Page 89 of Rescuing Ally: Part 2
The hour passes in a haze of static and white noise. Guards return and drag me back through corridors that stretch forever. My feet move automatically. My body remembers how to walk even as my mind fractures around a loss too vast to process.
They throw me back into my cell. The door locks with that same magnetic thunk that once seemed like the worst sound inthe world. Now it barely registers through the roaring in my ears.
Night deepens. Darkness wraps around the cellblock like a shroud. But we’re not silent now. We’re broken in different ways, each processing the loss according to our nature.
From Malia’s cell comes the sound of quiet sobbing—not the raw keening from the courtyard, but steady tears that speak to profound grief. She loved Walt with everything she had, and now that love has nowhere to go except into the void where he used to exist.
Jenna’s voice cuts through the darkness, barely above a whisper but carrying authority. “Stitch. Can you hear me?”
A long silence. Then, tentatively: “I’m here.”
“Good. Stay with us. Don’t go anywhere we can’t follow.”
Jenna’s doing triage on our emotional casualties, making sure no one gets completely lost in their grief. Her pain is locked away, somewhere she can access later, when the immediate crisis passes.
“Mia?” Jenna calls softly.
“Present.” The response comes shakily but promptly.
“Rebel?”
A bitter laugh echoes from her cell. “Still breathing. Still planning how to kill that bastard with my bare hands.”
“Ally?”
I try to speak, but the words stick in my throat. Everything feels distant, unreal. The future Hank, Gabe, and I planned—lazy Sunday mornings, his coffee getting cold while we talked about everything and nothing, all of it gone in a streak of light across a night-vision screen.
“Ally.” Jenna’s voice carries gentle insistence. “I need you to answer.”
“Here,” I finally manage. “I’m here.”
But I’m not. Not really. Part of me died with that helicopter, sank into the ocean with the men I loved. The part that believed in rescue. In happy endings. In love conquering all.
“We need to talk about what comes next,” Jenna says quietly.
“What comes next?” Rebel’s voice carries bitter amusement. “We’re lab rats in a maze. The only thing that comes next is whatever experiment he wants to run.”
“No.” Jenna’s response is firm. “We decide what comes next. Not him.”
“How?” Malia’s voice breaks on the word. “How do we decide anything when we’re locked in cages?”
“Because we’re still alive,” Jenna replies with a conviction that cuts through the despair. “Because they died trying to save us, and giving up now makes their sacrifice meaningless.”
Silence falls again, but it’s different now. Not the silence of defeat, but of consideration. Of minds working through grief toward something resembling purpose.
“He’ll expect us to be broken,” I say finally, surprising myself with the steadiness of my voice. “Completely compliant.”
“Then that’s what we give him,” Jenna agrees. “We show him broken women who’ve accepted their fate.”
“While we plan,” Mia adds, understanding creeping into her tone.
“While we survive,” Stitch says quietly, her voice more present than it’s been since the courtyard.
“While we prepare,” Rebel finishes, dark promise in her words.
From my bunk, I stare at the ceiling and let grief settle into my bones alongside something colder. Malfor believes he’s won. Believes he’s broken us completely. He thinks we’ll work obediently now, build his weapons, further his plans, and accept our captivity as inevitable.
Somewhere in the compound, Malfor sleeps easily, satisfied with his victory. Somewhere in the ocean, the bodies of our men drift with the currents. Somewhere in Guardian HRS headquarters, reports are being filed, missions aborted, and their losses tallied.
