The Wicked and the Damned

The feral woman hung weakly in her cell, her wrists locked and secured to heavy iron chains suspended from the old stone ceiling. Leaches and larva had laid claim to the multitude of open wounds stretching across her body, and what little water that trickled down the stone mortar that she could reach was more than likely contaminated anyway, so the invading worms and insects were in good company she considered.

Her prison uniform, what was left of it, hung in taters around her emaciated body. She'd lost any concern for modesty after weeks of being stripped for her daily beating and interrogations. When she was fed, which was only often enough to keep her alive, was usually thrown across her cell floor. If she refused to eat, it was forced down her throat. She was needed alive, just for a bit longer.

Other than screams and curses, she'd spoken very little since her capture on the mountaintop near the remote village of Mae Salong. Her compatriots had escaped, but their location and capture would come soon enough, the warden was convinced of it. This woman would not be able to hold out much longer, no one could.

A trio of assassins had been responsible for over seventeen murders in Northern Thailand alone, disrupting opium shipments within the Golden Triangle from Ruak to the Mekong River. Poppy fields had been burned, children designated for sex trafficking released and sent into hiding. Soldiers were quickly dispatched to find and recapture the children; others sent to punish the innocent farmers who'd allowed their crops to be destroyed. These same soldiers were discovered weeks later in easily found mass graves scattered across the region. A message had been sent.

Similar stories had been reported from the Koreas to Afghanistan; three ghost like figures slaughtering pirates, terrorists, and warlords; creating power vacuums for someone to easily step in and take over, most suffering the same fate months later. Now authorities believed they had disrupted the plot and finally had one of the conspirators in custody. It was almost shocking how easy her capture was.

Most thought she was a myth, propaganda created by the locals to dissuade soldiers from coming in to ransack their villages, but she was very real, and now the authorities had her. They'd finally captured the Tigress.

The lands the trio had ignorantly targeted were under the protection and guidance of the warlord Khun Sa We; a man shrouded in reputation and mystery. Easily the most powerful and ruthless of all the warlords in the region. Few had ever actually laid eyes on him, but almost all had felt his presence or wrath at some point in their lives. He owned the police; he owned the government, the prisons. Every man, woman, and child in this area was his property, and now someone had dared to take that away from him. Death would be too easy a punishment for someone so foolish. He planned to see to their suffering personally.

The woman was to be kept alive until local order had been reestablished. She would identify her compatriots and remain imprisoned until the two other mercenaries were captured. After that, Khan would have his way with them and then the sweat release of death would finally come. Her matted hair hung heavily over her face, her eyes hooded in exhaustion and malnutrition. Despite her condition, the guards knew better than to startle her, too many of their comrades had lost their eyesight or testicles trying to surprise or intimidate her. One of the first rules the guards had learned was to make as much noise as possible upon entering her cell, and also to have plenty of back-up, stun guns and pepper spray on hand just to be safe.

Even under intensive interrogation, she'd never given her name, leaving frustrated prison personnel referring to her only as her Tigress or ปีศาจ สีขาว (white devil) despite her mixed ethnicity. Officially she was just designated as prisoner B24; and that suited Artemis Crock just fine.

The filth covered inmate stood still as the guards secured her wrists and dislodged them from the hanging restraints. Without the support of the chains her weakened legs gave out and she sunk to the floor. The guards stood around her fallen form, staring nervously at each other to see who would lift her back up. After moments of bickering, the two officers with the lowest seniority nervously raised the women to her feet. dragging her out of her cell. Seconds later she fell again; the guards barely catching her before she slammed face first into the stone floor.

She was dead weight; the torture and interrogations of the past few days had finally taken their toll. They eased her back up and dragged her dangling feet out of the complex and into the courtyard towards the warden's office.

The archer winced at the sudden exposure to sun as she looked into the open sky for what seemed like the first time in months. It hung between the day marks of one to three p.m. she surmised, giving her some small sense of time. Beneath her tangled mane, she stared down at her sore covered feet as they passed over the rough patchy grass. She'd be lucky if she'd be able to ever walk correctly again.

