Loyalty

ZARA: FOUR MONTHS EARLIER

"Jaroth wants to see you."

Zara flinched. Adamus had an annoying voice as it was. Coming through the speakers of her skycar it was practically unbearable. And the implications of the call weren't any sweeter. Jaroth usually didn't make it a point to check in with grunts like her. If the job had been done right, someone would let him know. He kept on the outskirts of shit like this.

"Why?" she asked on reflex, turning the car on a dime and heading back the opposite direction.

"You think I asked? I'm not stupid."

"Could have fooled me," Zara muttered before punching the button on the dash to cut their line of communication.

The silence that followed was anything but blissful. It quickly filled up with her doubts. She tried to reassure herself against the steady ebb of traffic. Jaroth couldn't know what she'd done. Eclipse didn't have eyes at that port.

But the closer she got to the home base, the less she was able to kid herself. Someone had to have seen. Jaroth wouldn't ask for her personally just to give her a pat on the back. Her stomach turned into knots. A bead of sweat rolled down her spine under her hardsuit. She flexed her blue fingers over the controls of the car and forced herself to take a few long breaths.

He couldn't prove anything.

Could he?

When she arrived at Eclipse headquarters, a shabby, innocuous looking warehouse on the edge of the station, she was ushered in by two door guards. She heard a frightened whimper before she saw anything. The sound alone was enough to make her blood run cold.

"Erash."

Jaroth's clipped voice met her head on. He stepped out of the shadows with his arms folded. Zara snapped to attention, clasping her hands behind her back and lifting her chin.

"Sir," she nodded.

Jaroth nodded to the guards behind her. One of them hit a switch on the side of the door and made the lights come on. The hot white brightness of the room made her balk for a moment. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes as the warehouse became visible. And to her horror, so did five children standing shoulder to shoulder by a storage crate on the far wall.

The rest of the cargo, she realized.

"Now, if you're honest with me, this will go a lot smoother for you," Jaroth explained, starting to pace in front of her, "Our first pick up never made it to the intended buyer, did it?"

He knew. Of course he knew. She'd been so fucking stupid to think she could pull of a stunt like this. Jaroth had eyes everywhere. The very gutters of Omega were lined with pairs of them, waiting to report back to the man in charge of all of their blinking. Zara swallowed.

"No, sir," she said, staring straight ahead.

"You know, I really hate it when my people think they can invent their own rules," Jaroth sighed, "It's impossible to run a business when everyone thinks they can do whatever the fuck they want!"

He screamed the last few words. They stung her as if he'd slapped her. One of the smaller girls by the wall started to cry.

"Not only did you disobey a direct order, but you've made a very important deal fall through," Jaroth explained and then pointed a finger back at the children.

Zara followed his gaze. Goddess, they were all so small. Little pink things with rosy cheeks and liquid eyes. The oldest one didn't even have all of his teeth. A fact she only noted once he opened his mouth and started to wail.

"Our buyer specifically said all or nothing," Jaroth hissed, "You know what that means, Erash?"

Zara clenched her jaw, "No, sir."

"It means all of them are worthless now. Even worse? They're all liabilities."

Jaroth waved his hand over his head. Zara turned her head over her shoulder and noticed for the first time there were a crowd of fellow members gathering by the door. One of the door guards came forward at Jaroth's beckoning. Something in his eyes made Zara's knees weak.

"Now, normally I wouldn't be this extreme, but unfortunately I'm going to have to make an example out of you," Jaroth explained.

The guard approached the children and then stood still. Jaroth distanced himself and came to stand at Zara's side. She felt her revulsion as if it were a tangible fog rippling over her skin. She could reach out and land a singularity right in his fucking head. But she clenched her fists at her side, immobile out of some misguided loyalty she'd never understood.

"If I let you off the hook, then everyone would think it's okay to make things up as they go, and we can't have that," Jaroth continued.

The guard turned and Jaroth gave him a slight nod. Zara saw the wink of a pistol.

"No!" she found herself saying.

Something hit her across the back of the head. Zara hit the ground on her knees and Jaroth held her down by the neck. She felt the cold press of his gun at her temple.

"I want you to watch this," he murmured in her ear, "And remember."

Zara struggled for a moment and then fell still. Horror fused her limbs until she was slack against Jaroth's grip. She watched the guard raise his pistol and aim at the first child's head of blonde curls. Zara's breath started to heave in and out through her nostrils.

Please, it was my fault, not theirs. Kill me. But her words were lost, her tongue thick in her mouth. A shot rang out and a long, young scream echoed after it. Four more shots followed it. And she watched every single one.

When it was over Jaroth released her. He might have said something to her, but she didn't hear. She didn't hear anything but those five gunshots, over and over and over again. She stayed in that cool, damp section of the warehouse long after everyone else had left. And only when the shadows took the bodies and she was truly alone did she let herself cry.

Loud, hollow sounds broke her in half again and again until she could cry no more. The tears gave way to anger, and somewhere in the middle of the night she rose from the floor.

She rose with darkness boiling in her veins and fire burning out the whites in her eyes. She rose promising to avenge those she'd failed and kill those she'd followed without question. She rose a new woman. A new woman with a new soul. A soul that beamed with darkness and scoured of all false loyalties.

Zara said a prayer over each body and then disappeared into the depths of the city that had taken them from her.