Page 63 of The Warrior
Devlin
Laura
As promised, Hans had made sure a drone waited for me as soon as I crossed into the Motherlands. Half an hour later, I arrived at the village where Devlin was believed to be keeping a woman hostage. It was only four in the morning, and none of the other team members had arrived yet.
I chose to land the drone outside the rural village and walk to the house. That’s when it hit me that it had been a mistake to get here early. Standing for two hours looking at a dark house, until Hans and the other mediators arrived, wasn’t a solid plan. I debated whether to go back to the drone and wait there, or to investigate by myself. Isobel had the weapons that Magni had given me, and I’d left the non-lethal Motlander weapons with Hans. Still, a tiptoe walk around the perimeter of the house didn’t sound too dangerous, and it could prove useful later on when we had to come up with a plan on how to surround the house.
I made sure to be quiet, and kept the light from my wristband turned to the ground only.
The house was small and very old. It was hard for me to see what it was made of, but I guessed it to be GOTO blocks like most old houses here. My sensei had lived in a house like this, and she had told me that GOTO was short forGift of the Ocean, a program that transformed plastic trash into building blocks. Some of these houses had been built more than two hundred years ago and were routinely renovated and upgraded. They didn’t use GOTO blocks to build anymore since they had run out of plastic trash long ago. That’s why it made sense to treasure these old houses. With everything from the old world either buried or destroyed after the war, the houses had become a historic part of the Motherlands.
Looking over my shoulder to be sure no one was around, I tripped over a shovel standing against the wall of the house. It spooked the hell out of me when it made a jarring noise as it fell down on some empty flowerpots. Thinking fast, I hunched down close to the wall, covering the light from my wristband with my other arm. I held my breath and didn’t move a muscle.
A dog barked in the distance and I thought I heard a voice from inside the house. For what felt like ten minutes, I listened for movement, but no one came and my pulse calmed down enough for me to stand up and move along. Quiet as a mouse, I tiptoed around the next corner and froze to the spot. A faint light shone from a window, and my first thought was to retreat to the drone to wait for the others.
I had only taken a few steps before I heard sounds that made the hair on my neck and arms stand up. Turning my head, I listened. My brain registered what those sounds were, but I didn’t want to believe it.
Folding my hands into fists and closing my eyes, I swallowed hard and took a long inhalation of the cold night air.
Muffled screams and low groans sounded again, awakening the bravest part of me. Telling myself that I was a Northlander and that we always rose to the occasion, I walked back and rose up on my toes to look in through the window.
The room was dimly lit, but I saw enough to understand that an innocent Motlander woman was being brutally raped by a large man who could only be Devlin.
My hand flew to my mouth, and my eyes grew wide when I watched the poor woman being pressed into the mattress. Her hands were tied down to the bed, making it impossible for her to fight him off. With Devlin covering her mouth with one hand and strangling her with the other, she was suffocating.
My stomach was in an uproar and I felt like vomiting. This was exactly what Motlanders had always accused Northlanders of being: rapists and monsters.
One of the escaped Nmen had already raped an innocent woman and now Devlin was doing the same.
The woman’s eyes were rolling back in her head, her legs kicking. The motherfucker was killing her and I was the only one around to interfere.
What would Magni do?
The answer was obvious.Magni would storm in there and break Devlin’s neck to save the woman.
There was no time to wait for backup. I had to act now!
Needing a weapon, I ran back to the side of the house and picked up the shovel before I sprinted to the front entrance.
The door was locked.
“Fuck!” I muttered under my breath and stepped back.
If I’d learned anything in these past six months living in the Motherlands, it was that Motlanders were trusting people who didn’t lock their doors. I had once asked my sensei about it, and she’d joked that it didn’t matter since the GOBO doors were so easy to break down that a lock wouldn’t hold anyone out anyway.
I considered testing to see if she was right, but knocking down the door would alert Devlin that I was coming.
My hands flew to the small keyboard on the side of the door and taking a chance, I pressed 1-2-3-4. Nothing happened. I tried 9-8-7-6 and then I saw the house number on a sign just above the box. No one would use that obvious a number, but I had to test it. With frantic movements my fingers took a long shot and pressed 1-0-2-4. I held my breath when a green light lit up and the door clicked. I would have to have a serious talk about safety with the woman living here, but first I had to save her life.
The sounds from the bedroom overpowered the low creaking sound from the door as I entered. Holding out the shovel in front of me, I steered towards the dim light coming from underneath a door to my right.
My palms grew sweaty when I heard squeaking sounds from the bed and skin pounding against skin.
“You feel that? You like having a real man between your legs?” Devlin’s deep voice was raw and panting. “Told you I’d fuck you hard if you didn’t do as I asked you to.”
It felt like my heart was trying to beat its way through my spine to get the hell out of that house, but I kept thinking about Magni. A month after we got married, we’d witnessed a crash at a drone race. We’d been on a balcony with Khan as guests of honor when two of the drones nearly collided and one of them spun out of control and crashed. Khan was shouting for people to get back in case the drone exploded, while Magni crawled over the balcony and jumped down, making his way through an audience that was in panic. I had watched in horror as he ran straight to the drone, kicked in a window, and pulled the pilot out. Magni always stormed ahead when others ran away, and if he were here right now, he wouldn't retreat. Tightening my grip around the shaft of the shovel, I moved closer with what would have been graceful cat-like movements if my legs hadn’t been stiff from fear.
With my hand on the doorknob, I counted down from three in my head.
