home? A family? Who did he work with? What did he do - was he a soldier? A poet? An accountant?

Was there someone out there who could tell him? Who knew everything he had forgotten about himself?)

The broken glass in his feet, the watery infected burns across his shoulder, the bloody nail beds and broken bones - it was pointless. Wolf had no answers to give. They had no questions to ask.

It was an exercise in insanity.

But he wouldn’t break. He couldn’t break - not when he was reduced to this. Crumbling, piece by piece, washed away in a slurry of tears and blood and shame he should have long since forsaken.

Little did the Wolf know, that if he could not be broken, he would be forged to fit a new mold.

His handler wasn’t asking questions anymore. The Wolf didn’t have any answers to give. But that didn’t make him stop; the humiliation and the shame and the pain - it was inescapable. There was only one way the Wolf could think of getting out of this hell.

“You look terrible. Let’s get those nails out, hm?” His handle procured a hammer while the Wolf stared at his hands. His handler had hammered those nails through flesh, chipping bone to secure his hands to the table.

“Please…” His voice was so low, so soft - even without the collar the Wolf always feared the shock, the blinding pain. He wasn’t supposed to speak without permission, let alone beg. But he was too tired to care.

He needed this to stop.

“You say something, bitch?” His handler’s voice was disinterested, hammer teeth aligned to pull the first nail. It was freed in a single motion, the wound it left behind bloody and electric with pain.

“Please…” The Wolf repeated, voice raspy as tears began to streak down his bloodstained face. “Please kill me.”

He didn’t care how. His handler could beat him to death with that hammer, break every bone, rip him apart from the inside out - as long as it was the last time, as long as he died and stayed dead he didn’t care. He couldn’t break anymore, physically or mentally.

He just couldn’t.

His handler paused mid motion, a nail left half embedded in the Wolf’s hand as his handler stepped back. He regarded his project with unreadable eyes, amusement twitching at his face.

“Really? A few nails and you’re ready to throw in the towel? I thought I made you better than this, Wolf.” His handler laughed, ignoring his projects silent sobs. “I told you, you know - I told you I’d make you wish I killed you. Do you remember that? Or is that Swiss cheese brain if your’s missing that?”

“I remember, sir.” Partially, fragments of pain and blood and alien anger he wouldn’t dare grasp for now. He hadn’t believed his handler then. He should have.

“Well, then there’s your proof that I keep my promises. And I promise you, Wolf - ” His handler tangled his fingers in the Wolf’s matted hair, yet he so gently tilted the Wolf’s face up to meet his own. The kiss was rough and only lasted a few heartbeats, but still the taste of his handler’s cigarettes lingered on the Wolf’s tongue. “I won’t let you die. You don’t deserve that - that mercy. You are going to live, and if you listen to me, maybe one day you can do something to make up for your shitty, miserable life.”

“Please, please don’t - ” The Wolf cut himself off, mouth snapped shut with a whimper in his throat as his handler leaned in with a white toothed smile.

“You die when I give you permission to die; do you understand, bitch?” The Wolf gave a shaky nod, tear filled eyes trying to stare into the middle distance, to find that far away place where he could wait for a lull in the pain and the shame and the humiliation. His voice was hoarse, catching on his raw throat as he forced words from his uncooperative tongue.

“Yessir. Sorry sir.”

“Good boy. Now, don’t make a sound while I get the rest of these nails out. Save those for later, hm?”

His handler ruffled the Wolf’s hair and planted a quick kiss on his cheek, yanking out the next nail. The Wolf bit his tongue until it bled, swallowing back iron tinged spit between his hollow, soundless sobs.

“Name.”

“Wolf.”

“Who hired you.”

“No one.”

“Who do you work with.”

“I work alone.”

The hand holding his jaw wasn’t soft, or particularly gentle as it tilted his head up to meet the eyes of his interrogator. But it didn’t hurt, and that was enough.

“You’re going to do great things for this country, Wolf.” His handler smiled down at him, gold tooth glinting. The Wolf used to know his handler’s name - he used to know that there was something beyond the exhausted fear and pain.

He used to know many things, but he had carved them away with his own blood soaked hands. If a memory didn’t keep him alive or alleviate the pain, it was pointless to cling to ghosts and shadows.

“Yessir.” The words snapped from his mouth without thought, drilled into his head the way his handler had driven nails into his hands. He had practiced this song and dance so many times before, and he knew every lyric and step by heart. Save for the new man, watching from the corner of the sparse room.

“Pity about the accent. At least there’s always room for improvement.” His handler released his face, the Wolf’s eyes drifting to but not quite looking at the overseer. He was a bookish man, small and quiet in his reading glasses and clean beige suit.

The overseer stepped in front of the Wolf’s chair. His silvery eyes were cold, calculating - appraising. The Wolf slowly lifted his eyes, not daring to challenge the man with direct eye contact, keeping his expression blank. The overseer’s suit smelled faintly of cigarettes. The Wolf barely restrained the urge to scratch at the small burns that littered his arms. His handler’s habit had left its mark.

“Will you tell anyone about myself or your handler?”

“No.” The questions were new, but the script was the same. Whatever it took to avoid pain. Whatever it took to let him feel something. Whatever it took to be left alone. Whatever it took to not be abandoned.

Whatever they wanted to hear. Whatever that meant.

“Will you tell anyone about this place and what happened here?”

“No.” He didn’t know where this place was. (Maybe Hell, he was half sure, but being dead wasn’t supposed to hurt, so it couldn’t really be hell). As for what happened in this concrete box below the sand…the Wolf’s final shreds of shame wouldn’t let him admit what he endured. What broke him. He was still too prideful to dream of telling a soul, and these men knew it.

“Will you follow orders?”

“Yessir.” He had enough blood on his hands and too little heart left to care for what he did, so long as it wasn’t here.

The overseer’s smile barely creased his paper white face, but the shine of power hungry control in his eyes made the Wolf’s stomach turn.

“Good. Let’s get to work then.”

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They looked tired. The Wolf wasn’t sure he looked much better, but the project volunteer across from him wasn’t a pretty sight. Glassy eyes were perched above old bruises, scabbed over flesh knit back together. Their hair was matted, dried blood streaking down their throat.

He was good. He never needed the muzzle. And god was he grateful his handler never wrapped that contraption over his face.

“Don’t worry, she’s completely disposable.”

“A biter?”

“Worse. Bitch wouldn’t stop mouthing off.”

The Wolf could hear another handler talking with his own on the other side of the glass. A false mirror giving them a clear view of sparse room. He could also see the cameras and speakers in the corner of the room at a glance. A recorded room. Unlike the Red Room. That meant he was safe here. As safe as he was allowed to be.

“Damn shame. You try my patented method?”

“A bit. Lesson never stuck - another wasted project for the files.”

“Pity. And here I was hoping Wolfie would get a new playmate.” The Wolf didn’t flinch, hearing his handle click a button behind the glass well before his voice echoed into the room. “Whoever lives gets to leave. Good luck.”

The volunteer’s eyes flickered to him, suddenly sharp and bright with vicious desperation. The Wolf stood still, hesitating (his handler would punish him later for not making a quick kill). His handler had never told him to hurt another project before, let alone kill one. The Wolf wasn’t supposed to fight back.

“Should we have given them weapons?”

“No, too easy to hurt themselves - let’s see what they come up with.”

The Wolf had been too focused on the words beyond the glass to react in time. The volunteer was weak - starved, bloodied, but they were far from helpless. They drove a knee into his gut, winding him. Even doubled over in pain and trying to find his breath, the Wolf knew they had maneuvered behind him, an arm snaking around his throat.

