Chapter 14 Asher
Chapter Fourteen: Asher
The children move like zombies.
Forty-two of them now, and an assistant we found, shuffling through the corridors in a ragged line, some holding hands, some clinging to Marlee or Jace, some walking alone with their arms wrapped around themselves like they're trying to hold their broken pieces together.
Their bare feet whisper against the tile.
Their eyes are hollow, haunted, fixed on nothing and everything at once.
The youngest can't be more than four. The oldest might be fifteen. All of them wear the same expression: the blank mask of survival. The face you learn to wear when showing emotion means punishment.
I'm at the front of the line, the sedated boy still cradled in my arms. He hasn't stirred since Jinx handed him to me. His breathing is shallow, his pulse steady, but wherever his mind has gone, it's far from here. Deep in the safe place that children like him build when reality becomes unbearable.
I know that place. I lived there for years.
"Left at the junction," Jagger's voice guides us through the comms. "Maintenance corridor is fifty meters ahead. You're clear to the exit point."
"Copy." I adjust my grip on the boy, shift his weight to ease the ache in my arms. He weighs almost nothing. Skin and bones and trauma. "How's our window?"
"Tight. Camera loop resets in twelve minutes. After that, you're visible on every feed in the building. Local security will converge on your position within four minutes of detection."
Twelve minutes to get forty-three traumatized children through a maintenance corridor, out of the facility, and into waiting vans. The math doesn't work, but it has to. There is no other option.
"Marlee, take point. Jace, bring up the rear. Nobody gets left behind. I don't care if they're walking, crawling, or being carried. Every child makes it to those vans."
They move without question, Marlee sliding past me to lead the group while Jace falls back to cover our six. His knives are out, blades catching the red emergency lighting, ready for any threat that appears.
The children shuffle forward, and I count heads as they pass. It's automatic, instinct drilled into me from years of managing groups in high-stress situations. Always know your numbers. Always know who's missing.
Thirty-nine. Forty. Forty-one.
Forty-one.
I count again. Same result.
"We're missing two."
"What?" Marlee stops, turns, her face sharp with alarm. "I counted forty-three when we left the wing. I did a head count myself."
"Count again."
She does, her lips moving silently as she scans the line of shuffling children. Her face goes pale. "Shit. The girl from cell twelve. And the assistant, the one we found tied up in the admin office. The woman in the scrubs."
"Where did they go?"
"I don't know. They were right behind me, and then—" Marlee shakes her head, frustration and fear warring across her features. "I'm sorry. The kids were panicking, one of the little ones fell and I had to pick him up, and when I looked back—"
"It's not your fault. You were doing your job.
" But my gut is twisting, instinct screaming that something is very wrong.
A conditioned child and a facility staffer, both vanishing at the same time.
That's not coincidence. That's intention.
"Jace, stay with the group. Get them to the vans. Do not stop for anything."
"And you?"
"Marlee and I are going back. Someone has to find those two before they complicate things."
"Asher, we don't have time—"
"Then we move fast. Go."
I hand the sedated boy to one of the older children, a girl maybe fifteen who seems more present than the others. "Can you carry him?"
She nods, takes him without hesitation. Her arms are thin but strong, and she holds him like she's done this before. Carried smaller children. Protected them when no one else would.
"Get to the vans. Don't stop for anything."
Another nod. No words. Words are dangerous in places like this.
Marlee and I backtrack through the corridor, weapons up, scanning every doorway and shadow. The facility is quiet now, the alarms silenced, the guards dealt with. But quiet doesn't mean safe. Quiet means waiting.
"There." Marlee points to a door hanging open. A supply closet, by the look of it, shelves lined with medical equipment and cleaning supplies. And huddled in the corner, the assistant we'd found tied up in Helena's office.
She's maybe thirty, mousy brown hair, trembling hands raised in front of her face. Her scrubs are splattered with blood that isn't hers.
"Please," she whispers. "Please, don't hurt me."
"We're not going to hurt you." I crouch down, try to make myself less threatening. "Where's the girl? The one from cell twelve?"
