I haven't
met you lately.
I know it's been so long.
I haven't seen you lately, I know that
you've done wrong.
think time has made you crazy.
your mind is oh so gone.
think time has more than raised me.
don't need you anymore.
shooting you inspiration.
bullets don't feel so good.
turning to desperation.
I always knew you would.
think time has made you crazy.
your mind is oh so gone.
think time has more than raised me.
don't need you anymore.
this is where you stand.
this is where you pray.
this is where you sit and this is where you lay.
I left you there to bleed by yourself.
you left me here to die alone.
think time has made you crazy.
your mind is oh so gone.
think time has more than raised me.
don't need you anymore.
Eighteen Visions- "Bleed By Yourself"
--
Cammy sat, her temper moments away from flaring, while she received twelve stitches from Colonel Wolfman. His shoulder length brown hair was held back by a bandana and his hazel eyes, one marked with a scar, squinted in concentration. Shortly after rushing from the fallen base he had partly explained Juli's presence to her. Shadowlaw was involved with thousands of smaller 'companies', and this particular one needed to be protected. But what Cammy didn't understand is why Wolfman didn't tell her about it or why she was getting twelve stitches from a needless fight. But she had learned to hold her tongue when it came to Colonel Wolfman. He would tell her all the details when the time was right. She looked across the military jeep at Juli. The Doll hadn't spoken a word. Cammy couldn't help but stare at her in amazement. This woman had been through the almost exact same thing as her.
Cammy winced as the jeep hit a bump and a stitch was pulled the wrong way. Wolfman muttered.
"Sorry."
Then Cammy couldn't hold it any longer.
"I shouldn't even be having to get these stitches. With all due respect, sir, I don't understand why you didn't inform me of her possible presence. It was dangerous to the mission. What if something didn't go has planned and I wasn't alone in that office?"
"My decision dangerous to the mission? Cammy where is your equipment?"
Cammy held her breath. Wolfman was no fool, especially when under her scrutiny. She spoke.
"My clips ran out and I used them as projectiles to get into the building."
"How'd you go through two clips that quickly?"
He knew the answer, but asked anyway.
"I didn't check them okay?"
"Yes, it is okay…this time. But Cammy, this is serious. Next time it might not be okay."
"I understand Colonel, it was stupid. But what about her?"
"I wasn't even expecting this. I expected some Shadowlaw resistance, but nothing above the norm. This is turning into something big. They aren't going to be very happy we have her."
"They'll try to have her killed. I won't let that happen."
"Cammy, you're not her personal body guard, and dammed sure not against all of Shadowlaw."
"However it works out, I need to talk to her."
"There's a lot of red tape to go through."
Cammy smiled before speaking.
"That's the best thing about Delta Red, we get to break right through it."
"Not this time. At least not for you."
"What?! Colonel—"
"Don't push it right now Cammy, you can't win."
Cammy listened. When Wolfman said something like that, he usually meant it. She casually shifted the subject as she spoke.
"She's strong. You'd never think by looking at her she was."
He smiled.
"No you wouldn't. But I seem to know a few women like that."
Cammy smiled back.
"See that's our strategy, you men never see it coming."
Wolfman put a bandage over the new stitches and pulled Cammy's shirt down over the dressed wound.
"Cammy, I'm telling you this as your commander and not your friend."
"Yes?"
"You've got to get it together. Today was just the beginning. The information we got is invaluable. It's only going to get tougher from here."
"Well when the going gets tough I just—"
"Fall apart?"
Cammy stopped, surprised and angered by his assumption. She spoke, coldly.
"I'm more together now than I've been in a long time. You know I've been through hell."
"And come out looking like gold. I really mean that."
With that said he stood up and took a seat next to her and spoke again.
"As your friend I'm more worried."
"Colonel, I don't know if this is the right time…"
"Sure it is. We all need a personal life or we go crazy and forget what we are fighting to preserve."
"Well than what has you worried? I'm fine. I talk to my family once a week at least. And I'm not a hermit, I go out, as strange as it may sound."
"Oh, I know. What about blokes?"
"Colonel! Are you honestly trying to girl talk with me?"
He spoke, his tone very serious.
"What if I am?"
Cammy caught on.
"I'd have to say you were bullshitting me. Just go on and ask me what you want to know."