They were small enough and desperate enough that his clawing at their arm did no good - they had a hold on his windpipe and they weren’t releasing him of their own accord. Little did they know the Wolf’s handler had trained him well; he could keep conscious long enough to find a solution.

And the solution was fairly straightforward. He was large, well fed, and well trained. They were small, starved, and fragile from recent torture. He dropped to the ground, crushing them under his back and taking advantage of the stun to pry himself out of their headlock. The Wolf rolled to his knees, instinct begging him to leave them be as they struggled to remain conscious. One breath. Two breaths.

“What the hell is he waiting for?”

His handler sighed in response:

“He’s a little slow on the uptake.” The mic clicked on from the other room. “Kill her, Wolf.”

It was an order. Lesson number one: do as your handler says. And never hesitate.

The Wolf was on top of them in an instant, body moving half from muscle memory and half from the desperate panic to be seen as obedient. Still dazed, their hands were weak as they pushed against his own, which easily slotted under the metal of the muzzle to wrap around their throat.

And then, they opened their eyes.

The Wolf looked away quickly, knowing how easily he could betray himself if he lost focus. Lesson number one. No hesitation. His handler said kill, so he would kill.

The hands that scrabbled at his arms fell slack well before he felt their throat spasm it’s last and their pulse die under his heavy hands. Even then he held their throat with a bruising grip, knowing full well that if they weren’t completely dead he would be punished for disobedience. But now he hazarded to look down at them.

Those death glazed eyes held no judgement, no fear or hate or pain. Tears, still hot, fell from the unblinking eyes that looked up at him in an unmistakably tender gratitude. They weren’t supposed to survive. But at least they got out the only way anyone could leave this hell.

And he was jealous that they got to escape.

“Well done. Could have been a bit faster, but you’ll do better next time.”

“He’s good.” The director hummed, watching back the tapes. Efficient, clean kills. Complete and thorough execution of orders. No resistance or hesitance. “How long was he in processing?”

“Two years, sir.” The project’s handler - Smith, his name was - never struck the director as the discerning type, but these results were undeniable. The overseer hummed in agreement.

“Yes - although there is still room for improvement.”

“In what ways?” The director made a mental note of how Smith twitched at the comment. The agent might be too personally invested in his work if he couldn’t tolerate critiques.

“For one, his accent - German - is still quite noticeable when he speaks English.”

“We can organize for future projects to receive a regiment of voice training. Any other concerns?”

The way the overseer slowly glanced at Smith before looking back to the director was telling.

“Although…effective, Smith’s method of maintaining control of the project requires…regular disciplinary sessions. I personally would like to see these sessions limited, as we can’t always guarantee consistent handler presence if we were to put the project on a field assignment.”

“We can look into experimenting further with a more conservative strategy.” The director gave Smith a nod and soft smile - he couldn’t afford to completely dismiss that the man took the suggestion as a slight. “Though I can’t fault you for finding the job security of this method attractive. We simply don’t have the funds to support other full time handlers like yourself.”

“I understand, sir.”

“That being said, your ‘Wolf’ is exemplary. The CIA has had their fair share of ‘super-soldier’ projects over the years, but this might be the closest we’ve come to realizing an executable program.”

Smith practically preened under the praise. The director made an additional note to talk to the overseer about ensuring a contingency plan for Smith should he ever pose a threat to the project.

“There is of course the problem of supply.”

“Supply?”

“Project…volunteers if you will. The Wolf is one person and people are quite variable. Given how little we know of his background it may take some trial and error to determine what makes someone…suitable for this program.”

“Hm, understood. I think we can scrape together a few batches of willing - ”

“They cannot be willing.” Smith’s voice was cool and professional, a smugness drawing the director’s own aloof gaze. “Wolf was a terrorist - a prisoner with no hope of rescue or escape. His only option was endure and submit. A willing volunteer wouldn’t be able to comprehend that dependence. They would expect us, as their fellow Americans, to relent and release them from the project if they asked. Even if we make it clear from the outset that this is a lifetime commitment, that volunteer mentality - that they can still say no - will clash with the program objectives. You want soldiers who won’t say no to whatever dirty work you ask of them, after all.”

The director steepled his fingers, digesting the information. As much as he hated to admit it, Smith was correct. Willing volunteers - however poorly informed on the details of the project - would have a certain expectation of their presence as a service they would be entitled to revoke. Only unwilling volunteers, by virtue of having no choice in their selection, would have the same understanding of complete dependence on and surrender of autonomy to the project.

“I can find you such volunteers. How do you intend to give them the impression that they’re completely without hope of release or escape?”

“It’s just a thought but…” The overseer hummed to himself. “They wouldn’t expect their fellow Americans, as Smith put it, to execute a project like this.” He nodded, an idea clearly churning behind his eyes. “They don’t need to know we’re Americans. They won’t need to know or care who gives orders, just that they follow them.”

It was an ambitious idea. One the director was curious to see implemented.

“Get a plan in writing and get it to my desk as soon as you can. The sooner we get to testing, the sooner we can replicate the Wolf’s success.” He stood to shake their hands, Smith and his overseer grinning with prideful satisfaction. This project could be the most important endeavor of the new century. What blood and bodies they needed to achieve their goals was for the good of the nation.

(A fact he may have to remind Smith of, seeing the hunger in his eyes.)

It never really mattered, did it?

Whoever he killed, how he killed them. Their faces were all starting to blur together. Maybe they all had the same face. It didn’t matter, in the end. A corpse was a corpse. An order was an order.

And that routine was comfortable. Predictable. He did nothing that warranted punishment, and was rewarded with forewarning of when his handler wanted him. A fairly regular forewarning to his gratitude - if he knew when to expect it, he couldn’t fear the inevitable.

Days blurred together, bodies were burned in the incinerator, his scars faded with age.

Sometimes he bled for his handler’s amusement, sometimes his handler’s amusement was as gentle as he cared to be, and that was enough. He could predict the events of the day before they occurred, the places he would be allowed to go, the time he would have alone, the time he would have with warm skin burning against his own.

Was time really passing if nothing changed?

Was it better?

Maybe it was better, because a change to the routine made him sick with stress the second his handler arrived unannounced and off schedule. Something was different, something was wrong -

“Get up. Overseer wants to have a chat.”

Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong that wasn’t how today was supposed to go - he was supposed to eat, to kill, to burn the body. He was supposed to steel himself for his handler’s touch and later sleep alone in the security of his room.

He hesitated.

(A mistake? After so long? Slow learner. He should know better by now.)

The routine was broken. The reverie had ended. And his handler was looking at him with annoyance for the first time in a long time.

“Your ears broken? I’ll take you up to medical and have them cut into that thick skull of yours if they are - get up. Now.”

“Yessir.” The Wolf forced from seizing lungs. He fucked up - he hadn’t fucked up in so long - what was happening? Had he done something wrong yesterday? What had even happened yesterday - he couldn’t remember, it was all so similar to every day before -

“You should be excited, Wolf.” His handler led him from his room, guiding him through the halls, towards the elevator down. Down was bad. Down was where he was punished but it wasn’t that time of day yet - “You’re getting a promotion.”

A promotion. Promotions were good, he was pretty sure. But he didn’t want things to change because change meant he would fuck it up and get punished until he learned and he was so so good lately he didn’t want to make a mistake -

“Agent Smith, Wolf.” The Overseer nodded to his handler, and (shockingly) acknowledged the Wolf before gesturing that they sit at the table. “We think we’re having a breakthrough with batch 14. I think this would be a wonderful opportunity for the Wolf to have some hands on learning.”

