It was harder than I thought to go to sleep that night.
I tossed and turned in the uncomfortable cot. I couldn't get past the fact that there was no lock on the door, and anyone could come in while I slept—anyone. Misha was sleeping disquietly on the other side of the room, rolling over every so often. I wasn't sure how much he actually slept.
Morning came far too soon, slats of sunlight drifting along the floor as the morning swelled. I was already awake and staring at the floor when my alarm went off at six, turning it off quickly to not wake Misha. I needn't have worried—he was already awake, too, sitting up with a wince.
"Good morning," I said, remembering my Russian. I put my glasses on first thing—had to keep up the charade.
Misha started when I spoke, sending a glance at me, but relaxed. "…morning."
I stretched, my bruises pulling uncomfortably, and I winced. It made me think of Misha—the bruises on his face, the bruises I couldn't see. "Which schedule are you on?"
Misha shrugged, avoiding eye contact. "I'm not…really on one. I'm not here as part of the program."
I blinked. I knew he was younger than the minimum age, but I thought he was a special admission. "You're not?" He confirmed with a shake of his head. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as I gathered my clothes, unconsciously wondering where I was going to change. "Why are you here, then?"
"My father's one of the floor managers. I stay with him," he said quietly. It didn't take a spy to hear the sadness in his voice.
I didn't ask about his mother. I had been doing this long enough to read between the lines, and I knew everything I needed to know right now.
"Do you want me to look at your injuries before we go?" I asked, opting to pull on my socks. Socks were safe. That didn't expose any of my scars.
He shook his head hard enough that I thought it was going to fall off. He still didn't look at me.
"Okay," I was quick to assure. "Then I won't." I wanted to use this as an olive branch—a way to get close and prove that I wouldn't hurt him, a way to get that horrible, scared look out of his eyes, at least with me. But I supposed it had taken L-Unit much longer than nice words and a single night.
I wondered if this was how I'd looked to them, at first—some small, scared, pitiable thing.
I didn't want to think of Misha that way. I hoped that wasn't all they saw of me then. Then and now.
"Well, then…what are you doing today?" I asked, trying to carry on the conversation as I got my things together, still reluctant to change.
Misha finally got up, and though he kept an eye on me, he didn't seem nearly as locked on to my position as he had last night. I'd take whatever progress I could get. "I don't…I don't know. Sometimes I work on the floor. Sometimes some of the other floor managers let me go to class, but I can't really keep up. Sometimes I just stay in here."
"…you don't hang out with your dad?" I broached carefully, even though I knew the answer.
There was a long silence, in which the only sounds in the room were both of us shuffling in our respective corners. I used the silence and Misha's turned back to change my shirt, pulling one of my jackets on over it.
"My dad doesn't like me very much," Misha admitted into the silence, quiet and guilty, like the confession of a sin.
Although it was the answer I'd known would come, I didn't know what to say.
"I'm sorry," I said inadequately. "That must be hard."
Misha shrugged. At least I thought he did—there was a quiet rustle of fabric, the prolonged silence of sadness, at my back.
"What do you like to learn in class?" I asked now, hoping to divert the conversation from unhappy topics.
Misha didn't shrug, exactly, but he stopped. I turned to find him with a pensive look on his face, his eyes focused. "There's one class. I really like it. It's…um…we learn about how things work, and stuff? Like how lights go on, and how it rains?"
I blinked. "Science?"
"Yeah! Science. I like science," he said.
His eyes brightened the slightest, tiniest bit, and a piece of stone in my stomach lifted.
"Tell me about science all you want tonight, yeah?" I said, hoping I gave him an easy smile.
Suspicious eyes found me, but he nodded, and I took it as a win.
…
The work was tedious, monotonous, but not awful.
It was similar to yesterday, but where yesterday saw my fumbling with the parts, slipping up and falling behind the assembly line in front of me, today I settled into something of a routine. It was easy to create a rhythm, a mindless set of motions and actions that I didn't really have to think about after a while, and I dared to think it was almost nice.
It wasn't work I'd want to do forever, but I didn't mind this as opposed to snooping around this gigantic compound looking for a package that might not even be here yet.
I was slowly forming a plan for it. I'd managed to find some of the cameras located in the hallways and worked out approximate blind spots, though I wasn't sure how routinely they were watched. It wouldn't surprise me if someone was watching all the time, though I hoped that wasn't the case.
I'd wait until Misha was asleep tonight and sneak out to do some reconnaissance. I at least wanted to find where they kept incoming packages, so I'd know where I needed to look for the disassembled bomb in the future. I hoped it got here soon, just so I could signal for extraction soon.