Wolfman dropped his casual façade, which wasn't fake in his caring for Cammy, but he usually did just cut to the chase.
"What you're doing is not good for you."
"What do you mean what I'm doing?"
"A different man every night, never the same one twice."
Cammy turned red both from embarrassment and anger as she yelled.
"You're having me followed!?"
"Of course not. You've just been noticed. Something like that doesn't take long to come around."
"I can't fucking believe this. I'm twenty-four years old and you're lecturing me as if I'm a child."
"You're acting like one! I'm just concerned, as a friend."
The jeep stopped then. They were back at headquarters. Cammy jumped from the jeep and yelled back at Wolfman.
"I can do what I want to do with my life. It's up to me, my decision, get it?!"
With that said she stormed off in her typical fashion and Wolfman sighed loudly. He turned and met eyes with the young Shadowlaw Doll. There was a definite contempt in her eyes which wouldn't have been frightening except for the fact that it was the exact look he'd just been given by Cammy.
--
Wolfman walked down the hall of MI-6 headquarters, ready for a long night of meticulously going over the briefs from the latest mission and planning the next. He followed a row of windows to his office, noticing Cammy leaving. She had become so angry with him, and he had tried so hard to be sincere, hell he was! But he figured no one liked being told they were wrong. As he entered his office he sighed. He could remember like it was yesterday, seeing her fight. He knew her body had to be finished, there was no way she could have had the energy to stand, let alone fight. But there she was, moving with lightning speed. She looked so sure, so confidant. And she was strong willed. Her face had been calm, her movements coldly calculated. When she put that broken claw to Vega DeCerna's chest she knew she was going to kill him, but still, she let him speak, struggle a little. The way she looked when she killed Vega without so much as a second glance he knew, she was made for Delta Red.
He saw an experiment gone wrong that would in turn cause Shadowlaw their downfall. He saw opportunity. He had thought Colonel Guile was just being overprotective of Cammy when he insisted she shouldn't join. It wasn't easy being surrogate father to your best friend's daughter. A battlefield promise made between William Guile and Charlie Nash had plopped a teenage daughter into Colonel Guile's lap. And in Cammy's case, there was reason to worry. Little did Wolfman know that Cammy White had been to Hell and back more than once. As problems with Cammy arose he looked deeper into her past and was astonished. Guile had told him none of this, only that she wasn't right for Delta Red, if he would have known, Cammy would be at home with her family. He looked through the files again.
At sixteen her mother was killed by her father whose murder she eventually witnessed at the hands of a very sadistic Vega. She was subject to torture that the strongest men in any uniformed services would have broken under. She was programmed to be a killer (also subjected to painful strength enhancing and mind control experiments) and killed often. She suffered amnesia, eventually remembering her killings, leading to a suicide attempt. She also retrieved memories of being raped by Vega. She was again brutally raped by Vega. Years later her newfound family was targeted and that's when things changed.
Her inner turmoil wasn't visible. She looked together, strong, but inside she was still suffering. Everything that plagued her was pushed deep inside and she did what she had to do. But now was the problem. All that pain, all that dysfunction was mutilating her life. He had contacted a psychologist who commented on Cammy instability, and it had Wolfman nervous for his whole team. Colonel Guile had been right and now Wolman didn't know what to do. All he knew was that if Cammy continued like she was doing, somebody was going to get hurt.
--
Cammy had been visibly furious during the short de-briefing, purposely avoiding her teammates. They'd come accustomed to her mood swings anyway, so they knew to leave her alone. She got what she wanted in two ways; time to herself and no one else would know what she and Colonel Wolfman had spoken about. He had no right to dig into her private life, and even less right to judge her. She figured it was a male thing. Men could do exactly what she was doing and not get a second look. It was ridiculous.
Cammy let those thoughts leave her mind as she entered a small pub located near her flat. She checked her painstakingly applied make-up in a small mirror on the wall. No bruises and no scar. She'd gotten quite good at covering up her scar. It wasn't really a lady like thing, or something she liked to be reminded of. She scanned the crowd, noticing all the single men noticing her. The seemingly eternal body of a sixteen year old seemed to catch a few eyes. Though she was obviously not sixteen or anywhere near it, attention was drawn and she liked it. In fact, she loved it.