Chapter Twenty
CASSIA
The forest around us shifts from peaceful to predatory in the span of a heartbeat.
One moment I’m following Finnick’s steady pace through the undergrowth, my boots finding purchase on moss-covered stones and fallen logs. The next moment, the world explodes into chaos.
Gunfire erupts from three directions at once, sharp screams splitting the morning air. Voices pierce through the trees—not ours, but theirs. The escapees we’ve been hunting.
“Defense!” Arayik’s voice rises above the noise, but it’s too late for the careful squad divisions we’d planned. We’re scattered across fifty meters of forest, caught in the open by the same people we’re pursuing.
I drop behind a thick tree, bark splintering above my head as bullets tear through the air where I stood moments before. My heart slams against my ribs, the sound of my own pulse competing with the battle for dominance in my ears.
This is nothing like the simulations.
Nothing like our training.
The acrid smell of gunpowder soaked in blood greets my nostrils. Smoke drifts between the trees, mingling with the earthy scent of disturbed soil and crushed leaves. Everything is moving too fast. Too loud and real.
“Ashford!” Elias’ voice reaches me from somewhere to my left. “Fire, now!”
My hands shake as I raise my weapon, finger gliding over the trigger.
The gun kicks against my shoulder as I whirl and fire into the trees, aiming for the random flashes rather than clear targets—I couldn’t hit anything with accuracy right now.
The recoil renders my arms useless from being so sore, burning every joint for several moments.
Movement catches my attention—a figure darting between trees with a gracefulness I could only dream of possessing.
And he’s headed right for me. Without thinking, I break from cover to pursue my team that has shifted in a different direction.
My legs pump beneath me, carrying me across roots and rocks as I run from the shadow chasing me through the forest.
As the thundering gait behind me closes in, one thing becomes clear: he’s going to catch me.
And against any better judgment, I turn, finding myself face to face with a man roughly my age. His clothes are worn but clean, patched in places but well-maintained. His eyes hold no malice, only determination. This isn’t a criminal or terrorist—this is someone protecting his home.
He raises his weapon, and I raise mine.
We circle each other in a small clearing, both breathing hard. Through the trees, the sounds of battle continue—shouts, gunfire, the crash of bodies through underbrush. But here, in this pocket of forest, there’s only us.
“You don’t have to do this,” he says, his voice deep and steady despite the circumstances. “We’ve done nothing but try to stay away from you. None of us need to die because of it.”
My lungs constrict. He’s right, of course he is. I don’t want to be here just as much as he doesn’t want me here.
I wish it were so easy.
“It’s not that simple,” I manage through the thickness in my throat.
His expression hardens. “Then you’re as much a monster as the rest of them.”
The words hurt, only because they’re true. I am a monster. I think of the woman we captured in Pyrem, of the men shot dead in front of their family. Of all the women trapped in breeding facilities while I play at being their captor.
I may be a monster, but I will never be one of them.
“I’m not—” I begin, but he’s already moving.
He lunges forward, abandoning his gun for close combat. We grapple, his hands seeking my throat while mine fight to break his grip. He’s stronger than me, but desperation lends me much needed adrenaline. I twist away from his grasp, stumbling backward.
“You came here to destroy us,” he pants, advancing again. “To drag our women back to those hellholes you call facilities.”
“I came here because I had to,” I snap back, the words tumbling out before I can stop them.
Something in my tone makes him pause. His eyes narrow, studying the little he can glimpse of my face.
His observation terrifies me more than his physical attacks. But I let him look—will him to understand that I don’t want to hurt him. For a moment I’m certain he does, but his expression hardens again before he tackles me around the waist, sending us both crashing to the forest floor.
We roll across the ground, fighting for advantage. His elbow catches my ribs, driving the air from my lungs, and I retaliate with a knee to his stomach, earning a grunt of pain. Dirt and leaves stick to our clothes as we struggle.
He gains the upper hand, pinning me beneath his weight. His hands close around my throat, and panic floods my system. Not because I’m afraid of dying—though I am—but because if he removes my mask, anyone could appear and learn what I really am.
