Chapter 113

**Hadassah POV**

It’s not that I didn’t like Acheson. I just didn’t trust her.
I’ve dealt with a plethora of agents, detectives and officers that put the case above the person, political interests over the people. They were willing to allow informants from any demographic, the most vulnerable, being the youngest or people that shared close relations to their targets, risking their lives senselessly to obtain information or plant a listening device that would easily point back to them. However, Acheson is not like the other bureaucrats, she’s her own breed.
She could’ve monitored my infiltration from a distance but instead inserted herself, putting her life and freedom on the frontlines. All what happened in her past must have traumatized her enough to not want to see it reoccur in her future. So much so she has endangered herself and bears the brunt of righteous consequence.
Acheson is a force of nature, and that’s something I admired even when she provoked my anger. small,brash, blunt and brave, but now she seems so small like she has shrunken into herself. A familiar haunted look in her eyes as we sit in the frigid quiet between silent moments. I want to comfort her, tell her everything you would think she would want or need to hear—she’ll overcome this, she’s stronger than this but I know myself that those sappy sentiments cannot erode the filthy violation like your body is besmirched, your insides twisted and distorted like all you are is no longer your own. It takes something from you—corroding the shell of the soul. A wound that will never heal it merely just stops bleeding.
People that have never experienced such suffering mouth platitudes they can’t begin to comprehend. It was the same when I first woke up in the hospital after what Marov Sidrov did to me. My mom kept repeating that I was safe now—I even had my own protection detail dispatched by the police, but how could I feel safe when he was still out there? What he did to me was indelible, scarring my soul and what Orian did nearly dissolved what was left inside.
I can’t lie to Achson and tell her everything will be the same as before. Because it won’t, but one truth that no cruelty can undermine is that she is strong. And she will indeed overcome it, but that’s not something you’re told. It is something you forge through every decision, every choice to wade through the muck and misery.
In the dim, suffocating silence of the underground room, the air is thick with undying fear and stale breath. Hidden deep beneath, the room is cramped and lit only by the faint glow of a few hanging lanterns. A few women whisper softly in the shadows, their faces a weaving of exhaustion and anxiety, while some lie down on the revolting mattresses. Most solitary figures sit on the cold floor, their eyes darting toward the shadowy staircase, fearing the sound of descending men, signaling the reaping of yet another girl.
Acheson and I are nestled in the corner of the underground room. The air between us alone is fraught with tension because of her own dismay and dread. They had taken Nika and Vinea, and Nika went out screaming, clutching onto Vinea as one of them literally had to lift her off the ground to try to wrench them apart. It was a harrowing sight, every time with a different girl. What was worse to see then the girls kicking and screaming was the women who went away in a petrifying silence. Something in them had not just withered, but it was long-dead.
“Your agency,” I begin.
“What about them?” she mutters.
“They did a good job placing you here.”
“Nothing complicated,” she says dismissively. “My handlers had the locations of key trade routes and hot zones of his hunting grounds and one of his favorite was the club he grabbed me from. The actual risk was if he would select me for the private party or send me away with another group.”
“No reinforcements?”
She flares a brow at the line of inquiry. “No.”
“Exfil?” I ask exasperatedly.
“Not really,” she says with something grim on the edge of her tone. “More like a deadline. Forty eight hours and twelve hours. The first forty-eight is to get eyes on you and pull you out. Since I’m radio silent on this operation, no backup, no way to communicate our status. They will then report a positive sighting on Commander Emilia Acheson,” she says with a ring of ridicule in her voice.
“But that would mean—”
“They will be effectively handing our location to the CIA. And serving us on a golden platter.”
I restrain my outrage to let reason prevail. And I look at it tactically.
“You’re a traitor.”
She cuts me with a glare. “Thanks.”
“Branded a traitor,” I correct irritably. “So your agency cannot officially render an assist to a wanted fugitive—which is why you’re on your own right now. But the CIA will kill and arrest whomever they need to get to you.”