"I don't know. She was here, and then she had a knife, and then—" The assistant's voice breaks. "She's going to kill me. She said she's going to kill me because I helped them. Because I was part of it."
"Part of what?"
"The conditioning. I administered the drugs. I monitored the sessions. I didn't want to, I swear, but they said if I didn't cooperate—" She's crying now, ugly sobs that shake her whole body. "I had no choice."
There's always a choice. That's what I want to say. But she's a cog in a machine that's bigger than any of us, and right now, she's not the priority.
"Where did the girl go?"
"Back. Toward the director's office. She said she had to protect the facility. That it was her purpose."
The director's office. Helena's office.
Where Jinx is.
I key my comm. "Jinx, we've got a problem. One of the kids has a weapon. She's heading your way."
Static. Then his voice, strained, "I know. I'm looking at her."
"What's her status?"
"She's got a knife to some guy’s throat. Helena's got him positioned between her and the door. The kid is standing guard."
Helena using a traumatized child as a shield. Using a conditioned weapon as a protector. Of course she is. She's been doing it her whole career.
"Can you talk her down?"
"I'm trying. She's not responding. The conditioning is too deep.
" Another pause, and when Jinx speaks again, his voice is tight with fury.
"Helena's telling her I'm a threat. That I'm here to hurt her. The kid believes it. She wants her to use the man as a shield before killing me. I don’t wanna kill a fucking kid man. "
"I'm coming to you."
"Negative. Get the children out. That's the priority."
"Jace has the children. I'm coming to you."
"Asher—"
"Five minutes. You said it yourself in the farmhouse. We're partners. We do this together or we don't do it at all."
I don't wait for his response. I'm already running.
Helena's office is a war zone.
Not physically. The furniture is still intact, the artwork still hanging, the monitors still glowing with their feeds of an empty facility.
Jinx is in the doorway, gun lowered but not discarded. His body is coiled tight, ready to move, but he's holding himself back. Waiting.
Ten feet in front of him, a girl who can't be more than twelve stands with a knife pressed to the throat of a middle-aged man in a lab coat. Her hand is steady. Her eyes are empty. She's been trained for this moment, conditioned to protect, to kill, to obey without question.
And behind them, seated calmly at her desk like she's conducting a board meeting, is Helena Cross.
"Ah." Helena's gaze flicks to me as I enter, and her smile widens. "Another one of my projects. Subject M, isn't it? From the Foundry pits. You were never officially part of the program, but we tracked your progress with interest."
"I'm not your subject."
"Everyone is someone's subject. The only question is who's doing the observing." She folds her hands on the desk. "You've created quite a mess, you know. Years of work, decades of research, all of it compromised because a handful of broken weapons decided to play hero."
"We're not weapons."
"Of course you are. That's what you were made for. What you were designed to do." She nods toward Jinx. "Look at him. Standing there, vibrating with the urge to kill me, held back only by his pathetic need to protect children. Even now, even after all these years, my work controls him."
Jinx's jaw tightens. He doesn't respond, but I can see the truth of it in his eyes. The war between what he wants and what he's programmed to do.
"Twelve." Helena's voice shifts, becomes softer, almost maternal. The voice of a handler. The voice of control. "These men are threats. They want to hurt you. They want to take you away from your purpose. You know what to do with threats."
The girl presses the knife harder against the man's throat. A thin line of red appears, blood welling up and trickling down his neck. The man whimpers, his hands fluttering uselessly at his sides, too terrified to fight back.
"Don't listen to her," Jinx says. His voice is steady, but I can hear the strain underneath. The effort of holding himself back when every instinct screams attack. "She's lying. She's always been lying. We're here to help you. To take you somewhere safe."
"Safe doesn't exist." Twelve's voice is flat, reciting words that have been drilled into her through pain and repetition. "There is only the Silent. There is only the work. There is only compliance."
"That's not true. I know it feels true, because they made it feel true. They broke you down and rebuilt you with those words as the foundation. But there's a whole world outside these walls. People who will care about you. People who will never hurt you."
"Everyone hurts." Twelve's empty eyes find Jinx's face. "That's what the work teaches. Pain is the foundation. Pain is the path. Pain is the purpose."