Page 14 of Striker

I glance at my watch. He’s not due to relieve me from my watch for another hour, but like the rest of us, he can’t seem to stay away. Reaper is the worst one. Constantly in here, watching them obsessively. Breaker seems to focus more on Cora, but right now, his entire attention is on Delilah.

“I’m not sure,” I tell him as he sits next to me and crosses his arms. We’ve been wearing our uniforms, and always have our masks nearby just in case, but I have to say I miss seeing his skin and the bold tribal tattoos on his arms. My eyes raise to find him staring at me instead of the camera. Averting my gaze, I say, “She looks like she’s searching for something.”

“Probably a weapon,” Viper says as he walks into the room and takes the chair on my other side.

I resist rolling my eyes. We are supposed to be taking shifts watching them, but it seems sleep and taking any time away is impossible. Then again, these two have been inseparable since Breaker’s first day in the classroom.

We all saw Breaker when he first arrived, but didn’t see him again for several years after Father brought him out of the cold room. I had always wondered what happened to the skinny toddler with a fat belly and sunken cheeks. He looked nothing like my other brothers, with deep skin and black curls that shot out from his head in tight coils. I remember when ourotetsbrought him to class shortly after Breaker turned five, he’dshaved his curls, which made me sad. He was a pretty little boy, and I figured maybe that’s why Father shaved him bald. So no one would mistake him for a girl.

Viper took to him immediately. Breaker was smarter than most of us and already spoke some English, but not like Viper, whose coarse accent made the words impossible to understand. I struggled the most with English, so they would sit with me after lights out and teach me how to pronounce words. Of course, I learned all the dirty words first.

When it came time for us to learn French, Breaker knew some of that one too, so he helped us all. It wasn’t until years later, when we started taking Spanish, that I could help them.

By then, we had eliminated any traces of our accents, except for mine, which only surfaced when I got angry and raised my voice. But that only happened a few times and when it did, Teacher would rap my knuckles with the thick wooden ruler like the old sour-faced nun at the large church in the village did when we didn’t pay attention at Sunday school. I had bruises on my hands for years, but I learned eventually to articulate and enunciate each word carefully. We all did.

Fallon once said when I asked him the purpose of learning so many languages and making sure we had no accents, was because his future soldiers needed to blend in and not be identifiable. I didn’t understand then. But I do now.

“God, she’s so fucking beautiful,” Viper says from next to me. At first, I assume he’s referring to Cora, but his gaze is fixed on Delilah.

We all watch as she tears drawers from the little vanity and feels under the top, searching for something. Probably clues as to where she is. Good luck. We stripped any trace of who we are well before we brought them here. Fallon trained us well. She’ll find nothing unless we want her to.

“I’d love to wrap my fingers in that soft black hair and bend her over the bed,” Breaker says.

Wouldn’t we all? When we received the order, we knew our objective. Take her. Train her. Then we went off the rails.

Now? We willingly went along with Reaper’s orders to use them that night, and it’s got us all fucked up. And having Cora here has rattled us even more. Reaper may have made the call to bring Cora into this, but we all are keeping her here.

Why he decided to take Cora too, I assumed at first, was because she was important to Rune like Delilah, but now I’m not so sure. Reaper has a way of knowing things. Like he can see the result before anyone else. Maybe he knew, deep down, we wanted Cora too. Or maybe he saw something in her that needed to be plucked free.

My eyes flicker over to Cora’s camera as my brothers discuss what they’d like to do to the girls. I hold up my hand and they instantly stop talking.

“What’s she doing?” Viper asks scooting his chair closer.

Cora’s on her knees, her hands over her ears like she’s trying to block out sound, but the room is deathly quiet.

Breaker leans over me and taps the keys to change the camera. From this angle, we can see her profile. Her eyes are squeezed shut, but her mouth is open. Then I hear it.

It starts out low, like a quiet rumble, then grows louder and louder until it’s a high-pitched scream. She stops long enough to suck in a breath and the next scream is even louder, more desperate, broken by a sob. She does it again and again and Breaker’s standing up, shoving his chair back as Viper’s pushing me out of the way to get to the door.

Behind me, Reaper says, “She has demons darker than ours.”

Chapter 6

Cora

You don’t discover howloud the silence is until it’s all you can hear. I haven’t seen them since they brought me a tray of food last night and sat with me until I ate it all. I’m still surprised I could even eat, but I guess some things the body can’t deny. Even though I asked questions, they didn’t answer any of them and just waited patiently until the bowl of warm soup and the sandwich was gone. Then Breaker and Striker took the tray and left, locking the door with what sounded like a sliding bolt.

Somehow, I slept. Again, the body just wants what it wants. Granted, I was still groggy from being drugged and mentally exhausted from being violently kidnapped. I ended up falling into a deep, dreamless sleep. Now the sun is up and I’m sitting at the end of the bed, trying not to hear the quiet all around me. I’ve tried to hum, but it just brought back terrible memories, so I had to stop that.

Focusing on the distant crash of waves isn’t helping either. I’ve sung a few songs in my head, but memories flooded my mind, refusing to leave.

Darkness. Sharp pain under my nails. Wet streaks on my face and neck.

The sensations flicker through me, and I can feel the dark memories tickling the back of my mind, scratching like I did, wanting to break out. The tips of my fingers ache, a phantom pain, and I squeeze my hands into fists, letting the nails bite into my skin to distract myself. It doesn’t work. Sitting up, I walk to the window and shove the curtains open. At least it’s not dark.

I hate the darkness.

She lives there.

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