The Wolf’s face didn’t twitch, eyes drinking in the office and the faces and the new things he had never seen or heard before. But his heart was as frantic as a cornered rabbit. His handler knew as much, a steady hand grasping his thigh under the table. An unwelcome touch, but a grounding one.

“And what exactly will his role be in this ‘learning opportunity’?” His handler almost sounded…defensive. He had been enjoying the routine lately too. But the Overseer’s smile was soft and friendly.

“He should live up to his name, right? Be the big, bad Wolf for our three little guinea pigs.”

They were trained for situations like this. They were hand picked because they met the right psychological profile, the right physical aptitude to be a specialized strike force. To finished the mission. To keep secrets.

He had seen the videos - they all had - of other soldiers’ torture. Other soldiers breaking. Of their fellow soldiers torturing and breaking the enemy - “for the greater good.”

‘The enemy.’ How nebulous. How dehumanizing.

The men that broke their bones and drew blood from their sun starved skin were far too human for uncertain terms. He called this one Crooked, a badly broken leg healed poorly leaving him limping and his eyes hungry for their suffering. Another, Goldtooth - for obvious reasons. And on and on with what faces he could remember in the rotating cast of their cruel keepers.

‘The enemy’ was a circle on a map. These men were teeth and anger and hatred tightening the noose around their fragile throats.

Clement was the first to die. They dragged him back to the cell beaten bloody, chest caved in. Harrison had listened to the man’s gurgling gasps for hours that night, before a few shuddering spasms silenced his suffering.

Thatch went next, a snarky comment and brash disobedience cut off with a bullet to his temple. The blood and brain spatter had been left to pool around their shivering bodies where they slept on the cement floor.

Orson’s leaving hurt him the most; something between pity and envy when the man methodically and solemnly fashioned a noose from scraps of his uniform.

Their captors stripped them naked after that.

The trio that remained endured. Longer than their captors wanted, longer than even they expected they would.

Harrison stood in front of Elias and Merrick when Goldtooth was licking his chops like a fox watching cornered hens. Merrick tapped out Morse to the other two, telling dumb jokes to pass the hours of stifling silence. Elias set their broken bones with apologetic hands, as gentle as he could be where he had to touch burnt and rent flesh.

Their captors called them the three little pigs. And the Wolf would have his fill.

Harrison could hear. That was the worst part. Blind in a stone hewn cell, he didn’t have to see what was happening to his remaining comrades friends brothers. But hearing their screams conjured gore and horror beyond what was physically possible.

At least, that’s what he told himself to keep himself sane as the screams echoed from the other side of the heavy door.

The first hours (day? weeks?) were fine, aside from his thornless threats and enraged cursing.

Harrison wasn’t afraid of the dark or anything in it - he expected snakes or scorpions or any manner of horror to be locked in The Box with him. But he was left alone - save for what his mind imagined was in the dark with him.

It was when he first started to feel the effects of dehydration that the panic set in. He could feel his mind haze, his movements grow sluggish, his desire for water waning. The screams on the other side told him they were still alive - still there - but it wasn’t long before he could hardly tell their screams from his own, everything reverberating in an awful echo.

He clawed at the door, its rough stone face unyielding to soft flesh and chipped finger nails. His blood dripping from the cuts and broken nails was another maddening echo in The Box.

Harrison was well acquainted with hunger; their captors barely fed their prisoners enough to keep them alive, but they did feed them. Not in The Box, though. The dull ache in his stomach had become a distant memory.

He was too tired to stand, too tired to scream, too tired to claw his hands bloody against the door. He was almost too tired to think, his mind muddled with hallucinations in the dark and the incessant echo of his blood hitting stone.

Too tired to realize the screams had stopped.

And still, no one opened the door.

He was sleeping when they opened The Box. The first shock snapped him from whatever peace he had found, the cattle prod brushing against his bare shoulder.

Harrison shot to his feet in an instant, the instinct to escape stronger than the logic that there was nowhere to escape to. Blood rushed from his head, the world spinning as strong hands wrapped around his withered biceps to drag him from the stone hewn cell.

He jerked against their hold, vision blurred as light assaulted his eyes. He was as blind in the light as he had been in the inky black of The Box.

“Settle.” Harrison seized at the ragged voice too close to his face. They were inches in front of him. He let his body still, planting his feet on the cold concrete below him.

Bone cracked as he headbutted the person in front of him. Snarls and curses broke out among the captors, and he felt a smile stretch across his face as he was unceremoniously thrown to the floor.

Harrison’s own face was bloodied by the other man’s broken nose, but he blinked through it to glare up at the silhouette sparing him the worst of the blinding light.

The man was pale, dark hair cropped short to reveal the burn scars that clawed their way across the left side of his face into his hairline. His freshly broken nose had clearly been broken before, twisted bone knotted between dark eyes.

Dark eyes looking down at him with hungry glee.

“You shouldn’t have done that, little pig.” The Arabic that growled from his throat was hoarse, accent just a little off - was he Russian? Before Harrison could interrogate his own memories of their capture, his world washed white with agony.

The cattle prod between his shoulder blades was unyielding, the cold dark eyes above him still hungry even as Harrison seized and struggled to draw breath. He blinked tears from his eyes, brain fuzzy as he gathered enough coherency to glare up at this new torturer.

The weak display of defiance was met with a sharp toothed grin.

“Slow learner. Again.”

Harrison choked, unconscious lungs unwittingly sucking down icy water as it poured over his face. His gagging coughs wracked his aching ribs, bruised skin cold against the metal chair.

At least it wasn’t The Box.

He groaned as the chair was tilted forward, clattering loudly on the concrete floor. His head hung forward, breaths still wheezing through the water caught in his chest.

“Good. You’re awake.” Harrison blinked, vision bleary as he made out the face of the man crouched in front of him. It was the new guy - dark eyes smiling, teeth bared as scar tissue warped across his jaw.

A wolf with its cornered prey.

“Good morning to you too, Russki.” Harrison wasn’t actually sure if he was Russian, but it was his best guess given the foreign accent to a foreign language he was only recently fluent in. Fishing for a reaction didn’t give him a hint.

“Glad to see they haven’t cut out your tongue, yet.” A rough hand patted Harrison’s cheek, the stranger’s dark chuckle echoing in the empty room. “Bring them in.”

He couldn’t tell if he was shivering from the cold or from the sight of the bloodied men dragged into the room. His spotty vision made it impossible to tell the extent of their injuries at this distance - but he could make out the overwhelming red painted over pale skin mottled with bruises.

“Harris…” The wheezing voice was cut off with a whimper, a harsh huff from the captors holding them cowing the prisoner. That was Elias’ voice. Harrison let his poor vision drift to the other prisoner, stoic in his silence. Merrick wasn’t talking, no more bared teeth and snarls. That was a bad sign.

‘Break if you need to.’ Merrick had told him, the older man’s eyes sunken with hunger and dull with pain. ‘But it won’t make them stop.’

How long had it been since then?

“Here’s how this is going to work, gentlemen.” The Wolf (Harrison decided it was an apt moniker) stalked around the metal chair, hands wrapping over his shoulders - too close to his fragile throat for comfort. “I have some questions. You have some answers. All you have to do is give them to me - they don’t have to be accurate, but do me the courtesy of giving me something to work with, and this will be practically painless.”

“Painless for who?” Harrison wheezed, feeling the hands on his shoulders curl tighter, biting into old bruises with new contusions.

