3. Aron
ARON
The traitor’s shrieks follow me on my way out. I ignore them. When I reach the exit, I hit the light switch. Let the bitch stew in the dark.
The metal door resists as I try to close it behind me, scraping on the sandy ground. I finally manage to shut it with an angry push and a loud bang that’s sure to echo loudly inside the cave.
The afternoon sun is high in the sky, its powerful rays falling across the dusty plane—a natural courtyard surrounded on all sides by cave formations.
A long time ago, this place was a small village.
The dwellings are built directly into the formations, caves adjusted to serve as rooms. It’s the perfect hideout.
We’ve stayed here longer than we have ever stayed anywhere else.
I’ll be sorry to go when the time comes. And it is coming.
Right after the bombs fell, not only did the newly created Radiation Rift itself become an exclusion zone, but these Rift-adjacent territories were mostly evacuated and left to their fate.
The one oversight that the Consuls have ever made.
Ungoverned, this so-called Rifterland became a stronghold for rebels and resistance groups, as well as people who just want to be left alone.
Collectively known as Rifters. But all our efforts to push east have failed.
And now, five years after Rift Day, the Continuum cunts are sniffing around and foaming at the mouth to reclaim every square mile.
No matter what we do, they will keep pushing us further and further west until there’s nowhere left to go but the Rift.
We can keep draining their resources all we want, but one day, we’ll die fighting them.
We all know that. Our resistance is doomed.
We’re not fighting because we think success is possible.
We’re fighting because some failures are better than others. Slaughter is better than surrender.
I lean back against the rough cave wall and close my eyes, letting the warmth seep under my skin. It’s fucking freezing inside the cave. I’m going to need to let the traitor warm up periodically unless I want her to die of pneumonia.
A strange sense of letdown is erasing anything inside me that resembled determination until all that’s left is frustrated rage.
For so long, I have wanted to make an example of Riley.
She was the beginning of the end. She let us down like no one else.
Her betrayal sowed resigned disappointment into our souls, and when the Continuum forces encroached on the last of our territories like gangrene eating into healthy flesh, all they had to do was reap.
I pictured the tableaus I wanted to make of her. I pictured baiting the mustards and leading them to her while she was still fresh. Her face still hers, recognisable, but her body grotesque, mutilated, transformed. I pictured the outcome so often, and yet I never once thought about its execution.
I haven’t hurt many women. And those that I have were in the army.
Big, strong, combat-trained. More than capable of giving me a fair fight.
And still, I hated that and never prolonged it beyond the necessary.
Men smaller than me, I enjoy only marginally more.
It’s men my own size that I like breaking slowly, savouring their screams, their pain, the realisation dawning in their eyes that they aren’t invincible.
I have wanted to hurt Riley for so long, without ever considering that I may not have it in me to do it.
Not until today, when confronted with the physical reality of her small, female body.
With her slender shoulders, with her narrow ribcage and the surprisingly sharp swell of her hips.
With her rosebud nipples and her delicate pink cunt, so tight that even just my finger felt snug inside it.
And fuck, her face! I already knew she was pretty from all the photos I’ve seen of her. Still, I wasn’t prepared. For those blue eyes, the soft scattering of freckles across her high cheekbones, those slightly down-turned lips that make her look sad ...
Every cell in my male body is revolting against my wish to destroy her. I had to fight against my instincts like crazy just to slap her a few times, and that doesn’t even scratch the surface of what I want to do to her. Fuck, it’s going to be hard.
The worst part of it all is that blunt honesty of hers, that unpretentious dignity.
She is cute as hell. I expected her to try to use that against me—and fuck me, it may have almost worked.
But she didn’t. Instead, she reacted with the air of someone resigned to what’s about to happen to them.
Not at all in defeat. More in the sense of “I know what I have done, and I will accept the consequences”.
Bad fucking idea. Anytime traitors manage to gain my respect—and she has come dangerously close—it makes me want to break more than just a few of their limbs.
It makes me want to crush their spirits.
And unfortunately for her, I’ll have no qualms about doing that.
It’s only her beautiful body that’s a struggle.
