38. Aron
ARON
On this day, heaven and hell collide in the Abyss Gorge.
The rock screams as it’s torn apart from the ravine wall, death and destruction falling on the slow-moving military trucks.
The air vibrates with the thunder of explosions.
Boulders crush the roofs of vehicles whilst others jerk with the impact of our grenades.
The brittle limestone crumbles and collapses in a spectacular flood of scree, obstructing the road.
Screams echo. Men pour out of the trucks to meet our bullets. Blood turns the dust on the ground into dark red mud.
One by one, Martin deploys the small combat drones we had secured during one of our first ops four years back. Assisted by Corrado, he drops four payloads—all that we’ve accumulated over the years.
Concealed in crevices in the wall or looking over the top of its cliff, we are spread along the length of the gorge.
We rain more bullets and grenades on the disorganised remnants of the advancing army until we outnumber its survivors.
Then we rope down, abandoning our machine guns in favour of assault rifles.
Bullets buzz past us like drunken metal bees—chaotic and most with poor aim. No more than five Retrogrades go down, with only about five more injured.
My rifle keeps slamming back against my shoulder. My finger doesn’t stray from the trigger, my shots slicing the air with methodical aim, lodging in chests and in skulls, blood and brain matter misting the air before settling on the ground.
The familiar scent of metal, burnt flesh, and gunpowder hangs in the air. As I inhale deeply through my nose, my muscle memory locks in place—a deep-buried instinct, a beast that comes out to play when my ears are ringing with shots and the taste of carnage coats the inside of my mouth.
I don’t just bring obliteration. Until the last of them is twitching on the ground with mortal throes, I am obliteration.
I breathe gunfire, and I move without thinking, aiming, seeking cover behind wreckage, avoiding injuries while inflicting them on others.
It’s like a dance, a set of steps so practised it’s subconscious.
Men are just men, just targets and pawns, a race different from what I am right now. I become a medium for destruction, and death becomes an art form.
Even though the mission is a success beyond my wildest imagination, a nagging, sinking feeling deep inside keeps telling me that something is horribly wrong.
That intuition only gets louder as the sun traverses across the sky, shining down on the growing number of fallen soldiers.
It gets so fucking loud that in the end, when the ground is covered with charred corpses and blood-soaked mustard uniforms, I cannot even hear the triumphant voices of my men, the cheers and the laughter.
All I can hear is my panicked thoughts as they form from the mess of vague suspicions.
“Where is Corrado?” I keep demanding from men, shaking them and then shoving them out of the way when they fail to answer. “Where the fuck is Corrado?”
I climb back up to the crevice he was hidden in, only to find it as I had expected it to be ...
empty. I rush between corpses, scanning them swiftly with my eyes, looking for any that are clothed in dark Retrograde colours.
There are about ten, but even without taking their skull masks off, I can tell none of them is him.
I don’t lose another second. I leave Alex in charge, barking a rushed, confused command at him as I run past him without stopping. Rounding the corner, I hop on my bike and tear away, racing back to the caves.
Knowing it deep in my gut that it’s already too late.
RILEY
The metal cuffs bite into my wrists each time I move. Bitter tears roll down my cheeks, and I need to blow my nose. I have to pee so badly I worry I may not be able to hold it until Aron gets back.
If he gets back ...
Physical discomfort is nothing compared to my inner turmoil. The hurt and humiliation are almost too much to bear, sitting heavily on my chest.
How could I have been so stupid? How could I have let myself believe that anything he’s ever said or done, any seeming act of kindness, was anything more than a move in his sick game?
Because it all felt so real.
Because I wanted to believe it so damn much.
But anytime he touched me, anytime he held me, anytime he spoke to me and allowed me to get a glimpse of the man behind the mask of cruelty, it was all to lead me on.
It was all because he correctly guessed that breaking my heart would be worse than breaking my bones.
He gained my trust solely to betray it. All he ever wanted to do was crush me.
And like an idiot, I let him succeed.
The door creaks open, and I bite the inside of my cheek, not wanting to give that bastard the satisfaction of seeing me cry. But it’s not Aron who walks in. It’s Corrado, his mouth falling open in shock the moment he lays eyes on me, bound, dishevelled, exposed and covered in blood and cum.
“Wolfie, what the fuck has he done to you?”
“Don’t ask.” I shake my head, tears rolling down my cheeks. “The key is on the nightstand.”
He grabs it wordlessly and leans over me to unlock the cuffs on each side. He smells of warm dust and dread. My thoughts click into a terrifying place.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, my heart in my throat. “I-is it o-over? Why isn’t he here?”
My insides turn to stone.
“It’s still going on,” he replies. “Going well for Retrograde, too. Last time I saw him, Krasnik was massacring Continuits left and right. That fucker is absolutely terrifying.”
The cuffs fall apart from around my wrists, and I rub the sore red marks they’ve left behind.
“What are you doing here then?”
“I’m taking you the hell away from here. The hell away from him,” he elaborates with an unmistakable “isn’t it obvious” edge in his voice.
Shame floods me when I realise that, as any sane person would, he thinks I’m here completely against my will. He must never know that before this morning’s argument, I wouldn’t have left Aron even if I had the chance.