“All of us, little pig.” The insult curled on the Wolf’s tongue, as though he wanted to say something else. Harrison couldn’t imagine what he was holding back from spitting in the face of helpless prisoners. “Less pain for you is less work for me, and I’m a lazy man. Make this easy for me and you can rest easy tonight - maybe I’ll be able to scratch together some decent food, hm? How does that sound?”

“Sounds like a fucking joke.” Merrick’s voice was wrong, strangled and broken, but fiery with hate. Harrison could hear cuff chains shivering, the sound amplified by the bare cold walls of the room. Elias’ breathing was hitched, a panicked sob caught in his throat.

“Hm? What was that?” The Wolf moved quickly - too quickly, too close to them - crossing the room to stand in front of the pair of kneeling prisoners. “What did you say to me?”

Harrison couldn’t tell exactly what shape they were in, but based on the blood he could see and the screams he had heard in The Box, they couldn’t take much more.

“Well, aren’t you a distractible interrogator.” He forced a hum of disappointment into his hoarse words. He needed to keep the Wolf’s attention, keep him away from the others, buy them what respite he could. “No wonder you idiots haven’t gotten anything useful from - ”

A sharp whistle from the Wolf and Harrison’s world spun. The chair tilted back, and he couldn’t think fast enough to draw a deep breath before a damp cloth covered his face. The water was cold, trickling into his lungs as he seized against his restraints, desperate to escape, to cough, to breathe -

Consciousness was growing thin, the world swirling with stars and shadows by the time the water stopped. He could hardly hear over his choked attempts to expel the water from his lungs, the Wolf’s words distant and soft.

“I asked you a question, little pig.” The growl of his voice reverberated in Harrison’s chattering teeth. “What did you say to me?”

“Sorry.” Harrison tapped the letters slowly into Merrick’s open palm. The cell was silent save for their breathing, Elias sleep soundly with his head resting across Harrison’s thighs.

Merrick offered him a wry smile, bloody teeth peeking through in the darkness.

“My fault.” He tapped back, fingers far less steady. “Should’a shut up sooner.”

Harrison scoffed softly, eyes tracing the heavy collar around his friend’s throat. It was meant for dogs. Dogs with thick fur to insulate the shock.

Merrick’s skin curled under its too-tight size, blood and burns peeking over the edge as every breath shifted its fit. It was voice activated.

Harrison’s may have been half-drowned by the time the Wolf had fully turned his attention to Merrick, but he could remember the screams. The first shout dissolved into wheezing whimpers, even a whisper from his throat setting off the shock.

“We could hear you too.” The Morse was soft against his hand, almost too light to understand. “Screaming. You said it was dark?” Harrison shuddered, the memory of the Box closing in on him this dim light of the cell.

“It was nothing compared - ”

“Don’t compare. We could hear your screams.” Merrick’s face twisted in a sad smile. “Elias thought you died, when it got quiet.”

Harrison flicked his eyes down to the younger soldier, sound asleep. The bruises on his face were yellowing with age, revealing the still soft curve of youth to his cheeks. Green, fresh from bootcamp - Christ, the kid wasn’t even 21 yet. The deep cuts into his arms and torso would leave scars for the rest of his life.

If they were given the time to heal.

“Take care of each other.”

Harrison flinched at Merrick’s message, brow furrowed in aching denial.

“You better stay close then. You know how shit we are at following orders when you’re not around, cap’n.”

Merrick’s smile didn’t reach his bruised eyes.

“Take first watch. Wake me if I start dreaming - ” He gestured to the collar, sigh thin to keep from activating a shock.

“I got you.” Harrison tapped back, resisting the urge to pull Merrick closer. There wasn’t anywhere to touch him that wasn’t bloodied and raw, save for his calloused palms.

“Enough playing with your food, it’s time to break them.”

The Wolf blinked at his handler, blind to the glee in the man’s eyes as he focused on wall behind his head. He was only ‘playing’ with the targets on his handler’s own orders, but he wasn’t going to voice that fact.

“What do you propose, sir?”

With the captives he could pretend, a stage full of actors save for the targets. Here, without cameras or targets to intimidate, his voice had no bite. Anything more than submissive apathy would be seen as a threat. Any doubt to his loyalties would at best get him liquidated, at worst - at worst -

“What’s the worst thing I ever did to you?”

The Wolf’s felt the blood drain from his face, but his eyes stayed dry and blank. He couldn’t disobey - he couldn’t go back, he couldn’t.

“Which one, sir?”

“All of them.” His handler’s laugh barked with malicious amusement. The Wolf couldn’t. He could hardly keep from dissociating when his handler so much as patted his back or put an arm over his shoulders. He wouldn’t be able to keep his facade up if he had to - if he had to - he couldn’t.

“Permission to make a suggestion, sir?”

It was a risk. It was his only option - otherwise, he would break again. This time, in front of cameras, in front of captives that were supposed to see him as the monster his handler wanted him to be. And then he would be sent back to that Hell and he couldn’t go back.

“You got something better in mind?” There was a bite to his words, suspecting a whiff of disobedience. “Something worse than what it took to break you, Wolf?”

“We have allowance for one more casualty at this stage.” The Wolf could see his handler’s eyes narrow in thought. His interest had been caught, a tantalizing reminder that this work had a greater margin for fatal error. A Cheshire grin bared his handler’s too-white teeth, gold cap shining under the sterile white light.

“What did you have in mind?”

It took Harrison’s brain too long to figure out what was happening, the shouting voices and strangled sounds around him echoing too close, too loud, too much like his own screams in the Box. By the time his eyes were open, he was next to Elias, hands bound behind his back where the pair knelt in the cell.

Merrick was shivering - half with rage and half with pain - fresh blood bubbling over the shock collar. The Wolf held him by his hair where he knelt, forcing the captain to look at the pair still in the cell. Harrison flinched, aware of the pistol muzzle teasing the back of his neck.

“You lied to me, little pig.” The Wolf crooned, tutting softly as he used his grip on Merrick’s hair to drag him up into a full kneel. “Now, I have to make this more unpleasant for all of us.”

He roughly let go of Merrick, the man dropping back to sit on his heels, blood stained teeth bared in defiance.

“I didn’t - ”

Harrison winced in sympathy, his captain seizing as the shock collar crackled to life. Merrick dropped forward, forehead pressed to the concrete as he fought to stifle his too-loud gasps of pain.

“I don’t recall giving you permission to bark, American dog.” The Wolf crouched to his level, eyes alight with cruel glee as another shock sent a spasm down Merrick’s spine. He nodded over his shoulder to one of the guards. “Bring it in.”

Elias was panicking next to Harrison, sobbing gasps too loud in the silence of Merrick’s strained wheezing. Harrison couldn’t look at him, knowing the helplessness and terror that would be painted on the younger man’s face.

“What did he lie about?” Harrison’s voice croaked as he spoke, the water lingering in his lungs making every breath raw. The pistol behind his head moved, and he braced for the snap of a blow to the back of his skull.

It didn’t come; the Wolf had raised a hand, staying the guard’s own. Harrison shuddered under his gaze, something hungry - something curious, dripping with saccharine mock pity.

The Wolf opened his mouth, some silky lie surely on his silver tongue, when the door to the holding cells opened.

It was the most miserable animal Harrison had ever seen - skin hanging loose on its skeletal frame, its mangy fur falling out in bloody clumps. Some kind of shepherd, though it was hard to tell with its degraded condition.

The dog was muzzled, syrupy drool slathering the thin iron cage that rattled with its smothered snarls. The guard that brought it in held it on a pole - no leash, as though it would turn around and bite him in spite of the muzzle.