Inside the air-conditioned warden's office, Tigress was slammed into the cold steel chair, her wrists zip tied to the backing behind her. A chill ran through her body as the cool air formed goose bumps across her tortured skin. The guards spoke in the standard Isan dialect, but the archer thought she could make out traces of a Burmese accent from the warden. He was articulate, educated, and most likely with some military training; nothing she needed to be concerned about.

The remaining guards were poorly trained thugs, making up for their lack of experience with cruelty and depravity. They were used to dealing with broken men and defenseless women. They'd not seen true savageness before, but they soon would. Once she was secured, the guards gathered in the warden's office, watching nervously through the window for their superior's arrival: only occasionally looking back at the broken woman slumped over in her chair.

The last time Khun Sa We had visited the facility was years ago, and the warden in charge at the time had been shot and hung in the courtyard for all to see. No one knew what the man had done, perhaps nothing, but it was assumed that he'd wronged the warlord in some way and had to be made an example of. The current warden prayed he'd not suffer the same fate.

Off in the distance, a dust a storm of black SUVs made their way to the remote prison at the bottom of the mountain. Frantic guards ran like scared children, opening the tall, barbed wire gates to let the Khun and his entourage in. The warden and his lackeys scurried down the stairs leaving one fearful young guard standing watch over the semi-comatose woman that hung limply from the chair. The skittish officer was already nervous being around prisoner B24 alone, but he was genuinely terrified of the man about to enter the office.

Suddenly, for the first time in weeks, the prisoner spoke; her strained husky voice surprising the skittish guard.

"What time is it?" the prisoner rasped.

"One…one thirty," the nervous guard stuttered distractedly, briefly forgetting prison protocol regarding inmates; instead staring down at the courtyard, watching the warlord exit his vehicle while the warden and gathered personnel respectfully bowed and cowered.

After what seemed like an hour of formalities and pleasantries, the warlord and his bodyguards made their way up the stairs, leaving his patrol outside, and entered the office.

The warden pulled chairs from around the room and surrounded the prisoner, as the warlord sat down in front of her. The warden stood tensely behind him, watching as Khun violently grabbed the women's hair and jerked her head up to face him, her matted mane falling away from her face. The blonde's eyes were hooded, and what part of her steel blue irises that could be seen, rolled up inside her head.

Khun Sa We smirked and released his hold, the archer's chin slumping back down to her chest.

"This is who's been killing my men? This is who's been disrupting my shipments?" he laughed, "this weak pathetic broken woman. Tell me warden; are you a fool or do you believe me to be one?"

He glanced over at his bodyguards who just shrugged their shoulders in agreement. The warden's throat began to close, worrying that now he wasn't just considered incompetent, but a liability.

"Sir she was found outside the village in the drainage tunnels, her satchel laden with weapons and explosives. There was blood literally everywhere," he pleaded his case.

"You're a fool," Khun responded angrily. "She's nothing more than some insignificant errand girl sent to distract you from the real culprit. Tell me, what has she shared under your mindful interrogation?"

"Nothing sir. She won't talk," the warden replied, head hung in defeat.

"Then perhaps you haven't given her the proper motivation. Get her out of the chair!" he demanded.

One of the bodyguards leaned down and pulled the limp woman from her seat, throwing her across the warden's desk, photos and plaques scattering across the floor.

They pinned her arms as Khun Sa We turned away from the prisoner, looking out the window, removing his belt; he was going to enjoy this. Behind him the sounds of struggle continued briefly before finally ceasing with the faint chime of shattered glass.

The warlord turned and smiled, preparing a most grotesque violation this woman would not soon forget, when his blood turned cold. His bodyguards lay slumped on the ground, bullet holes centered perfectly through their skulls, what remained of their heads now plastered across the wall behind him. The warden stood with a shard of glass pressed to his throat as the feral women held him in a choke hold.