I resist the impulse to drive my fist into the rock.
Thank fuck for that middle-aged crybaby she had with her. He’s a big lad. He’ll do for now. I can already tell he’ll work like a charm to keep her in line. She would have let me do anything to her without a word just so that I would stay off him. That tells me she’s loyal. Until she isn’t.
I groan, opening my eyes. I push myself off the wall, the uneven rock cutting into my back.
I make my way to our headquarters. The courtyard is busy—men rushing about, some carrying crates of loot we seized during the raid, others cleaning their weapons.
There are about a hundred of us, all men.
None let me pass by unacknowledged; I’m met with furtive looks of awed fear or with nods of respect forged in blood, depending on each man’s station and experience.
As their leader, it is my job to see them all as little more than pawns.
Attila, my second-in-command, crosses paths with me, limping slightly. His trousers are drenched in blood where a stray piece of shrapnel nicked his thigh.
“Need to get that little scratch taken care of?” I grasp his forearm in greeting.
“Nah. Bleeding’s almost stopped.”
I don’t contradict him. I’ve seen first-hand just how insanely much the human body can take before it breaks. I’ve tested those limits, I pushed them, and I stretched them beyond belief. Attila’s is only a superficial injury, nothing more.
“Where’d you put the crybaby?” I ask him. “Cave B?”
“Yeah.” He nods. “He kept asking us to swap with the bitch, let her be in the bigger cave. Says she’s claustrophobic.”
And just like that, I’m marginally less pissed off about everything. The corners of my mouth stretch in a nasty smile.
“She stays exactly where she is.”
Pain radiates from my knuckles, the impact jarring every bone in my fist. The ache rushes up my arm, the sensation quickly morphing into euphoria—into that primal, overpowering, addicting thrill of feeling completely in power.
The crybaby stumbles and screams, tears streaming down his stubbled face.
“Stop, please!” He raises his arms over his head, crouching in front of me with his back to the wall.
Fuck if I don’t love leaving them unbound. It’s always a bore if I have to tie them up. I only do that with the really spicy ones who’d fight me to death otherwise—a death I would gladly give them, if only dead men could still talk.
But men like Corrado are a treat. Big, strong cowards; the kind who have the strength of body but not the strength of mind to challenge me. Their pleading is like gasoline to my fire of rage.
“Why are you doing this? I’ve told you everything you asked!”
And so he has, the chatterbox. So far, he has shared with me what little he knew about the mustards’ predicted movements, his method of transferring files to Synechord via a rogue satellite out in the Mediterranean, and even the sob story of how he moved here from his part of the world for some woman who died. Real touching.
“Think of this as a baseline,” I taunt him. “If at any point you stop talking or if I get the feeling you’re lying to me, things will get drastically worse for you.”
He wails, blood dripping from his mouth. He looks up at me, squinting his eyes, angry bruises swelling rapidly around them.
“I’m not going to lie to you! We’re on your side! I’ll tell you everything I know!”
“Good.”
I relax and flex my wrist. Seeing my repose, he straightens up and wipes his face with the back of his hand.
“Who knew about you, that’s what I want to know. No way is this whole thing of yours a solo venture. If you’re for real, then someone from the resistance must have known. Who?”
He sighs heavily, then takes a deep, laborious breath. I can already tell he’s finally about to give me permission to beat him senseless. Anticipation zaps through me like electricity.
“Yes. One group. Need-to-know basis, of course.” As he speaks, his whole body begins tensing up, his expression growing more unhappy by the second. “The Hounds.”
Bullshit territory, here we come. Fucking finally.
“Well, well, well.” I pull brass knuckles out of my back pocket, slipping them on my fingers. “That whole group was wiped out two months ago, as I’m sure you’re aware. Which means no one can corroborate this fairy tale of yours. Unless there’s someone else?”
He snivels, whimpering. I spit at his feet.
“Open your fucking mouth and talk.”
“Phoenix.” He raises his hands up, like in surrender, but even more embarrassing. “We got tips from Phoenix. Never in person. Only through encrypted messages and covert channels.”