Page 27 of Calico Descending

Familiar.

Men come pouring out of the tents like hot water raining on a hill of ants, and the camera begins to shake, as I presume Dean sets off on a dead run.

Chaos breaks. In the camera’s view, over Dean’s shouts and sickening heavy breaths, we watch as Legion soldiers attack the hive. Gunfire echoes. Women and children scream. In the distance, I see some kind of animal swipe out at a soldier.

A wildcat.

The back of a woman’s head comes into view, and I realize Dean is chasing after her. “Come here, bitch!” His voice is muffled by the mask that must still cover his face. “Excuse my French, sirs.”

A hand reaches out from the camera, grabbing dark cropped hair, and he yanks hard enough to knock her to the ground. “Gotcha!”

Scuffling knocks the camera to the side. All I see is limbs flying. Boots. Dirt kicking up into clouds. Dean grunts and laughs. “Mmmm. How’s that for you, baby?”

A palm moves in front of the camera, righting its view again, and we’re looking at the woman’s hands tied behind her back. When he flips her over, my heart catches in my throat.

I know this woman.

Dina.

The one who betrayed Bryani and me. I should feel a sense of justice, seeing her captured, but instead, I feel sorry for her. It’s inexplicable, considering she’s the reason we’re here, except I know enough that grown women captured from the Deadlands don’t tend to fare well, or for long, in this place.

“You’re going to love Calico, bitch. The accommodations are great, and the food is delicious.”

Dina spits in his face, and the camera rattles, followed by a hard smack that kicks her head to the side.

“Well,” Doctor Ericsson interrupts, turning to face his colleagues in the room. “His delivery needs work, but I’d consider this a successful capture.”

The men in the room laugh, and only Medusa and I remain silent. I turn to see her shift in her chair, and I wonder if watching this makes her as uncomfortable as it does me. If perhaps she was captured the same way once.

I wonder if Medusa has a heart, after all.

Movement flickers in the corner of the camera, and the room falls quiet again.

“Oh.” Doctor Ericsson sits forward in his chair, his voice full of intrigue. “Perhaps we’ll get a glimpse of the escaped Alpha here.”

A shadowy figure moves forward, and the camera pans up.

“Hey! Get back to the raid!”

A helmet comes into view, and I catch Doctor Ericsson shaking his head.

“Valdys,” he says with some disappointment, waving his hand in dismissal.

The monstrous beast stands there, hands curled in fists at his side.

The camera pans closer.

“Get the fuck back to the raid! That’s an order!”

Still, Valdys doesn’t move.

“Move, you dimwitted beast!” Doctor Ericsson says, as he watches on. “Why is he not following the damn orders?” His eyes shoot to mine, brows winging up. “This is precisely why you’re here, girl!”

Behind Doctor Ericsson, I see Valdys’s arm strike out, and the camera rattles.

Dean’s grunts and gags add a harrowing soundtrack to the view of Valdys, tipping his helmet-clad head, as though intrigued.

Crystals of ice wind around my spine, as Valdys lifts Dean’s hand, the same one that groped me, pressing it against the nose hole in his helmet. He then lifts the other hand--the one that held my palm to the soldier’s bulging erection, and sniffs that one, too, before throwing it away as dismissively as he threw mine back in his room.

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