August gritted his teeth against the pain, feeling the blood drip through his jeans and wind down his leg. A definite gash that would need stitches, for sure. He would take care of that when he wasn’t eagle-sprawled against a wall and able to fight back.

            “I’m not . . . telling you . . . anything . . . about her,” he gasped, muscles bulging with the strain of his tensed body. You’ve had worse, he reminded himself. So much worse. Remember when you were in the Middle East with your brother? And the torture you went through, there? You can take this. This ‘ain’t nothing.

            Angel smiled coldly and, without remorse, jammed a knife-like instrument straight through his palm, to the wall. The pain was immediate and tumultuous. Breathing hard, gritting his teeth, focusing on anything but his impaled hand was all he could do to keep from screaming.

            “Don’t bullshit me, August,” she spat. “You’ll spill eventually. Now, I can give you one more chance before the other hand bites it.”

            August breathed hard, glaring at her through his lashes. “Go . . . to hell . . . bitch.”

            She shrugged. “Very well.”

            And the second time around, August couldn’t help the scream that escaped.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He didn’t know how long it had been.

            Hours, days, weeks. After Angel left, she stayed gone. He was completely alone in the chamber, with nothing to listen to but the slow, steady drop of his blood splattering against the concrete flooring. It drove a man crazy, after a while. Numbness spread from his pierced hands, tingling through his limbs; his body’s natural defense against the pain.

            Or, just, survival mode.

            He was on survival mode, now.

            “Ellie,” he whispered, focusing on the weight of the necklace against his chest. “Ellie.”

            But of course, there was no answer. Just another plip of blood smacking the floor.

            In the deafening silence, immersed in his thoughts, August wondered about Jessica and Blake. Were they running things smoothly back at the camp? Were they out looking for him? Did they even know where to begin? He knew he shouldn’t have left them. It was a dick move. But he didn’t need them coming along and being a distraction.

            Or foiling your plan.

            He tensed, trying his hardest to block out that stupid voice in his head. The one he knew was all his own and never helpful, because all it had to offer was the truth.

            You’re an asshole, because you never meant to get out alive. This was your endgame all along.

            A growl bubbled passed his lips. He screwed his eyes shut in an attempt to hide from the truth, but it was already exposed before him.

            You wanted to die. You wanted to die and be with her because you can’t take this anymore.

            God. So what? So what? He was so done with it all. He never wanted to be a part of this fucked up business in the first place. What eight-year-old kid wants to do anything else besides climb a tree and be blissfully unaware of the cruelties of the world? What kind of sick person makes a child learn a thousand ways to kill somebody, before he can even understand half of them?

            What kind of parents agree to have a child for the sole purpose of extending their familial duty to the world? To the godforsaken government? They never loved August, and deep down, he always knew that. He was a successor. An asset to be trained. A soldier. That was all he was. And they’d made him the perfect one.

            And then his parents died, and so did his brother, and for what? For what?

            August didn’t want that. He didn’t want to be another star on a wall, or another headstone in Arlington, or anything else. He wanted his life to mean more than the secrecy and the lies and the duty he owed to his country. Yale was his first attempt. A sad attempt. Sleeping around, going to parties, pissing off his professors. He was smart, yeah, top of his class, but he didn’t do it right. He didn’t do college right, because college wasn’t for him. None of that domestic system bullshit.

            So what?

            There was nothing that existed for a guy whose only purpose in life was to keep his country safe.

            Except Ellie.

            Ellie and her stupid smile and her stupid doe eyes and her stupid, stupid heart big enough to carry the entire world. She was a walking contradiction. Dangerous enough to kill off the human race, but too gentle to hurt a fly. He didn’t know what the hell she was. Didn’t know if it was some top-secret, unsanctioned, freak scientist’s idea, or if she was from some other planet, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care. Some things you couldn’t understand. Some things you would never understand, and that was a concept you had to come to grips with in his life, or risk going insane.

            Ellie was different, but Ellie was his chance. His chance for something more than what he was destined to be.

            And he blew it.

            He blew his only goddamned chance.

            The door creaked open. Angel slipped through, this time accompanied by her lapdog, Rex. The guy would lick a toilet if she asked him to.

            “Oh, good,” she jeered. “You’re still alive.”

            Despite everything, an unfeeling smile graced his lips. “Sorry to disappoint, sweetheart.”

            A muscle above her eye ticked. Rex made a move toward August but Angel held him back with a simple touch. “Don’t,” she said. “He’s harmless.”

            Harmless my ass. As soon as August got the chance, he’d act on it. With six months to prepare, he’d had sufficient time to fantasize about different ways to kill this bitch.

            And the best ones only required his hands.

            “I’m not telling you anything about her,” August ground out. “You might as well kill me, because I won’t talk.”

            Angel trailed a hand down his chest, pausing at the waistband of his jeans. “And kill such a fine specimen?” she murmured, licking her lips. “Why, I wouldn’t dream of it.” Her finger traced through the streaks of blood smeared over his abs. “But that’s what you want, though, isn’t it?”

            He swallowed hard.

            “You want me to kill you, so you can be with that goody-two-shoes wretch of a sister.”

            August didn’t respond, because he didn’t need to. Anyway, the less he said in these situations, the better.