Do I want to stay even now? That’s a complicated question. If I leave, I’ll be forever on the run from the Necromancer. He will never forgive me for escaping him. The day I see him again will be the day I die.
The difference from before I met him is that this time around, I’ll be looking forward to that day with twisted anticipation. I’ll spend the rest of my life waiting for that day.
But I must get away from him. Because the only thing more painful than never seeing him again is seeing him every day, knowing how he played me, knowing that he made me fall in love with him precisely because he hates me and always will.
“Thanks, Corrado.” I get up, rummage for my clothes, and start getting dressed. “We’ll have to go our separate ways. There’s a bounty on my head.”
I explain briefly and watch his face fall.
“I don’t even know where I can go right now,” I finish unhappily. “Nowhere is safe.”
“We’re going to have to try and find a way to get off this continent.
I’ll reach out to some of my old contacts back home.
I’m not leaving you, Wolfie.” Seeing that I’m about to protest, he talks over me, gesticulating wildly, “I was the one who roped you into all of this! I was the one who established contact with Synechord’s resistance.
I trusted Phoenix, whoever they are. But, Wolfie, Aron said it was no coincidence that Retrogrades caught us that day.
He said that Phoenix gave him our location. ”
Nausea rises up my throat, my vision burning at the edges, searing hot anger making my blood boil. Aron would be so pleased. Because now, finally, I know exactly what it feels like to be betrayed.
“You’re all I have left, the only person that I care about,” Corrado rambles on. “And I’m the reason that this monster got his hands on you...”
“Oh, Corrado,” I sigh. “You’re not the reason. It’s the other way around. I got you into this.”
“What do you mean?” His eyes widen.
“I think I know who Phoenix is.” I yank my trousers on.
“What?” Corrado’s face turns chalk white.
“She was awful to me in the beginning. She didn’t like that her father kept bringing me everywhere.”
“She? Her father? Wolfie, you can’t mean—”
“I think she thought I was his mistress,” I plough on.
“But then we started talking, and I told her the truth. Well, some of it. And we became ... friends. Sort of. Or so I thought.” I tug at my belt, fastening it.
“When she first told me she suspected the Consuls helped orchestrate Rift Day, we were at some stupid official party together, hiding in a toilet cubicle with a bottle of champagne.”
“Wolfie, you said it was the cleanup crews that first made you suspect—”
“They made me believe it. But she tipped me off about them.”
Prisoners masquerading as scavengers, sent into the Rift exclusion zone in secret and with the promise of a pardon for a good enough find.
None of them ever survive. But not because of the radiation.
And the guards that accompany them? Paid well enough to be some of the richest men in the Continuum.
“I was so stupid. So obsessed. If proof still existed, I had to be the one to find it and document it. I wanted that photo more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my damn life.
There were warning signs I refused to see, a feeling in my gut I ignored.
Before that day ...” I trail off, pinching the bridge of my nose to quell the fresh tears welling in my eyes.
“One of the crews was supposed to go deeper in than before. Apparently, she let two of the guards fuck her at the same time for promising to drop the proof of the Continuum’s involvement exactly where we found it. ”
“What—”
“She knew where we’d be that day. She was the only one who knew.
” At last, I look Corrado in the eyes. “I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I got us into this. And I’m so sorry I kept you out of the loop.
I thought she was just a spoiled, rich girl who hated her dad.
I could relate. I never thought for one second that she was in any way involved with the resistance.
To protect her, I swore to keep her identity secret. But I shouldn’t have. Not from you.”
Shame burns right through me like acid.
“You don’t have to explain, Wolfie. You’re a good friend. I get it. But I need you to say her name now. Who is Phoenix?”
“A snake,” I reply simply. “Also known as Daria Volker.”
After some more back and forth, we make our escape under the canopy of dark, low-hanging clouds, riding away on the bike that Corrado inherited from Attila, with a plan no more solid than to get to the coast.
My heart is still racing, my thoughts a tangle of thorns—I bleed on the inside each time I try to untangle them.
The ride is taking ages. Corrado has no experience and is going as slow as he can without us toppling to the side.
It takes forever for the first shimmer of the sea to appear on the horizon.
This area is heavily under surveillance, and Corrado’s body is tense with stress.
It stiffens further when a military patrol car appears on the sloping valley road ahead, snaking between overgrown oleanders.
Its warning lights flash blue and the siren wails.
Corrado slows down to a crawl as he makes a U-turn between the potholes, then tears away from the spot, going much faster than before.
But we don’t make it half a mile before two military trucks emerge from beyond a bend and cut us off.
Corrado squeezes the brakes, coming to a halt.
I can almost hear his breathless, hopeless “no”. Of course, I cannot physically hear it—not over the roar of motors hanging in the air. Definitely not over the lone, deafening bang of a gunshot that pierces my eardrums even through the cushioning of my helmet.
But I can hear it in my memory, reaching for it in the catalogue of Corrado’s reactions I have accumulated over the years of working with him.
So familiar am I with him that I can hear his voice even as the face shield of his helmet splinters with a single, well-aimed bullet, even as he falls off the bike and I topple after him, just barely avoiding the falling vehicle.
“It’s alright, Wolfie. It’s alright. Maybe it’s all just a bad dream.”