The Wolf stood, knees cracking as he smiled at the beast. Two guards dragged Merrick up, tossing him unceremoniously into the cell opposite Harrison and Elias’ own.

“This is a very simple choice, Captain Merrick.” The man shivering on his hands and knees still glared up at the Wolf, but the spark of fear in his eyes couldn’t pass as defiance. “Someone needs to answer for your lies. Save yourself, by all means - I’m the last person who will judge you for self preservation. But if that’s your choice…”

Those dark eyes slid over the pair in the opposite cell, and Harrison could swear he saw a crack in the man he knew as the Wolf. It was a hairline fracture, something glued back together almost perfectly - but the seam remained. The Wolf didn’t want to be doing this; at least, Harrison reasoned, he was sad to see some of his toys go.

“Well, we’ll put it down before it mauls both of them to death. Give you time to see the other waste away…if he lasts long enough, maybe we can turn him on you - human bites are surprisingly powerful.” The Wolf smiled, clacking his teeth together for emphasis as he turned his back on Harrison and Elias. “If one’s lucky enough to avoid getting bitten, I’ll leave them be. Like I said - self preservation isn’t something I want to punish, seeing as it’s in your best interest to cooperate.”

Merrick lowered his gaze, neck unsteady and eyes faltering as he stared at the pair on the other side of the aisle. Harrison shook his head minutely, movements stiff and eyes hardened with determination. They may be cuffed but the cell was fairly large - that dog was on its last legs anyway, if they could coordinate and tag team turns as bait and switch -

Elias had stopped shaking, the silent tears falling from glassy eyes. Harrison couldn’t count on him to stay sharp (and he didn’t blame the poor kid, as much as it pained him to admit). The exchange Harrison had with his captain the night before settled like a lead weight in his stomach.

“Take care of each other. Wake me if I start dreaming.”

There was no waking from this nightmare.

“Choose, captain, my patience is not infinite and time waits for no one.”

Merrick’s eyes met Harrison’s, the captain’s swollen, bruised face still managing a fond expression before he blinked, and looked up at the Wolf.

“Me.”

The whisper set off the shock collar, even expecting it Merrick fought to choke back his sobs as blood ran in thick rivulets from his burned and bloodied throat. The Wolf nodded, no gloating speech or orders spoken as he gave the guard and dog a wide berth.

The growling animal pulled at the cord around its throat, attention firmly on its handler as the cell door rattled closed.

“Unmuzzle it.”

Harrison looked up at the Wolf, torn between screaming at him and begging. Begging for enough mercy to just shoot both the poor creatures in that cell across the aisle and put them out of their misery.

But why draw this out, in all its theatrics, if the Wolf didn’t want this to be a show.

Merrick crawled forward, hands shaking as he reached for the muzzle’s clasps behind the dog’s head. With the dog’s focus still on its handler, its only reaction to its freed jaws was to bark between ragged, salivating gasps.

The metal cage clattered to the concrete floor, drool from the dog’s jowls pooling as it snapped at the pole still holding it in place. Merrick inched away, to the very back of the cell - almost hidden enough in the shadows that Harrison wouldn’t have to see his face.

The cord around the dog’s throat loosened, the beast slipping free in an instant, barking and pawing at the handler beyond the bars. A soft, pitchy whistle came from Merrick’s corner of the cell, and the dog’s ears twitched, frantic and futile attacks on the door shifted to an unsteady, panting prowl towards the source of the tune.

The whistling stopped abruptly, the dog’s snarls smothered by the sounds of rent flesh and a stuttering scream. It had bit his leg, not his throat - and the shock collar was still active. Harrison squeezed his eyes shut, as though that would stop the horrible sounds echoing around him.

“Do your captain the honor of bearing witness to his sacrifice.”

Harrison almost didn’t realize the Wolf had spoken, the words so soft he barely registered them over the spasming screams and crunching bones. Harrison looked up at the gory scene, almost wishing he could go wherever Elias had gone, eyes open but unseeing, ears deaf to the cacophony of suffering around them.

It felt like hours. Days. For agonizing minutes Harrison hoped he was still in the Box, the smell of dog and death and blood a bad dream. But finally - finally - the screaming stopped, wet gurgles melting into a death rattle as the rabid dog kept tearing at the dead man’s throat.

A single pistol shot downed the dog without so much as a whine, its maddened brains spilling on top of Merrick’s disemboweled corpse. The two lay entwined in death, soaked in blood that seeped toward the drain in the center of the cell.

The Wolf and his men filed out of the holding cells silently, ghosts stalking from a successful haunting.

“Harrison?” The voice was so broken and soft he almost thought he imagined it. Elias was finally awake, eyes once again bright with tears as he began to shake in confusion and fear. Harrison held him tighter, the younger man cradled in his arms. “What…where’s Merrick?”

Harrison had rehearsed what he would say when Elias came back to himself. He whispered it like a prayer to unhearing ears, tapped it out in Morse code against unfeeling skin.

“He’s gone. He’s dead. We’re all that’s left. We need to survive. Together. For him.”

And now, hands trembling and voice strangled, he could only shake his head and hold Elias closer, burying his head in the crook of his neck.

Elias weakly pushed away, twisting his head to look over his shoulder. Harrison could only shake his head harder and force a wheezing sob from his lungs. Elias didn’t need to see - he didn’t need to look to smell the cloying stench of blood and death in the air.

But Elias did see, tension bleeding from his body as he went limp in Harrison’s arms. For a moment, he hoped Elias had drifted off again - free from this hell and blind to its horrors. But a shuddering breath from the broken ribs pressed against his own proved otherwise.

“You okay?”

Harrison almost laughed at the question. Elias was worried about him of all people -

Elias had borne the brunt of the torture with Merrick, split skin slick with blood still weeping from unstitched gashes across his back. Elias had transformed from a bright eyed, brilliant and bold Marine to a shadow of a man who trembled at the sound of footsteps and became a ghost of himself in the presence of their captors.

And he was worried about Harrison, who couldn’t take a few days alone in a dark room.

“Not dead yet.” He grit out, loosening his hold on the other man enough for Elias to sit up next to him. The pair sat flush against the walls, tucked into the corner of the cell. As though it would help obscure the gore across the aisle. “You were out of it for a while. Missed a meal.”

Harrison hadn’t saved any of the stale bread, and the guard wouldn’t have let him keep the plastic bottle of bitter water. Guilt gnawed on his bones, even if he knew Elias and Merrick had been getting regular meals while he starved in the Box.

“I’m sorry.” Elias’ whisper was hoarse, still-damp eyes studying the smudges of his own blood on the concrete floor. Harrison almost spoke to fill the silence, but Elias’ words were quick and desperate. “Please, kill me.”

Harrison was surprised he had the energy to flinch at the request.

“No - Elias, Merrick asked me to take care of you - that we take care of each other. I’m not - ”

“I can’t.” Elias’ voice broke, raw with grief. “I can’t - I can’t, I can’t - ”

“Shush, it’s - it’ll be alright - ”

“I can’t - not without - you don’t know - Harrison, please.” Elias held Harrison’s bloody hand to his throat, eyes begging him with pupils blown wide with terror. “They won’t kill us. They won’t - they’ll just - this won’t end. Not until we’re dead. Please, please I just - I want this to stop.”

Harrison wrenched his hand away, scooting out of reach. Elias didn’t follow, his panicked whispers falling silent.