            “What is it about that little brat?” she exclaimed, turning away from him. She ran her hands through her short hair, clearly exasperated. “She’s so freaking weak and yet people follow her like another freaking Messiah! What the hell.”

            “We follow her because . . . because she’s strong,” August said. “Because we believe in her.”

            Angel’s fists clenched. August could identify the same signs with her as he could with Ellie, when she was dangerously close to losing control over her abilities. Sometimes their being identical twins came in handy. “You don’t believe in shit.”

            He smirked. “We believe . . . she could have killed you. Still do.”

            Angel released a blood-curling scream that satisfied him all too much. “You have no idea what you’re talking about! None! My sister was a weak, spineless, sympathetic idiot! She never would have lasted so long on her own! She was weak!”

            August stared calmly at the other girl, slowly losing control, unthreading right before him. And he liked it. He liked knowing Ellie’s death wasn’t just driving him crazy. It was an unforeseen event that affected everybody further than they thought. An unprecedented mistake that was ricocheting through everybody’s lives, and nobody knew quite how to handle it.

            Not even Angel.

            “Finish him!” Angel shouted, directing her words toward Rex. “I don’t want to hear him breathing when you’re done.”

            She whisked away, and August’s attention was pulled to Rex, he cracked his knuckles as he walked forward. Lazy intimidation, to be honest. Anyway, it took a shit-load of work and effort to effectively intimidate August. Growing up with his brother, he wasn’t sure anybody else could get it done.

            “Gotta say,” August began, regaining some of his breath back. “Not all that scared of a satanical bitch’s lapdog.”

            Rex chuckled, flexing his fingers. “You’re the one two seconds away from death, and still have time for the lip, eh?”

            He spat out a glob of blood, grinning. “Always.”

            “You son of a bitch.” Rex reeled back an arm, ready to smash it into August’s face. August knew he had a two second window to work with. Considering his ankles and wrists were bound to the wall behind him, he wasn’t given much to work with. But they could have been chains. He’d been in that situation before. Honestly, he was pretty goddamned fortunate.

            August counted to three, and as soon as Rex’s fist jutted forward, he jerked his head to the side causing the other man’s fist to plow right into the hard wall behind him. He howled with pain, and August didn’t hesitate. He used the proximity to his advantage, just being able to knee him in the gut and send him doubling over, subsequently sending the same knee square into Rex’s face. Blood gushed from the man’s nose. The rope around August’s wrist gave the slightest bit. Hope inflated within him. All he needed was one hand. One hand and he was home free.

            “I’ll kill you,” Rex croaked, seemingly astonished at the fact that he was bleeding. August strained at the rope. Come on, he thought. Come on, come on, come on.

            Rex was otherwise occupied, trying to stem the outflow from his shattered nose. Just as he gathered himself together, the rope around August’s wrist snapped and his chafed hand was freed.

            August was bleeding. A lot. More than a lot, really. He barely had the energy to deck Rex in the face, but he knew he had one shot, and after one shot the bigger man crashed to the floor, unconscious. Kind of anti-climactic, if you asked August, but he wasn’t complaining. After grabbing the knife in his boot, he sliced his ankles and his other wrist free, pulling out the instruments pinning his hand to the wall, and immediately collapsed to the floor.

            Dammit, he cursed inwardly, breathing heavily as blood rushed to the tingling limbs of his body.  He needed to go after Angel, but knowing her, she as probably already gone. It was characteristic of the cold-hearted bitch. Hole-up somewhere, make it look like she’s going to stay awhile, and then jet out. Apparently she did not share in the same affections with her lapdog Rex, who was clearly infatuated. Unfortunate, seeing as Angel didn’t have a soul, and therefore could not feel.

            “Poor bastard,” August muttered, nudging Rex’s body as he rose to his feet. No matter how stupid or gullible the guy was, he didn’t ask to be swept up in the hurricane of Angel. Nobody deserved that.

            Using the wall as his guide, August limped out of the room, searching his pockets for his phone, unsurprised when he didn’t find it. And all the rest of his weapons. All he had was the bowie knife in his boot, which, again, wasn’t a bad deal. It could always be worse.

            Yeah, I mean, you’re best friend could die or something—oh, wait. She already did. Goddamn.

            He gritted his teeth. He didn’t much appreciate his sarcastic conscience. Blake called it a coping technique. One of many of August’s supposed “coping” techniques, along with excessive anger, the compulsive urge to beat people up, and intimidation.

            Frankly, he didn’t think anything had changed. August had been called a grade A son of a bitch, before. Wasn’t like that was new.

            The headquarters seemed oddly quiet; almost deserted. But August knew better. Something was up. He trusted his gut more than most people’s brains.

            Sure enough, not two seconds later, an ear-splitting alarm went off.

            “Shit,” he hissed, picking up the pace a little. But what the hell could have set off the alarm? Rex was out like a light. Nobody else was in the vicinity to raise the alarm. So what . . .

            And then glass shattered, spraying the area ten feet in front of him. He raised his arms to shield his face, bracing his battered body to fight. He was ready for anything in that moment. Anything . . .

            Anything but her.

******

Yes, I'm keeping you waiting :P Happy New Years (Eve)!

-EJ