I haven’t seen Cameron shower with the rest of us since being down here. I was wondering when he takes his showers. The small light on the ceiling makes the bathroom easier to see in than the barracks. I watch as Cameron’s form moves toward one of the sinks, a towel wrapped around his waist.
A breath escapes my lips at the scars on his back and ribs. Some look like whip marks, others appear to be bullet holes and knife wounds, and the big ones that are jagged and deep are from something unknown to me.
A knot forms in my throat. He’s been anything but the monster I’ve heard so much about. Surely he isn’t so evil to deserve those scars.
If he has this many old injuries on the outside, I can only imagine how many are hidden in his heart. My eyes narrow with sympathy. Wounds of the heart are hard to heal.
Cameron gets dressed, then pushes his hair back and sets a baseball cap over it. He stares at himself in the mirror for a moment. I can’t quite make out his expression, but he clenches his fists tightly before reaching into his pocket and bringing out a pill bottle. Dread overcomes me as he shakes the bottle into his hand and takes a handful of pills, many more than he had before, and swallows them before letting his head hang.
Guilt threads its way into my stomach at watching him in such a vulnerable state. But the feeling vanishes just as quicklyas it comes when Cameron straightens and walks toward the bathroom door.Oh shit.
I quickly move a few feet away and duck down as close to the ground as I can. He walks right past me and toward the barracks exit. I wait until he’s halfway there before I start tailing him. There’s no way he’ll see me this far away in the dark. The only indication of his whereabouts is the soft, echoing sound of his combat boots against the cement.
It takes me more than ten minutes to figure out where he went, but I eventually make my way to the weapons room. I almost let out a scream when I see someone standing at the glass, staring inside the room.
“Cadet Maves, what are you doing up?” The voice sounds vaguely familiar, but I can’t place it. I only know for certain that it’s not Adams.
“I was following Mori,” I admit sheepishly.How does he know my name? He must be one of the guards down here.
A small chuckle. “Well, come see for yourself. I knew it’d only be a matter of time before you grew curious enough about our anomaly.”
Hesitantly, I move close enough to the officer. He lifts something, and my eyes strain to see what it is. A pair of goggles? I take them and slide them over my head.
“I’m Lieutenant Erik. The leader of the Fury Squad,” he says. Wait, the guy who gave Cameron that awful scar over his eye? I already don’t like him.
I put the night vision goggles on. They’re white phosphor ones, and it takes me a moment to adjust to the sudden visibility of everything. The lieutenant has goggles on as well, and I can’t make out his defining features, since everything is black and white. He looks like an average middle-aged man, perhaps in his forties. He has a similar accent to my father’s.
I shift my attention to the weapons room. Cameron is inside training in the dark. My eyes widen as I watch him casually pick up a combat knife, listen briefly, and then throw it across the room into the shooting range dummies. He nails them each in the throat every time, as the knife severs the carotid artery and flies clean into the wall behind.
“How—” I start, but Erik interrupts me.
“We have small clickers on the other side of the room that replicate the sole of a boot on gravel. I doubt you’ve ever heard it during the day when everyone is loud and practicing, but it goes off every thirty seconds or so to notify keen soldiers of a presence.”
My lips part. That’s terrifying, yet impressive that Cameron has the ability to fight in the dark like this. It will be good to remember while I’m in the field with him.
Wait. Does that mean he knew I was spying on him?Oh God. He probably heard my footsteps. I resist the urge to palm my forehead.
My dread and silence must carry because Erik mumbles, “You should be careful trying to uncover all his layers. Mori isn’t one for sharing who he is with others. He must like you, though, or at least not mind you, to allow you to monitor him this closely.” His words strike a chord in my heart.
Does that mean if Cameron didn’t like me that I’d be dead right now? It’s weird to hear about him through others that have known him significantly longer than I have. Sometimes it feels like they’re talking about a completely different person from the one I know.
I stand quietly beside Lieutenant Erik as we watch Cameron train by himself. He does everything on his own. It makes me wonder what he’s keeping so close to his chest. Why does he prefer to be…well, lonely.
Cameron switches to close combat, and it’s disturbing that with just the silhouette of a dummy how precise he is with his blows. He stabs every major ligament point and artery combo—where not only would someone bleed out, but they’d lose the ability to control their limbs as well. It’s nearly identical to the way Damian attacks. There’s a lot I missed out on during the first portion of boot camp.
Hopefully, I can catch up, because my primary specialty lies with pistols, rifles, and postmortem arts. The latter definitely will not help me down here.
Sweat breaks out across my forehead and a surge of heat collects between my thighs as I watch Cameron’s muscles flex. My own chest expands with each deep breath he takes between attacks.Why does his ability to kill a person so ruthlessly arouse me so much?I bite my lip to try and stop the sultry thoughts from running rampant. I’m so fucked-up, and I know he is too.
“He’s about done. You should head back before he finishes. He’s usually the most unstable during and after exertion.” Erik looks my way. It’s daunting not being able to see his eyes behind the goggles. I wonder what he looks likes in the light. All I can make out is his straight nose and sharp cheekbones. A firmly pressed mouth and an oddly nostalgic voice.
“Thank you,” I say as I slip off the goggles and hand them back to him. He pauses before wordlessly taking them back.
I hurry back to the barracks, using my fingers along the wall as a guide. My eyes take a few minutes to adjust back to the darkness of the Under, and even then, it’s only faint shapes that I can make out.
I decide to shower and get ready since I’m already up. After seeing Cameron perform his murderous blows so effortlessly, I’ll need to start putting more effort into my training if I want to keep up with him.
The small light in the bathroom would’ve seemed so insufficient before my time down here, but it’s plenty compared to the complete darkness. I scrub my body and wash my hair. The cold water doesn’t bother me as much as it did the first few days. It certainly helps wake me up, though.