“No. We can - I’m not wasting Merrick’s sacrifice -”

“Don’t.” For the first time in so long, Elias’ voice had a rumble of anger. “Don’t act like he had a fucking choice. Don’t - you don’t know what they did to us.”

He didn’t. Harrison tucked his head, turning away and pressing his temple to the cold concrete wall.

“Don’t do this to me, Harrison. Please don’t keep me here.”

“I said no. Get some sleep. I’ll wake you when I hear someone.”

—

Harrison went in the Box again. He came back to Elias bloodied and bound in the cell and begging for death. He was too weak with hunger and thirst to even make an attempt, not that he would have submitted to the request - or so a voice in his heart whispered.

—

Harrison went in the Box again. He came back to Elias lying still in the cell and sobs stifled as he clutched broken arms to his chest. Elias didn’t ask anything of him. Harrison almost wished he would.

—

Harrison went in the Box again. He was hysterical with relief to see the light of the door opening, the smoky kiss of the cattle prod like that of an ex-lover where it bit into his shoulder. A pair of guards hauled him to his unsteady feet, and another pair -

“No - wait - ” His voice was broken, hoarse from screaming helplessly at the walls of that stone tomb. Elias locked his gaze on Harrison, eyes wide with desperate panic as bloody lips mouthed his name.

“Hm? You say something, little pig?” The Wolf seemed to materialize from the shadows of Harrison’s spotty vision. A cruel hand tangled in his hair and wrenched his gaze away from Elias.

The door was being shut. Elias’ panicked shouts were cut off with a scream as the cattle prod forced him back into the Box.

“You want to trade with him?”

The door was half closed. And Harrison said nothing as it locked into place. The Wolf released his hair and patted his cheek with false fondness.

“Smart pig.”

—

He would have starved, died of dehydration. (Would that have been kinder? Would that have been what Merrick wanted - if he died, he couldn’t give into Elias’ pleas. Maybe they would have let Elias go - or had the mercy to finally kill him.) Here, he shivered alone, listening to the broken, muffled screams that reverberated through the walls.

Elias’ screams echoed for hours, days.

—

“Please.” It was tapped out in code against Harrison’s bruised but unbloodied skin. Elias’ fingertips, scratched raw and bloody to the bone, repeated the word when Harrison didn’t respond. “Please.”

Harrison felt hollowed out. Even with three meals a day the ache in his stomach didn’t waver. Not that the meager food put any meat on his bones. He was nauseous, thinking himself in circles.

Merrick asked him - Merrick told him, practically ordered him to -

God. He was so shit at following orders.

Elias sobbed with relief as Harrison wrapped a hand around his throat - already bruised black from repeated strangling at the Wolf’s hands. His breathing was shallow and heavy; sickness was welling in his lungs and his broken ribs were never given time to heal between beatings.

“I can’t break your neck.” He admitted softly, arms shaking. He hadn’t had the strength to grant Elias a quick death in weeks.

“It’s okay.” The younger man smiled up at him, fresh tears streaming tracks through the dried blood on his cheeks. Bloody fingers tapped out his words, voice shredded to ribbons from his time in the Box. “It’s okay.”

“I - I need you to say it - to ask. Please.” Harrison’s own voice was strangled, his grip on Elias’ fragile throat firm but unsteady. Elias wrapped a bloody hand around Harrison’s thin forearm.

“Please kill me, Harrison.” Harrison nodded, sobs wracking his chest as Elias’ voice warbled, soft and calm. He was at peace with the horrible deed he was asking of his friend. “I’m sorry I can’t take you with me.”

Harrison wheezed bitterly, a smile twitching at his tear stained face.

“I’ll be right on your heels, you bastard.”

“Meet you at the finish line, alright?”

“Alright.” Harrison blinked back his tears, struggling to reign in his breathing as his voice cracked. “Alright. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

It took several agonizing minutes. Beneath his hands he could feel Elias’ throat spasm, the instinctive desperation for air contrasted by the soft grip of his hand around Harrison’s wrist. A grip that grew looser and looser and…

Harrison screamed, sobbing and rocking the corpse of his friend cradled in his arms.

Time crawled on, thick as molasses in that cold tomb. Harrison had expected it to slip away from him, like water between his fingers, but it didn’t. It was laboriously slow in its march, molasses on a cold day.

He couldn’t focus enough to count his breaths, not after 2059, when a cough wracked his fever addled brain. He was so fucking cold. How was he so cold? This was the desert, wasn’t it?

No matter how hard he tried to remember, he couldn’t quite pin down the country. Maybe it was Mexico, or France, or Georgia, or Poland, or Spain, or Canada - all that came to mind was the knowledge that he had been hot, and the sun had been bright.

Now he was cold, and the darkness was drowning him.

That, and the sickness rattling in his lungs.

He almost didn’t hear the distant scrape of metal over his wheezing, wet breaths. He was dimly aware it was a door that led to the primary holding cells. A selfish, irrational part of him hoped to hear another prisoner’s pleas. The terrified, desperate part of him knew there were no prisoners left to torture.

Save for him.

The door to the Box was heavy, a thick slab of stone without hinges. It took two men to pry it open enough to shove him in here. If he had been lucid enough to care, he could only hear a single set of footsteps.

He flinched at the sound of the stone being moved, eyes flitting around in panic. The Box was a small, sparse, space; two men could stand inside together, albeit in great discomfort. Harrison was alone, and had enough space to curl his knees to his chest where he sat on the cold ground.

A terrible place to be if his captors wanted to kick in his already broken ribs.

Strain as he may, he didn’t have the strength to stand - was he shivering again or were his muscles really trying to haul his skeletal frame from the floor? So he tucked his head down, hoping to at least protect his teeth from the blows.

He kept his eyes open, relief flooding his blood as light filtered into the inky darkness. The fear of pain and the joy of sight were a tangled knot in his chest, but the fear won as a hand grabbed his shoulder.

His eyes snapped shut, a ragged growl catching on his raw throat. He sank as deeply as he could into the shallow alcove, as futile as it was.

The person above him was speaking, words garbled and foreign to his ears. It wasn’t Arabic, or Spanish, or Russian - he wasn’t even sure if it was English, his muddled mind too tired to parse the sounds.

All he knew were the hands prying him from his corner of hell peace The Box to drag him to a fresh interrogation cell lined with the ghosts of his dead friends -

He cracked an eye open, surprised that they were letting him struggle against their hold for so long. Did they forget the cattle prod?

He blinked once. Twice. His body fell limp in their arms. It wasn’t a captor he recognized.

Were they new? New was bad. New meant they would try something new. Or go back to the old that hadn’t worked then, but might work now.

“Stay with me, Sargent.” The hand that cradled his head to their chest was firm but gentle, calloused and cold. “Fuck, you’re burning up.”

Their accent was thick, and the thought of a western cowboy rescuing him was enough to bring a bubbled of laughter from his heaving ribs. The stranger sighed, their frustration far less gentle than their hands. Harrison’s short lived outburst was silenced by a frantic coughing fit spurred by his attempt to be quiet.

“Breathe for me soldier, be a shame to come all the way out here for you to choke on your own spit.” There was a softness to their words as they loosened their hold on his shaking shoulders. He slumped forward back into their arms, legs too weak to hold his weight. “Christ - I’m gonna pick you up, alright?”

Harrison managed a wobbly nod before strong arms hoisted him into a bridal carry. His vision warped as they began to walk, the reality reeling in his fevered fears. He cautiously let his eyes drift to the soldier’s face.

They were angelic, haloed by the old, yellowed fluorescent bulbs of the compound. A clean shaven jawline chiseled from marble and clear, warm, brown eyes sharp as they scanned the path forward.