My vision blurs at the edges. Through the growing darkness, I see his face above mine, set with grim determination. He’s not enjoying this. He’s doing what he believes necessary to protect his people.
Just like I’m supposed to be doing for mine.
The thought rouses me. A drill from training plays through my mind—the Commander demonstrated turning under an opponent’s weight, angling your hip so their force becomes your opening.
The motions flip in my head, and I reach for the knife on my belt, my fingers closing around the handle.
The blade slides free with a tone so quiet the blood funneling through my ears drowns it out.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, twisting my hip and driving it upward.
The point finds the gap between his ribs, sliding into his chest with sickening ease. His eyes widen, more in surprise than pain, before his grip loosens, hands shifting to the fresh wound.
Blood seeps between his fingers, dark and warm. The metallic smell mingles with the forest, creating a stomach-churning scent of life and death.
“Why?” he gasps, his weight settling heavier on my chest.
I have no answer that would satisfy either of us. Instead, I ease him to the side, watching as the light fades from his eyes. His last breath escapes in a small sigh, barely audible over the shouts in the distance.
I sit back on my heels, staring at what I’ve done.
Don’t cry, don’t cry.
I just killed a man. I just took a life without a second thought, as if I have any right to do so.
My hands shake as I wipe them along my pant legs, the motion automatic despite the horror coursing through me. This man died protecting his community and family. His freedom. And I killed him for it.
A heavy weight settles across my shoulders, and I don’t think I’ll be rid of it anytime soon. I’ve crossed a line I can never uncross, become something I swore I’d never be. The fact I had no choice doesn’t lessen the burden—it only makes it more bitter.
Gunfire draws closer, snapping me back to the present. I need to move; rejoin the others before my absence is noted. Stars forbid my team find me here bawling over someone I was supposed to enjoy killing. I push to my feet, legs unsteady beneath me.
The battle has shifted deeper into the forest. I follow the sounds, my steps careful through the maze of trees. Shuffling drifts between the trunks, and the sour smell of more death strengthens with each step.
I emerge into a wider clearing where the main engagement is. Our forces have the escapees pinned against a rocky outcropping, but they’re fighting with the desperation of people defending their homes. They know this terrain. We’re just intruders.
The other recruits are spread through the terrain while Arayik crouches behind a fallen log, barking orders into his watch. Kellen has taken position on higher ground, his rifle eliminating targets with methodical precision. And Elias—
Elias moves through the chaos like a force of nature—an expert in a field of war. But his attention keeps drifting to something beyond the immediate battle, something that makes his jaw tighten.
I follow his gaze, and my blood turns to ice.
Civilians.
A group of maybe a dozen women and two children huddle behind a cluster of trees at the far edge of the clearing.
They’re trying to escape, to slip away while the fighters hold our attention.
One of the women clutches an infant to her chest, her face pale with terror.
The children can’t be more than five or six years old.
Orders echo in my mind: capture the women and children. They’re resources to be collected, processed, assigned to facilities or families as the Syndicate sees fit. The children will be separated by gender—boys trained as future Enforcers, girls prepared for breeding.
I raise my weapon, sighting on the group. My finger finds the trigger, applies the slightest pressure.
And freezes.
I can’t do it.
I can’t be the one to condemn these innocents to the fate I’ve spent my life hiding from. The woman with the infant appears barely older than me. The children are scared and confused, tears descending their blotchy faces while they reach for any form of comfort.
My arms waver, lowering the gun to hang at my side once more.
“Ashford!” Elias’ voice cuts through my paralysis. “What are you waiting for?”
I should move. Should follow orders, complete the mission, maintain my cover. But my body refuses to obey. Every instinct screams against what I’m being asked to do.
They’ll kill me for this—something I no longer care about. The Syndicate can have my life if it means those people can be free.
The moment of hesitation costs me immediately. One of the escapee fighters emerges from behind a tree to my right. His weapon swings toward me, and I know I won’t be fast enough to react.
The world slows to a crawl. The muzzle flashes, the displacement of air a small comfort as the bullet passes inches from my head. Then Elias is there, his shoulder slamming into my side as he shoves me down.