Acheson replies with a slow and condescending nod.
“I can appreciate a daring ploy,” I say, not withholding a tint of derision. “But not only is it flawed, but foolish. If the CIA come guns blazing, we have no strategic way of escaping. Even if we could get word to Calum in time to inform Torin. His men wouldn’t be able to assemble fast enough to get there before federal forces. You expect us to fight a battle on two fronts?”
“It wouldn’t be called a risk if there wasn’t a risk,” she says jadedly, a glaze over her eyes as she stares listlessly into the distance. “It all seemed so doable before and now I’m just—”
The door bursts open above and this time—several men enter as the staircase whines from the immense weight. Balian’s men charge inside, barking orders. It’s time to move and I rise to my feet. Some of them gesture urgently whilst others grab at girls they feel are taking too long. No words are needed. Acheson hasn’t moved an inch. Her unblinking stare is locked ahead of her like she’s witnessing the dead rising. Not knowing what to do and not wanting to be manhandled. I handle her myself as I reach down and heave her off the ground.
Silently, the women gather their meager belongings, cheap jackets and cloaks pulled tight around their bodies, and we file out of the room, one by one, into a narrow tunnel that leads to the surface. The night is pitch-black, the kind that swallows every sound and shadow. We are all ushered quickly into waiting vans, scattered across different alleyways. Each vehicle is a battered and unmarked husk, indistinguishable from the countless others that litter the streets. The women shuffle into the vans they’re pulled towards, their movements quick and silent. Acheson and I remain close so we don’t get separated.
Once inside, squished together like we’re lifeless cargo, the engines roar to life, but the drivers are careful, moving cautiously through the dark streets. The windows are blacked out from the outside but I already know that each van will take a different route to evade suspicion.
Inside the van, the journey feels endless. The quiet rumble of the engine is the only sound, but every bump in the road makes them all flinch. Acheson nudges me with her elbow and leans in closer with her face near mine and it takes her a long time to deliver the words clogging up in her throat. She wants to get it out, but she’s struggling, so I wait patiently, keeping my eyes on her gently.
“Please, don’t tell Calum what happened.”
I look away and now I’m the one choked by words I cannot say.
“I’ve never lied to Calum,” I say as a fact. “Every bad, selfish or stupid thing I have ever done or said has been to his face.”
“I’m not asking you to lie,” she whispers fiercely. “Just don’t tell him.”
“And if he brings it up? If he asks if anything happened?”
“And what would that achieve? He can’t undo it and that truth will torture us both.” Her brows rumple with a stormy frown. “What’s done is done. What would be the point of putting him through that pain? And forcing me to relive it.”
“I get it, but—”
“No, you don’t. You have no idea. Whatever you were doing with Torin and what he was doing to you. It looked like you enjoyed it, alot. And don’t tell me you didn’t because I’m not Calum. I don’t believe your shit as easily as he does.”
Her words are a blow to my gut that rends the breath from my lungs.
I’m not even outraged, although I expected better from her, a lot better. Anger is suddenly such a deficient emotion. There’s nothing to say after that. She assumes she knows me and knows what I’ve been through—the torment I endured and how I’ve had to pick myself up again and again, fiddling with fragments of myself to the point I don’t even recognise any of the pieces. She cannot begin to fathom my anguish and the weight of it would crush her.
We pass through deserts peppered with sparse vegetation, avoiding checkpoints and overpopulated areas, and all converging on the same distant airfield, our paths carefully planned to ensure no one is followed.
At last, the airfield comes into view — a vast, empty expanse lit by a single strip of runway lights. The vans arrive one by one, unloading their passengers quickly and quietly. The women are stiff and weary from the long ride as we all rushed toward a waiting aircraft, its engines already rumbling in the cool night air. We are forced to board swiftly, vanishing into the belly of the plane. Along with only a few of the men that ‘escorted’ us.
Moments later, the doors are sealed shut, and the aircraft is taxied to the runway. As the wheels lift off the ground, the world below becomes a patchwork of darkness.