Khun attempted to yell for his security patrol waiting in the courtyard just as the archer sliced the warden's throat and tossed him aside, spinning and landing the point of her elbow directly into the warlord's throat.

Khun's eyes grew wide in panic, unable to speak, barely able to breathe as the savage woman struck him in the sternum and then in the groin; catching and lowering him to the ground without a sound. His body lay spread across the office floor; the blond assassin now kneeling over him.

She whipped her tangled hair out of her eyes and placed one palm over the man's mouth, ensuring if by any small chance he could make a sound, it would never escape his lips.

"You were right, I just needed a little motivation," she hissed.

She reached behind her and grabbed the long slender shard of glass she'd disposed the warden with.

"You should never have wronged him Gon, He was generous with you, but you got greedy. Big mistake."

"You have the wrong person," the man rasped through her grip.

"I don't think so. You're Zhenli Ye Gon, or at least you were until you betrayed him. Did you really think adopting a new identity would keep you safe? That Ra's al Ghul would just forget?"

Artemis knelt down painfully over the warlord, taking the glass shard from the floor and lining it up with his carotid artery.

"No one escapes the Shadows," she spat as she severed the side of his neck.

Blood pooled around the warlord's head as she rose to the window seeing scores of guards running towards the building. She'd been silent, but not silent enough. The archer slid down to one of the fallen guards, her trembling hands retrieving his automatic rifle and the ammunition scattered across the floor.

Something must have come wrong; they should have been here by now.

There wasn't a part of her body that wasn't screaming out in agony as she crawled across the floor to the few remaining bullets. In her condition she doubted she could shoot her way out, but he'd take as many of them out as she could. In the end, she knew it wouldn't be enough.

Artemis loaded the rifle, summoning the last of her strength and dragging herself across the room. She closed her eyes, slowing her breaths, hoping her partners had somehow escaped. At least she could find some solace in that. She looked down at her quivering hands, not sure what blood was hers or theirs as the beating on the office door began. The steel chair pried under the door handle wouldn't hold them long. She wiped a small tear from her eye as she readied herself for her final moments. Honestly, she never thought she'd survive this long anyway. It was always to be suicide mission, she knew that going in, it was only a matter of time. But they'd gotten so close, so fucking close; weeks of sadistic torture now for nothing.

In the end, it really didn't matter, her fate had been sealed the moment her father died.

The guards finally broke through the door, staring down in horror at the remains of the former leader. They whipped around, training their rifles on the emaciated woman of the floor. Just as they were about to fire, the noticed a red dot dancing across their chests. Seconds later they slumped to the floor, blood oozing forms their heads and chests.

Her partners had finally arrived. It was time to follow the plan.

The archer ducked for cover under the desk just as the first explosion went off in the courtyard. In the ensuing chaos, more of Khun Sa We's men stormed the office, and one by one they fell to the ground, victims of a Barrett Mk22 MRAD perched a half a mile away.

Artemis hunkered down as she recognized the loud wine of an RPG heading towards the building, praying the desk would be strong enough to hold back the roof in the event Cheshire's aim was off. Moments later the far side of the room shattered, and the mid-day sunlight burst through. With the last of her waning strength, Artemis ran to the opening to see the guards below lying in bloody heaps. She scaled down the rubble and made it to the ground just as the final detonation went off, knocking down the outer guard wall and opening her exit to freedom.

The prison was in chaos. Guards were being overpowered by inmates as tear gas filled the courtyard. The few who even noticed the blond scaling down the broken walls were either dispatched by the sniper or consumed by the mass frenzy of prisoners with a score to settle. A helicopter waited a few hundred yards in the distance where a giant of a man stepped out from cockpit, his rifle still smoking and met the archer halfway, literally carrying her into the aircraft. She was running on pure adrenaline and willpower, but even she had her limits.

"What took you all so long?" she smirked weekly as he placed her in the cockpit and belted her in. Moments later Cheshire surreptitiously appeared from nowhere, discarding the spent RPG on the ground and closing the door of the aircraft behind her.