I wondered if they'd come this time.
Once I found the bomb, I'd sneak back, alert MI6, and get the hell out. If they asked me to stay and do something with the bomb, or do something further with the other children or the floor managers, I didn't think I would. I hoped I'd have the strength to disobey and get out. I didn't want to be here a minute longer than I had to. Or maybe they wouldn't answer at all, like Point Blanc, and I'd be left to fend for myself again.
Anya was beside me again, working quickly, but I was aware enough to notice that she kept stealing glances at me. I didn't look back—I didn't want the floor manager, who kept leaning over my shoulder to inspect my work and kept giving me heart palpitations because of it, to think we were doing something, but I noticed. I wondered what she needed, and I wondered if it had anything to do with what she'd said yesterday.
Don't let them notice you. If they don't notice you, they don't hurt you, and you don't get in trouble or recruited.
I knew what she meant by being hurt—it was obvious what went on within these walls. Just in the last day I'd seen enough bruises, enough black eyes and split lips, to know exactly what went on here, and it turned my gut. In trouble was easy enough to figure out.
"Recruited" gave me pause.
I would be the first to admit that I was hard on myself for a lot of things, but I knew I'd never been stupid, and MI6 knew it too—one of the reasons I was put in these situations in the first place. Curiosity and intellect were deadly together.
Anya hadn't been scared off by the floor manager, or one of the guards, or any adult. She'd clammed up and moved away because one of the older boys had been looking at us.
Recruited.
The intel I'd gotten rang a lot of bells. I couldn't confirm anything just yet, but I knew there was something more going on here than a program for troubled youths.
I also knew that if I played my cards right, I could use it to my advantage.
…
Snake had nothing to do but think. Stuck in this hospital bed without anything to distract him, save American prize show reruns on the tellie and a couple paperback books Eagle had snagged for him from some book giveaway at their hotel, he could only trace the tiles on the ceiling with his eyes and think about everything that had gone so very wrong.
Please don't let them take me back echoed in his head like a fuckin' siren, wailing in every corner even when he tried to shift his thoughts elsewhere.
Because Alex had looked him in the eyes that freezing night on the street, after Wolf and he had found him drugged and cold in an alley, and said that to him. Wolf had taken over then, trying to calm the lad down, but Snake had frozen for just a second, stiff like the ice at his feet.
Please don't let them take me back.
He'd seen desperation in Alex's eyes. Like furnaces, they burned. Drugged to the gills, unsure of just about everything, he looked at Snake and begged not to be taken back. Begged. With more abandon than Snake had ever seen from the quiet, polite, strong boy in Wolf's arms.
And then, because of Snake and Lion, he'd walked right back to them.
He knew fear like that.
Snake's thoughts on Alex were the central focus of his hospital stay, though he got some respite when Tia Adelita arrived. Wolf's mother was a hurricane dressed in cashmere, and Snake—through his post-operation haze—felt distantly bad for the doctors, who were immediately accosted in Spanglish for every little detail in Snake's chart.
Snake almost—almost—laughed when she started arguing about his blood oxygen levels, full of fire fit to melt empires, an accomplished doctor and a spitfire mother to boot.
Wolf—loyal, exhausted Wolf—eventually calmed her down, and the two of them settled into armchairs by his bed. Tia took his un-casted hand in her own. "Dios mio. Pobrecito. How do you feel, mijo?"
"I'm fine, Tia," he said with a wan smile, not missing the unhappiness in her eyes at the obvious lie. "I'm on the mend, anyway. How was yer flight?"
"A nightmare, a pesadilla," she said with the wave of her free hand, ignoring Wolf's distinctly exhausted, long-suffering blink at the volume of her voice. If nothing else, it made Snake smile. "The dreadful attendants, the cramped seats—ay, it was just awful, mijo. But enough about me. Who did this to my niño?"
"The driver of the other car is dead," Wolf said, rubbing a hand along his stubbled jaw, his eyes hard and far away. "It's a work thing, Mama. We can't tell you everything."
"Oh, you and your work things," she all but spat, sending Wolf a glare. "Ay, it's like you don't trust your mother, James."
"It's national security, Ma."
"National security, he says. What about your mother's security, mijo? Did you ever think about that? Do you ever think how worried your mother is about your security? National security. You keep secrets from your mother."
Snake could only smile, trying not to huff a laugh so he didn't set his ribs on fire, and watch as familiar exasperation crept into Wolf's eyes. Snake figured he should step in. "It is, Tia. It's…" He took a breath, ribs creaking under the pressure. "…it's important. Otherwise, I'm sure Wolf…would tell ye."