“W-wh…o?” The word was barely audible, wheezed from a throat hoarse from screams and lungs heavy with infection. Those sharp eyes fixed his own blurry gaze with a tenderness that rumbled from their chest as they spoke.

“Agent Walker. Let’s get you home, Sargent Harrison.”

The Wolf couldn’t hear any breathing but his own, and it was both a blessing and a curse.

He was spent, his body wrecked and bruised inside and out. His handler and the overseers had not been gentle, but at least now he was alone.

So, so alone for so, so long.

His mouth was dry, throat soured by bile and blood. Even as his stomach growled he couldn’t entertain the idea of food, not now, not so soon. But he would need food to heal, water to survive, and here he had none.

The Wolf couldn’t walk - he could hardly crawl in his condition - so he laid where they had left him, bloodied and bare in the tangle of sheets on a bed he once considered sanctuary. (His handler never had him here, always in the Red Room, always alone - never with others watching, others touching - )

He felt a few stray tears leak from his eyes, swollen from sobbing throughout the night. He couldn’t cry - he needed to conserve water, conserve his energy. He didn’t want to die here.

(Funny, considering he had begged throughout the night for them to kill him, until they forced a gag between his teeth, down his throat to shut him up.)

The Wolf tried to drift back to his exhausted blur, to ignore the aches and burns and bruises that screamed for his attention with every breath and twitch. He was so hungry, so thirsty, so scared that no one was coming.

(“A bitch like you is good for two things: fighting and fucking. And you’ve got no fighting days left.” The Wolf wasn’t sure he had any fucking days left either, not after they wrung every last drop of energy and pleasure they could get out of him last night.)

He was done, wasn’t he? One last failure, one last punishment. Another broken, beaten dog to put down. And now he would be left to fester and rot among this filth in the room he had never associated with pain or fear until last night.

(He couldn’t even remember what he did wrong to garner such a severe punishment. He must have done something awful to deserve this, left to die alone in this cold and uncaring concrete coffin.)

He was so cold. So alone. He didn’t want to die here so cold and alone and broken -

Footsteps, distant and echoing.

Tears gathered in his eyes, soaking into the bloodstained sheets beneath his face. He didn’t want to be alone (he didn’t want to be touched) he didn’t want to die here (he didn’t want to live through that again - )

The steps paused, hushed voices beyond his door.

“I’ll sweep these - you check the cells in the next section.” He knew that voice. He didn’t know the one that responded with a gruff and immediate:

“Yessir.”

(Since when did Anders have his own project?)

The doors to the rooms around his own creaked open and closed. Anders knew what was behind each one. But when he opened the Wolf’s door, he paused, face too distant and too blurred by tears for Wolf to discern his expression. The Wolf’s breathing shuddered, a sigh of relief as the door closed. Though muffled, his sensitive ears caught every word mumbled into Anders’ radio.

“Smith, how copy?”

“Solid copy, what’s going on.”

“I’m getting Walker and whatever’s left of Volunteer H from holding. You come get your dog when we’re done.”

“He’s still alive?”

“Somehow. If you kill him just know the incinerator is shutdown - don’t leave a body on site.”

“Solid copy.”

The Wolf let a whimper wheeze past his lips, a keening sob of both relief and terror. He didn’t want to die he didn’t want to die he didn’t want to die - Maybe, maybe if he got Anders’ attention, proved he was still useful, could still be good, he would be allowed to live. He barely managed to shift his hand into position to start dragging himself to the door when quick footsteps passed his door.

They were leaving.

Nononono -

“Christ, he’s alive?”

“For now - anything on your end?”

“Ash in the incinerator and a few empty torture rooms. Let’s get this guy topside ASAP.”

The Wolf heard his own whine echo against the concrete walls of his room, unheard by the agents on the other side of the door as they stepped into the elevator. Every time he parted his lips to speak - to beg - he felt the phantom weight of the gag in between his teeth and the shock collar around his throat.

He couldn’t. He could barely make a sound as the elevator ascended, far far away from his tomb.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted Smith to kill him when he came, but at least now he knew Smith would see him one last time. He couldn’t leave a body on site.

Katie didn’t normally work the late shift - she wasn’t supposed to work the late shift.

‘Bad for the baby’ many well meaning people had warned her. She was a surgeon - one that already had a daughter at home - and she knew damn well what her limits were.

But she had compromised, for her husband’s sanity.

‘What if you need me and I can’t be there? I’ll have to drag poor Mel along; she’s too young to be left alone at home.’

She worked day shifts only. Her scheduled surgeries were being gradually given to Marcus - another neurosurgeon in the hospital - to give her time off her feet. (Too much time to think.)

So she stayed late, a white lie about paperwork keeping her milling about the hospital hours past the end of her shift.

(How could she tell her husband she hated that house? How long could she keep coming home to a place half empty? How could she walk past the guest bedroom without her baby brother haunting the hallways with a smile she would never see again?

She didn’t know how, so she lied.)

“You know he’s just worried about you.” Janice, kind and smelling of midnight coffee, sighed behind the desk. The ER was eerily quiet tonight, only a few elderly heart murmur patients and confused addicts in the waiting room.

“I’m fine. You know I did a 14 hour surgery with Mel - and that was at 8 months.” Katie’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, a hand subconsciously drifting to her abdomen. “This little guy isn’t even kicking yet.”

“Not just the working.” Janice took a sip from her coffee, eyes drifting back to her computer monitor and the scattered documents on the desk. “You lost your brother, Kate. You should have at least taken some time - ”

“It’s been six months.”

“You only took two days off.”

“Not tonight, Jan.” Katie sighed, shaking her head as distant sirens whined. “I can’t - ”

“Hold that thought.” Janice’s slouch straightened, eyes sharp as she adjusted her headset, taking a call.

Katie looked to the clock. Quarter past midnight. It was getting late; Mel would need a ride to school, Awesome was working tomorrow at the clinic. Perhaps it was about time she -

“Goddamnit.” Jan’s voice was tight, agitated as she made calls to the ICU. Antibiotics, liquids - hold the X-rays, until we get the patient stable - prep a ventilator, just in case.

The sleepy energy of the ER had shifted immediately, the sirens whining closer.

“What’s that about?” Katie hazarded to ask when Janice finally finished her calls. The older woman shook her head, eyes wide with frustration.

“Don’t know why the hell they didn’t call until they were practically here - shit, I should give Ian a heads up, we might need to field police involvement, hang on.”

Before Katie could get more information, lights and sirens practically crashed through the glass doors of the ER. The paramedics, haggard and frantic, pushed a yellow gurney through.

Between their uniforms, she caught a glimpse of the withered man on the stretcher. He was skeletal - starved and dehydrated and horribly still, save for shallow breaths shuddering below bruised ribs.

Her eyes skimmed his face, and her heart fell to her feet. The bustle dissipated, gurney racing toward the ICU.

“Sweetheart, are you - ?”

“Harrison.” Katie’s eyes were welling with tears. It was him; it was his face - they buried an empty casket - where had he been all this time, what happened -

“Kate.” There was warm concern in Jan’s voice, tinged with an anxious undercurrent. “I think you’re a little overtired - Katie!”

She was halfway through the ICU by the time someone stopped her. He was tall, blonde beard dull despite the too-bright hallway lights. She had just caught up enough to see the gurney roll into a private treatment room.

“Get out of my way.” The venom in her voice was thick with a reflexive anger. Her teeth were already bared in a snarl, eyes still locked on the door her not-dead baby brother had been taken through.