My elbow slams into the ground at a bad angle, tearing a cry from me as a searing pain travels through the bone. Elias rolls us behind a thick trunk as more shots pepper the bark above us. His weight pins me down, his breathing harsh in my ear.
“Stay down,” he growls, then rises to return fire.
The rebel’s weapon falls silent, and I know my leader well enough to know his shot was permanent.
Elias’ gaze blazes with an emotion I can’t quite identify. Anger, certainly, but something else underneath. Concern? Suspicion?
“What the hell was that?” he demands, his voice a charged whisper.
“I—” The words stick in my throat. How do I explain without revealing everything? “This is our first real combat…I froze.”
His stare bores into me, searching for truth behind the excuse. “Freezing gets you killed, Ashford. Gets your team killed.”
“I know.” The admission tastes like ash. “It won’t happen again.”
“It better not.” He checks the mag on his weapon, then peers around our cover. “Because next time, I’m not saving your ass.”
The battle is dwindling. I’m unsure of how many escaped, but by the fury in our Commander’s eyes when I round the tree, I would say too many.
I watch as Kellen zip-ties the hands of a man who can’t be more than twenty. Blood seeps from a gash on the prisoner’s forehead, but his eyes remain on the two women next to him. Kellen tugs him forward, and he spits on the leader’s feet, earning a rifle butt to the stomach that doubles him over.
The women are handled with more care, but no less firmly. They’re assets now, property of the Syndicate. Tears cover their faces as Nash approaches and plastic restraints are secured around their wrists.
One of their gazes meets mine, a girl with tangled brown hair. Her eyes hold a question I can’t answer—an accusation I can’t deny. She doesn’t understand why these masked figures have destroyed her world when she’s wanted nothing but autonomy over her own body.
Unable to hold her stare a moment longer, my eyes shift away.
“Deplorable,” Arayik announces as he surveys the aftermath. “We should have had them all contained in half the time. And yet dozens of them managed to flee!”
He’s right, and we all know it. The escapees fought harder than expected, as if they were more than prepared for us. Several of our team sport wounds—nothing fatal, but enough to slow us on the journey back.
“We underestimated their capabilities,” Kellen observes, dressing a cut on Ronan’s arm. “They’re better organized than the reports indicated.”
“Better armed, too,” Elias adds. He’s combing through their defenses, cataloging what they’ve collected. “These aren’t homemade weapons or basic hunting rifles. Someone’s been supplying them with Enforcer-grade equipment.”
Truthfully, I’m not surprised.
What did the Syndicate expect? If someone was aiding them in leaving Dascenia, why wouldn’t they also provide things they could protect themselves with?
But now they know. And if they’re organized enough to mount effective resistance, then this mission is just the beginning. The Syndicate will send more forces, better equipped and less concerned with taking prisoners.
“Pack it up,” the Commander orders. “We’re moving out in ten minutes. I want to be back at the perimeter before dark tomorrow.”
The group readies quickly while gathering useful intelligence and preparing the prisoners for transport. The dead rebels are left where they fell—a message for anyone who might find them later.
Between me and Calder, we secure the women, my hands moving automatically while my mind reels. This is what I’ve been training for—what the Syndicate calls the greater order. But all I see is broken families and shattered lives.
“You did good back there,” Killian remarks as he passes, nodding toward the tree line where my confrontation took place. “Was a little worried when I saw the fucker chase you. Clean kill?”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
“Gets easier,” he continues, mistaking my silence for something it isn’t. “First one’s always rough, but you’ll find your rhythm.”
He moves on without another word. To him, to all of them, this is just another day’s work. The death I carry, the lives we’ve destroyed…it’s all part of the job.
But as we begin the long march back to the perimeter, prisoners stumbling ahead of us under guard, I know nothing about this will ever be easy. Each step takes me further from the person I was, deeper into a role that’s slowly consuming everything I once believed about myself.
The day closes around us, hiding the evidence of our battle. But the memory of what happened here will follow me long after we’ve returned to the safety of Syndicate territory. The man I killed, the families we’ve torn apart, the children whose innocence died today along with their protectors.
I am become death. And the worst part is that tomorrow, I’ll have to do it all again.