The dubious eyes of an experienced mother said she wasn't buying his lie, but she seemed assuaged for the moment. "Fine. Keep your secrets," she added with a quick glance at Wolf, who cast his eyes to the ceiling as if Snake's and his mother's Dio could give him grace. "Another thing—these doctors are incompetente. I should've come sooner."
Snake smiled as his surrogate mother ranted on. Snake admittedly hadn't known the woman for more than two years, but she'd accepted him with a full heart—Snake had never known a mother, either, so it wasn't like he had anythin' to compare her to. She was fire and fierce and so kind, just like Wolf.
Snake was so grateful. But the distraction could only last for so long. His thoughts inevitably returned to Alex, to Cub—he couldn't imagine what Alex was being put through right now. If the things he'd described were as bad as he feared—and Snake was sure they were—then what was he being forced to do right now?
It made Snake's chest ache with phantom terror.
Snake laid awake almost all night, mind spinning with the horrors Alex might be being forced through right this very moment.
…
The most horrific thing about this job was the food.
It—dare I say it—made the Brecon Beacons food sound appetizing.
Today lunch menu was beans, bread, and broccoli—at least, it was supposed to be. The beans looked like half-melted plastic with clumps of gritty dirt strung through, while the broccoli had been steamed so long it resembled a pile of sage-green mush with what might have been bits of garlic bobbing about. And don't even get me started on the bread.
Still, I took the tray. I wasn't hungry, but I knew it was all I was going to get.
My next challenge was going to be finding a place to sit, which didn't turn out to be as difficult as I thought.
I should sit with the strong ones. I should make them like me, say something uncouth and rude and hateful that they'd find funny, and laugh with them—the boys who'd eyed me earlier. It would be a show of power, and show that I was unafraid, and it would put me in a good position later on—again, if I played my cards right. There were two opens seats at that table. I could slip in, make a horrible joke that I'd lose sleep over, and laugh with them.
But I should've known that I usually didn't have the right cards for whatever game I'd been thrust into, anyway. I made do with the cards I had.
Misha was sitting alone in the corner of the mess, with what looked like a bubble around him. They were treating this kid like a fucking leper, and I had no idea why.
I sighed. I was going to get hell for this, and I knew it. But I had a different plan—one that had a very low chance of working.
I grabbed a glass of water from the other side of the mess and walked confidently, if not a bit quickly, to Misha's table.
I thought the poor kid's eyes were going to bulge out of his head when I sat down.
"You can't be here," he said immediately, eyes the size of saucers, flitting every which way.
My skin crawled with the eyes piercing the back of my neck, and I could choke myself for sitting with my back to the rest of the mess, but I just picked up the bread and forced a bite. "But I am."
"No, you—they're g-going to hurt you for this, Alexei—"
"Like they will for me not calling you Mouse?" I said candidly, swallowing what I was pretty sure was the beginning of moldy bread with a grimace. If this job didn't kill me, the food would. "I told you. I don't care."
Misha made a small, whimpering noise, like a wounded animal. He opened his mouth to protest again, but I felt a presence come to loom over my shoulder long before Misha's wide eyes found the person behind me.
"Hey," they said, their Russian thick and slow. Much like I assumed they were.
I ignored the boy's voice, continuing to munch on my fungal bread.
"Hey," he repeated, this time accompanied with a heavy shove between my shoulder blades.
I'd long since heard the mess go quiet and knew that all eyes were on us. As much as it made my skin crawl, this was part of the plan.
I took a sip of the tap water, metallic and tangy, and turned slowly. It was, in fact, the same boy who'd been giving Anya and me the evil eye yesterday—the boy whose table I'd almost gone to sit at a few minutes ago before remembering my sanity.
He was, in fact, thick—and not in a good way. He was heavy around the waist and chin, with the height to back it up and a presence larger than he was, which was saying something. He had beady eyes, small like a hawk's, and a sharp nose. He had a scar on his bottom lip and a snarl marring his already questionable features.
"What," I said simply, not bothering to stand.
Fear hummed in my blood. Anxiety burned in my marrow. I was afraid.
But this was a schoolboy, and I'd faced mass murderers, and terrorists, and—and Fischer. This was a child like me.
"You don't sit here," he said frankly, turning beady eyes to Misha. I didn't have to look at the boy to notice the way he shrank, and fear was replaced by stark, white, startling anger. But I waited. "Nobody does."
"Why?"