“Doctor Gomez.” The man’s voice rumbled with authority, Katie quick to recognize the military standard shoes and watch. Her cutting gaze shifted from the doors to look at his face.

He was tired, doe brown eyes above dark bags of sleeplessness. This close she could smell days of sweat and the familiar metallic bite of dried blood. Raised hackles fell slack, defensive snarls silenced by the relief (the grief) of knowing it was Harrison. It had to be.

“Agent Walker, CIA. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. We should - ”

“How is he?” Her damp eyes were pleading, desperate. Unburying the dead and prying open an empty coffin. Agent Walker’s eyes softened, shoulders relaxing just a fraction.

“He’s strong. He’ll live.”

Katie sobbed, arms wrapped around herself. He was alive. All this time he was alive and - she couldn’t bury him again.

Agent Walker stalked into the office like a tidal wave, radiating hatred and disgust and a barely restrained bloodlust. Walker was seeing red and the only thing keeping them on a leash was the legal collar around their throat.

“What the hell was that?”

The Director appraised them with a carefully blank expression. The last thing he needed was a rogue agent.

“That…was a waste of taxpayer money for the sake of the NSA’s vanity.”

The Director absentmindedly began to set aside the paperwork he had been filling out. Walker was notoriously thorough, which made for a good agent and a bad employee.

It was going to be a long evening.

“Take a seat.” Walker shifted on their feet for a moment before settling into the plush leather chair. “In 1992 we were both on the docket for a major DNI investment. A choice between domestic, and international intelligence projects.”

“I…we thought we were a shoe-in for the grant. The War on Drugs was in full swing, and while experimental our Ganymede Project aligned well with aiding in tensions at the border.”

Walker shifted, uncomfortable in their seat. Border work was dirty business, American made drugs handed out under false pretenses and secretly planted on whoever was unfortunate enough to catch an agent’s eye that day. Innocent blood oiled the political machine.

“But, apparently, the NSA’s psychology and profiling project was more appealing to the DNI at the time.” The Director scoffed, shaking his head. “Guess which department still has an operational project even on a cut budget.”

“You sent me to clean up another department’s failed science experiment?”

“Effectively, yes.”

“Do you have any idea what they were doing down there? Those are our soldiers - ”

“Those were the Navy’s soldiers. Don’t get attached to men outside your jurisdiction, Walker.” The Director needed to cut off their passion before it bled out. Redirect them. “NSA cleaned up their act quick. Too quick - the records are stashed somewhere our techies can’t reach. And I know most of their…subjects were terminated before your team got the order to go on site.”

“Corpses can’t give testimony.” Walker grumbled, some fire dying in their eyes.

“Which makes the live one you pulled out all the more concerning.” The Director sighed, glancing at the manilla folder he had set aside. Sergeant Harrison Gomez might have survived the Sandbox, but there was no guarantee the NSA would be content to let him live to tell the tale.

“If you want him dead, you’ll need another agent.” The simmering fire in their eyes was smoldering low now, the tiredness of this work eating through any gallant resolve like acid.

“I need an agent to keep him in the dark.” The Director didn’t notice the way Walker cringed at the word. Harrison had spent enough time in the Dark for one lifetime. “Keep an eye on him. Closely. NSA may be vain but they aren’t dumb enough to try and assassinate a man under our watch.”

“Babysitting,” Walker’s face twitched with a smile, “now that, I can gladly do.”

The Director’s smile in response was fond and tinged with guilt. His best agent was run too thin; as much as hated to admit it, they needed to rest.

“I’m also mandating you take 6-8 months of medical leave while on assignment. It will be good for your cover to be in the hospital and - ”

“Sir?” There was offense in Walker’s gravelly tone, but their eyes betrayed concerned confusion. The Director met them with softness and a sigh.

“We both know you need this, Walker. Needed it longer than I’ve known you.” A blush was creeping up the agent’s neck, ears pink. “I’d like to meet her.”

“Sir?” There was less confusion, sheepish acknowledgement that The Director knew. Which wasn’t a stretch - he did head an intelligence agency after all. And he had enough drinks with his best agent off the clock to know them almost as well as they knew themself.

“I like the name you’ve mentioned. Agent Sarah Walker has a good ring to it, no?”

The tension in her shoulder’s dissipated, the pinch between her brow relaxed under his knowing smile. Her lips drew tight in a smile half hidden by her beard and mustache.

“Damn right it does, sir.”

Without the thick bandages around his hands or the bustle of the hospital’s rotary of nurses and doctors, Harrison could stare at his hands.

The only permanent reminder that it had been real. (The headstones had been laid months ago, but his own was being dug up next week - they were far from permanent.)

His palms were pale, still lacking the warmer hue that had been drained by months underground, undernourished and underfed. But it was the silver that drew his eyes, threads like jellyfish tentacles woven across the creases of his skin. His fingertips were slowly regaining feeling, but the thick pads of scar tissue wouldn’t go away easily.

His scars were his own doing, desperate hands breaking nails and raking palms over the stone door that separated him from the others. From the torture that left real scars, intentional scars.

“Uncle Harry, is it alright if I come in?”

Harrison blinked up, the softness forced to his features as he laid eyes on his niece. Mel had only grown a few inches in his absence, but with another sibling on the way and old enough to understand a funeral, she had a naive maturity to her voice.

“Hi Mel, what’s up? Mom say it’s time for dinner already?” He couldn’t tell if the shadows in her gaze had always been there or were reserved for her revenant uncle. Most kids didn’t bury a family member and have them show up half a year later (mostly) unscathed.

“No - there’s a lady at the front door asking for you.” Mel shifted from foot to foot, fidgeting with her hands. Dark and smooth and unscarred. “She said her name is Sarah. Sarah Walker. She has some paperwork - ”

Right. Agent Walker.

“On my way, can you keep to the game room downstairs? We’ll be talking in the dining room.”

Mel nodded, dark eyes lingering on his hands as he combed them through his thick curls. When she ducked from the doorway Harrison let his smile fall, lungs cold and numb. He could do this - he could reopen scarred over memories, bleed for the sake of government paperwork. It’s not like he had any scars worth the strangled sob in his throat.

He made it out - and if that wasn’t enough, he made it out almost unscathed. Almost - not quite - but he could hold it together long enough to sign whatever bullshit documents the CIA needed his name for.

Sarah felt her blood run cold. She found what she was looking for. A quick glance through the security cameras proved she was still under the radar, her direct uplink to the severs undetected.

Harrison didn’t know she was here; she was on her own if things went tits up.

She came here to wipe the files. The recordings, the data, the history. She couldn’t let them use the results of that project. She couldn’t let them use what they had done to ordinary people - to Harrison - for the “greater good” of the country.

A country all too happy to bloody its hands for profit and control.

Then why was she hesitating?

Deleting these records would prevent something like Project Leda becoming standard protocol, from happening again when the government inevitably wanted better results.

Deleting these records erased any evidence of the crimes committed by the government against its own people.

Against Harrison.

He didn’t know about any of this; he didn’t know about the recordings, about the Projects. It was her instinct to call him, to ask him what he wanted, what he would do -

But Harrison wasn’t here, and Sarah was on her own.

She saved the data to an external drive.

It would take the worm she released into the server mere minutes to destroy the original data. A project five years in operation, a body count blacked out in sharpie, festering for a lifetime in the minds of those that survived - lost to a string of intangible code between the time it took Sarah to cross the building and slip away into the night.

All gone.

Save for the little black box she carried close to her chest, there was no evidence left of the hell Harrison had survived.