With a mix of momentum and surprise, Leo takes us both down to the ground in a messy heap. He grabs for my gun, and we wrestle for it. Leo winds up on top of me, but I still manage to wrench the gun out of his grasp, pointing it at his face and pulling the trigger again. We both inhale sharply, flinching back from the sound of the trigger clicking.
Nothing comes out. My gun is empty, no bullets left. I used my last one on Dan. He must have been counting them. He counted my bullets and knew that I only had one left.
Leo recovers first and takes the advantage he’s been given by pushing up off me and scrambling for the gun that Dan threw away when I shot him in the shoulder.
By the time I’m back on my feet, Leo already has Dan’s gun trained on me. He looks at me apologetically. I don’t understand why until he pulls the trigger and shoots me in the thigh. White-hot pain screams through the nerves in my thigh, and I collapse onto one knee, hands grasping automatically for the bleeding wound. Merciless, Leo shoots me in my other thigh, and agony lights up my body.
It's smart, a way to keep me grounded, but fucking hell, it hurts.
Looking up at Leo from where I’m half crumpled and bleeding on the ground, all I can do is watch as he stares at the loudly whirring machine with a now-familiar intensity.
When the explosion happens, the power of the blast throws Leo off his feet and knocks me forward, face forcefully shoved into the stone as a near-overwhelming heat rushes across me like a river of fire.
Something heavy hits me in the back of my head, and my last thought is the desperate hope that Leo and Dan will survive this even if I don’t.
Past
Rohan
Thankfully, the facility where Roth is being kept is in Scotland, which means it only takes a short trip in a hijacked FISA helicopter and another shorter car ride to meet up with Damon.
We find him holed up in the woods that surround the area where the OI black site sits, hidden from public view.
Damon North looks so much like his father that it genuinely takes me a second of staring at him to compute that I’m not seeing a time-travelling version of Aaron hunkered down in the forest waiting for us. It’s uncanny how similar they are in appearance, both sharing the same amber eye colour, dark hair, and classically handsome features.
He’s also just as tall and broad as his dad although undeniably younger. But not by as much as you’d probably guess at first glance.
Aaron could easily be Damon’s older brother rather than his father. I always knew Aaron looked young for his age, but this is just wild. Damon is probably the same age as me—at the end, or barely out of, his teens.
Damon has the same ultra-serious expression on his face as well when we arrive, acknowledging me with perfunctory professionalism, offering the same to his father like some random FISA agent he’s never met before and the man who sired him are on the same level in terms of reliability and respect.
His only nod to familiarity is when he says, “Thanks for coming, Dad.”
I was so sure he was going to call him Senior Agent North that it takes me aback when he uses the “D” word.
Aaron just claps his shoulder in response, and that seems to be all Damon needs to swiftly move on with the mission. It’s kind of insane. Aaron is here risking everything for his son, and Damon is here risking everything for an enemy assassin, and I’m here … fuck knows what I’m doing here. But I’m not risking anything that I’m afraid to lose, so it’s not the same anyway.
We make our plans to infiltrate the OI black site quickly and without much fuss. It’s a medium-sized facility of polished stone and glass with moderate security, nothing too worrying after all the OI places I’ve broken into before.
Damon gives us the full rundown of the facility’s security timetables and internal mapping, describing everything down to the last detail like the little obsessive perfectionist I’m beginning to suspect he was raised to be. He’s thorough and observant, and I’m begrudgingly impressed, especially when he admits to only having been inside the OI black site for a sum total of one hour before he got pulled out by FISA. It’s a lot of information to have taken from such a short amount of time, and it tells me, if nothing else, that he’s a competent recon agent.
He must be brave too because he doesn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that we’ll be charging the OI facility with just the three of us.
Aaron brought extra guns and ammo for Damon, who gears up like he’s preparing for war right alongside his father.
It’s decided that shock and awe is our best bet on getting in and out of the facility with as little likelihood for bloodshed as possible. Thankfully, Aaron predicted this might be the case and brought a grenade launcher with him to take care of the entrance to the building.
Damon still has the passcodes memorised to the cells where Roth is being kept, and since it was only earlier today when they were used, it’s unlikely they’ve changed them.
Predictably, Aaron insists on taking the lead, which, much to my disappointment, means he gets to use the grenade launcher.
Damon and I hang back while Aaron moves into position to use the weapon, using the dense trees as cover.
“You look like him,” Damon says in a hushed tone. He doesn’t look away from Aaron, but it’s obvious his comment was meant for me.
“Him?” I ask although it’s pretty clear who he means.
“Ian Stone.” He says the name darkly, with a deeply ingrained rage similar to Aaron’s.