"Let's go!" Jade ordered to the hulking mercenary, as the helicopter rose quickly to the sky, heading off towards the mountains. Artemis rested her head against his broad shoulders, watching the smoking ruins of the prison disappear into the distance until it was nothing more that terrible memory.

The mercenary held her trembling body tightly as she began to cry, the last few weeks finally taking their toll, but she found herself too weak to even find the tears. The adrenaline rush soon left her body as weakness and exhaustion took their rightful place. She closed her eyes and began to fade.

It was over, it was finally over.

It had been a suicide mission, there was no other way to describe it. The operation, the infiltration, the execution was going to be nearly impossible. Too many variables, too many moving parts. The target would see it coming from a mile away if not carried out perfectly, but the reward…? It was a literal brass ring, offered once in a lifetime by an organization not known for reprieve. That's how important this mission was to them, because typically once you signed on, it was for life.

Their preparation was meticulous, their planning flawless. The role of prisoner was clearly the most dangerous, and Jade had demanded it from day one. She had the most experience, clearly the ethnicity to play the role, and was familiar with the branches of the organization from a previous life and career. But even with that knowledge, Artemis had left base camp four days too early, unwilling to allow her sister to assume the risk.

That's just what siblings do.

Jade hated her and loved her for it at the same time. In the end when the mercenary drug her sister's battered body into the helicopter, Cheshire didn't know if she should embrace the archer or beat her to death. But as the copter flew over the Doi Angkhang mountains towards freedom, she'd never been prouder of her sister.

Artemis slept for the next forty-eight hours, waking only momentarily when it was time to take the antibiotics and painkillers Jade had set aside for her. Her sister and their partner had treated her wounds around the clock, thoroughly disinfecting each open sore, suturing and bandaging each wound. There would be scars; there would always be scars. They paled in comparison to the ones she carried inside, but she was alive, and that was all that mattered.

Days later, she awoke to the soft sounds of birds singing over the rushing water of the Geylang River that their safe house stood near. She found it odd that her body ached more from actually sleeping on a mattress then it did the cold stone floor of her cell weeks earlier. To her right, the sleeping form of her partner draped over her. Nash Carter was a mountain of a man; 6'5, ruggedly handsome, good in bed but better in a fight. He'd lived up to that reputation not only the night before, but throughout their time together.

Artemis gingerly rose from the bed, finding Nash's shirt on the floor, stiffly reaching down and draping it around her naked body. She looked down at him and smiled. It was good to see him again; there were many times she doubted she ever would. She cared for him, probably more than she should. The archer knew he'd been a girl in every port type of guy, not that it bothered her. What they had between them worked. A partnership with benefits. They both had needs and he was more than willing to scratch that itch from time to time. But that's only as far as she'd go. No ties, no commitments, no feelings. Those were the rules.

She walked out unto the creaky wooden deck and inhaled the fresh mountain air. A voice behind her appeared from nowhere, but by now she was used to her sister's catlike approach.

"Good morning Artemis," Jade spoke softly, handing her sister a hot cup of Oolong Tea. The archer inhaled the drink's aroma and moaned. She took a sip and smiled. It tasted like home.

"I forget how good Lotus tea tastes; you make it just like mom."

"The trick is in the blend," Jade smiled, standing next to her sister as they looked out at the sun rising over the mountains.

"So… did you have fun last night?"

"I'm not complaining," Artemis half laughed, looking around and finding a chair to sit in. She eased her aching body into the old, dilapidated Adirondack and raised her feet onto the rail. There were very few parts of her body that weren't blistered or bruised, and she stared curiously at her abraded knees and shins, wondering if one day the pain of this life would actually go away and heal, but deep inside she doubted it.

They sat in comfortable silence sipping their tea, listening to nature when the archer looked over to her sister.

"Can I see it?"

Jade smiled, opening the envelope and retrieving the fine washi letter inside. Handing it to her sister, there were only four words on the hand printed paper.