"Because if you do, I kick your ass," the kid said, and somewhere behind him, still in the silence of the hall, all the kids looking at us, one of his friends laughed.
I smiled. It was sharp and serrated and deadly, and it felt wrong, and it felt right. "You'll kick my ass, huh?"
"Hell yeah. You're a fucking twig—I could break you in half."
The guards, conveniently, were unconcerned by what was happening. I wondered if it was because this kid held some sort of special place in their hierarchy, or because they didn't give a shit about what happened between us as long as it didn't impact productivity.
"Really," I drawled, taking another bite of bread.
"Really," he replied, raising an eyebrow in a move that might have been challenging, had I been anyone else. "Let me tell you something, friend," he continued with a grin. The word friend oozed poison. "Mouse here is on bad terms with the rest of us—and you, you're the new kid. I'm doing you a favor by asking nicely the first time. Why don't you fall in line with the rest of us, quit talking to pretty girls and mind your own business, and maybe we won't make your life a living hell, okay?"
I had to physically restrain myself from snorting in his face.
This kid had a crush on Anya. That's why he'd been glaring at us when she was talking to me—I just thought it was because I was new, and he thought I was a threat, but this reason was much funnier. I felt bad for her.
"And why should I listen to you?" I asked, turning a bit more to make it seem like I was giving him more attention. The question was challenging, but I slipped just enough curiosity in to make myself seem genuinely interested in the answer. "Like you said, I'm new."
The boy, as I knew he would, glowed. Nobody would miss a chance to gloat over their own power. "Name's Ira—I'm kind of a big deal. I help the security guards and the floor managers keep order—translation, I kick the shit out of anyone who doesn't follow the rules. Right now, you're not following the rules, Aslanov." He grinned. "You seem like a cool guy. So what's it going to be? Am I going to kick the shit out of you in front of everybody else, and you limp around like a fucking cripple the rest of your time here, or do you want to come sit at my table and be one of us?"
I curled my mouth into a smile. Like taking candy from a baby.
I may have hated this job, but I really enjoyed toying with idiots like this, who thought they were so smart.
I could see Misha out of the corner of my eye, eyes downcast, resignation in his shoulders. The entire mess was silent, watching what was probably not the first exchange Ira had had with a new kid who went against the norm.
He'd done exactly what I figured he'd do—when Anya had said recruited, things clicked. He'd been watchful, haunting my steps, keeping an eye on the newest threat. Waiting for his chance to assert his dominance, and I'd set it right up for him. This wasn't just a program for troubled kids. It was a breeding ground for their next wave of enforcers. The intel made it sound like they scouted the ones who looked promising and recruited them once they aged out, but no—no, they took the older kids they thought would be good enough to keep and set them to work early. They let them beat their peers into submission and use fear to subdue the younger ones.
I let the silence linger, letting Ira soak it up as he stood there, waiting for my decision. I made a show of playing the part of Alexei Aslanov, looking him over with bored, lazy eyes. I made a show of sizing him up, chewing slowly, before I met his eyes.
I laughed in his face, turned around, and said, "So, Misha, what did you learn in science this morning?"
Misha's jaw dropped.
Somebody's fork clattered to the floor.
The silence grew quieter. I thought even the cooks stopped to watch.
Misha didn't say a word, but there was a glimmer in his eyes—the first spark of something like life—I'd seen in a while.
I didn't have time to be glad for it.
I'd known it was coming, I knew it was going to happen, but the hand fisted in my hair, dragging me from the bench, was still a serrated knife on my nerves, lighting up every inch of my body with the need to fight.
"Close your eyes, Misha," I said through gritted teeth, and I waited until the boy in front of me had reluctantly squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his hands over his ears, before I did anything.
I'd forced myself to remain docile in front of Fischer, in front of Blunt, in front of Jones and all the other people who'd stepped on me and made me beg. I took every hit, I took every insult, every ounce of grief and guilt they'd forced on me. I'd let myself cower and comply so they wouldn't take anything else away from me. I'd held it all inside for so long, and I refused to hold anything back in this fight.
I was wrong, before, when I thought that Ira was just a child like me. Ira was a child, and I was a child, but this was a child very much unlike me.
It took four security guards to pull me off of him.
His face was a mess of flesh and chipped teeth, snot and tears. His screams and threats from the beginning had been reduced to incoherent sobbing, wailing, broken sounds from a broken mouth. He would live—there was no lasting damage, besides maybe a nasty concussion; I wasn't in the business of killing. But he'd remember this. He'd have more than just a scar on his lip.
Everyone else would, too.