Your debt is paid.

Artemis leaned over, resting her head on her sister's shoulder. "We really did it, didn't we?"

"Yes, we did," Jade smiled, taking in another sip.

Since she'd left the states all those years ago, the only thing in her life was the debt, and now that debt had been paid. It just didn't seem real.

Paula Crock's murder could not go unanswered, and for two sisters that had battled each other for years for their father's approval, they'd finally found common ground and forged a relationship they'd thought lost long ago. Sportsmasters' death was not nearly as satisfying as Artemis had hoped, but a death just the same. He'd never hurt anyone else again.

Unfortunately, by doing so, they'd killed a Shadow operative, and if it had not been for their lineage they would have died as soon as they'd been captured. They were the daughters of two well-known, well-respected assassins. Both owned certain talents that might be of service to the Shadows; oddly enough thanks to the man they had dispatched to end up in the situation to begin with. In accordance with the violation that she and her sister had committed, their choice had been simple.

Work for us or die a slow and painful death.

Soon their lives became a series of long ops, infiltrations, and assassinations. The three of them had become a dangerous team: Nash being equally disgraced in the eyes of the Shadows.He was successful mercenary on the rise who'd failed the League at the most impromptu of times. He never spoke of it, but for a man as arrogant and brave as he was, the archer could read the fear in his eyes whenever the name Ra's al Ghul was mentioned. He may have been cocky, but he wasn't stupid.

By either happenstance, good fortune, or just blind luck the trio had been paired and given a new lease on life, a chance to repay their debts and show their gratitude, The League of Shadows was not known for second chances, but their offer was never truly a choice.

Sometimes late at night, Artemis would hear him call out two names; must likely a wife and daughter; his obligation to the Shadows no doubt related to the person or persons who had murdered his family, the same group that the mercenary had likely taken his vengeance upon unbeknownst to who they might have been working for. It was all conjecture on her part, but over the years she'd learned to read him quite well.

She and Nash had saved each other's lives more time than she cared to count. She wondered if her attraction to him mirrored that of her mother's to the psychopath that would one day be her father. Much like Lawrence Crock, Nash could be brutal to his enemies while also having a certain vulnerability about him when his guard was down. That was a side of her father she never saw, but Paula assured had once existed.

But none of that mattered now. Her long nightmare had finally ended. And a word she never dared utter, now rested on the tip of her tongue.

Freedom

Jade finished the last of her tea, placing her cup on the rail and turning to Artemis.

"So what's next dear sister?" Jade asked, "As the saying goes, the world is our oyster. We can go anywhere, do anything. People with our skill set can make a very comfortable living, or so I hear," she said with a smirk.

"Oh I know," Artemis agreed, rolling her eyes sarcastically, thinking back at the many crimes she'd tried to thwart of Cheshire's over the years, back when right and wrong really mattered; now only shades of grey.

Artemis pondered the question for a while. She'd never acquired a taste for killing, not like Jade or Nash. It was always just a means to an end. She'd felt little comfort knowing that most of the people she'd dispatched had done terrible monstrous things. They'd hurt people just like her father, and in the end, they'd suffered the same fate. The idea of making a living that way just didn't sit well. She'd had enough blood on her hands.

The two sisters sat in silence for the next half hour, reflecting on the last few years, her mind ablaze with the feelings of wanderlust and freedom. Now with her debt paid she could give in to that desire and start anew. Nothing was holding her back anymore. The world was now about opportunities, but something still gnawed at her, it had since the night she'd left the states almost a decade ago and had never left no matter how hard she wished it would.

"I have a few things I need to take care of first." Artemis disclosed, breaking the silence.

Jade studied her sister carefully after that remark, recognizing that look. Even as a child she'd been able to read her so well. Cheshire sat down on the edge of the chair and took her sister's hand.

"You can't go back," Jade said thoughtfully, "you know that."

The archer let those words sink in for a few moments before she replied, "I know," she sighed, "I know."