Security aside, floor managers and adults aside, I'd killed two birds with one stone.
They knew not to mess with me.
And they knew not to mess with Misha.
When the guards dragged me from the room—never mind the fact that I was trying to walk with them, no longer fighting—Misha still had his eyes squeezed shut.
…
The security guards who'd dragged me away took me swiftly to what looked like a cell—I'd heard one of the kids mention solitary the other night, as a punishment, so I assumed this was one of those cells. They threw me in, and I barely had time to adjust my body, so I'd land on my forearms instead of my face.
I heard the cell door shut and lock and tried very hard not to panic.
They're not going to kill you. They're going to hurt you, but they're not going to kill you, I tried to reassure myself. And the thing was I almost believed that—I knew that they thought an orphanage somewhere around the outskirts of Moscow. They wouldn't want to deal with the questions, the investigation—they'd do anything to keep the police from snooping around here. A child under their care going missing was just an invitation for law enforcement.
But I didn't know what they'd do to me to make up for that.
I wiped stinging palms on my pants, scraped from where I'd fallen onto the concrete, and winced. Blood dripped from my split knuckles, winding in rivulets down to my fingertips, and I knew something in my hand was broken. I hoped it was just a fracture, but it would make work on the assembly line hell for the next few days.
I took my glasses off, wiping them on my shirt—a speck or two of blood had made it to the lenses. I was shocked, and grateful, I'd kept track of them in the scuffle. Once I'd put them back on, wary for cameras, I touched my thumb lightly to the button for thermal vision. I blinked rapidly as my eyes adjusted.
I figured, since I was in a new part of the building, I may as well use my time wisely.
I wasn't sure how far the thermal vision extended, but from the patterns of the blobs of heat, it had to be a couple of rooms, at least. That would come in handy later.
I made a show of studying the room itself, so that any cameras watching me would think I was inspecting my new surroundings, and not trying to look at the compound via thermal vision from all the angles I could.
I saw one mass of heat sitting with a cylinder of heat in its hand, another standing with another cylinder of heat—must be a room for the adults, , with coffee, I thought. I wondered if that was where the floor managers ate lunch, or if it was just an office, or break room. It might have clues as to when the bomb would be coming, and where it would arrive. I made a mental note to try to make it over here sometime this week.
One wall had nothing but a single mass of heat faintly glowing—probably a few rooms away—and it looked like a guard. From what I'd seen as I was brought in, I figured it was a security guard stationed at the head of the wing.
I again wondered how kids didn't know that this wasn't normal. Or maybe they did, and just didn't say anything.
I was about to turn to another wall when I heard a key in the lock. I turned, controlled as I could make it, but I tensed more than I wanted to.
Mr. Plizetsky walked in with a shadow of a smile on his face, Helena close behind. For once, she didn't have a cigarette.
"Alexei," he said. His voice was calm. That made it worse. My body burned with fight and flight at once, but I could only freeze, because neither was an option. Don't hurt me, don't hurt me—"I thought you weren't going to cause trouble."
"Trouble finds me, sir," I said evenly as I could. I didn't want to worsen my situation by dropping the honorific. With shaking hands, but unwavering eyes, I folded my glasses and put them into my pocket. I couldn't afford to break them. "I tend to have bad luck."
He loosed a small chuckle. "We'll have to fix that."
I recognized the gleam in his eye. I recognized the smirk on Helena's lips.
Don't hurt me—don't hurt me—don't hurt me—
I straightened my spine, narrowed my eyes, and clenched my fists, even though I knew I wouldn't be fighting back.
The beating I got for my stunt in the cafeteria almost made it not seem worth it.
Almost.
A/N: Alex is a dramatic bitch who loves to stir the pot and I am so here for it.
Hi! I'm not dead! Just busy, lol.
Sorry it's a little short. But it has a little bit of action, too, so I hope it makes up for it. Let me know how you guys are! I've missed you! And let me know what you think, if you have time to drop a comment. Thanks!
Reviews. I can't believe you're still here. I'm so grateful :) Every review makes me smile. Thank you all so much!
V: Please don't do that
World-Explorer: Same I hurt myself every time I write something new lol
Kuashikaaa: THANK YOU YOU'RE AMAZING
Lira: Same. AGH THAT HURTS
Guest: I'm sobbing omg thank you so much
KenyanHammer: Nope! Just been taking a break :)
BookLoverrrr: Thank you!
Decc: Omg thank you! I appreciate it!
Maxonshreave4eva: lol no
Thanks for sticking with me! Hope you enjoyed this update!
