9. RAVEN

9

RAVEN

A WEEK AGO

Kids in a bunker—I want to say the scenario is disheartening, but who am I kidding? I was a kid once. A basement was not a bunker, but these kids look safe whereas I know what can happen in places like this.

There are four of them, all girls ages about five to nine. They sleep on cots, surrounded by four concrete walls and a dull lightbulb for light, but they smile and whisper to each other as they talk about Ali and me.

Ali and I sleep on the blankets on the floor between the cots.

Skiba’s stab didn’t get any vitals, thank God, otherwise I would’ve been fucked. Ali helps me change the bandages and clean the wound, and I manage to sit up even through the sharp pain.

The oldest girl collects her bravery and brings me warm water to clean my facial wounds. She brings me a small mirror, and when I look at my face, there’s no surprise why the girls stare wide-eyed at me—my nose and one eye are swollen, lips busted, bruises darkening on the side of my jaw and cheek.

The girls show us the food supply in a neat cupboard. They make us instant noodles for lunch and tuna sandwiches for dinner. There are no windows, so the only indication of time is the clock on the wall.

On day two, I’m on my feet. The pain is manageable with painkillers. But if I have to move or run, I need to get better fast.

Candy shows up with medical supplies and a change of clothes for me and takes my dirty bloodied ones with her.

“Not sure if we can wash off all this blood.”

The new shirt is black and long-sleeved with some type of bright-colored embroidery ornament along its neckline, too big for me, but it works.

“One of the girls’s boyfriends,” she explains, noticing me studying it with interest.

She gives us a warning not to set foot outside the door.

“You are under the Venus Den,” she explains.

She looks different than I remember. Barely any makeup, no nail polish, no fancy dress but wide pants and a tank. Her jet-black hair is tied in a bun on top of her head—a drastic change for a woman whose business is supposed to be looking sexy for her clients.

“Under?” I ask.

“Yes. I can’t bring you upstairs. Things are not the same around here lately.”

“Not the same how?”

She turns to the little girls, who watch us with intense curiosity, and nods at the far corner of the room. “Go, read something.”

They scatter, pushing each other but still staring at us from across the room.

Candy’s voice is reduced to a hushed whisper. “My establishment and my girls, the ones left… We are now completely taken over by Butcher’s gang. If my girls want to take clients, they have to pay Butcher.”

“This is extortion.”

“Right. They call it business. Except, for two years since the Change, we did fine on our own. Now we have to pay almost all we make, but…” She sucks in her cheeks, her eyes acquiring an angry squint.

“But when they want something, they just come and take it,” I finish her sentence.

“Correct. They call it protection.”

“Protection from who?”

“From them,” she blurts and laughs devilishly. “Motherfuckers,” she hisses. “I swear, I wish I could blow them all up. They took several of my girls.”

“Took?”

“Yeah. The girls live with them, service them, who knows how many men in a day. One tried to run away, got caught, and was shot. They didn’t take me because they wanted a service station here.”

She says it with so much poison in her voice that it makes me shiver, and I thought I’d seen it all.

She pulls a cigarette pack out of her pocket, takes one cigarette out, but looks at the girls and doesn’t light it.

“So…”—she studies me, keeping the cigarette between her fingers—“you can’t leave this room unless you want to leave for good. There is almost always one of his men here.” She motions with her eyes upstairs. “I thought about bringing a doctor. One of them is a good guy. But he drinks. He can blabber something about you here, and then…”

“Trouble.”

She shakes her head grimly. “Trouble? No, no trouble, Raven. We’ll all get shot. So, that’s that.”

On day three, I start exercising. Candy doesn’t show up, but she left enough medical supplies to change the dressing for my wound. The girls seem to know how to take care of themselves. They make simple food for us, too. They have a routine. The oldest braves up and shows us where to wash up at the sink behind the curtain.

The most pressing issue is contacting Ayana.

We don’t have our phones. My Ayana bracelet was cut off back in the jungle. Ali’s bracelet should’ve sent a signal by now. He took it off to trigger an emergency alert, but nothing seems to be happening.

Another day goes by.

Candy brings more food. The girls sweep the floor. They ask questions. They play with the ball, tossing it from one cot to another. They read a picture book or cuddle up on one cot and play with two rag dolls. And they look with curiosity when Ali goes to the farthest corner and prays on his knees.

We haven’t left the bunker yet. Ali is restless. I’m getting my strength back. And we talk. For hours. About him, me, Maddy, Archer, God, where we came from.

On day five, I see him smile for the first time. We sit on the floor between the cots, on our blankets. The girls play with the small ball, throwing it between them from one cot to another. Without his top uniform jacket, only in a dark undershirt and trousers, barefoot, with his dark thick beard, Ali looks humble, more relaxed. The youngest girl with the ball in her hands turns to look at him then smiles and throws a ball to him. He catches it and throws it to another girl. A simple move, a courteous acceptance of this game, but the little girl smiles, so widely, flashing her toothless grin at him, and claps her hands in delight.

And Ali smiles back, that sad smile that’s on par with his sad eyes.

I remember his file, his wife and kids killed during the bombing two years ago. My tragedy is far in the past. His is recent, and he still finds the strength to smile.

“Thank you,” I say then, out of nowhere.

He turns to me, and our eyes lock. I hold his gaze and say, “Thank you” again, feeling utterly grateful.

He knows what I meant. It’s a thank you for saving my life. For taking me here. For sitting this out by my side.

I want to say that the ice between us melted. But there was never any ice, I realized. A strange connection, a chain of circumstances and coincidences—that butterfly effect—brought us together. In a way, I realize, he is just like me—with many secrets and a shitty past and no desire to share that with anyone.

Candy shows up on day six, her gaze tired, avoiding eye contact. There’s a bruise on the side of her face. Several bluish bruises mar her wrists.

I don’t ask about those. “We need a phone, Candy.”

She snorts. “You and me both. They don’t work. Butcher put blockers all around Port Mrei.”

“Satellite phone?”

“No such luck. I would’ve asked around, but that would be suspicious.”

“How do we contact Ayana?”

She exhales loudly as she takes a seat on one of the cots and cuddles the little girl next to her. “You haven’t heard. Of course, you haven’t.” Playing with the girl’s hair, she raises her gaze. “There was an attack on the port the other day. In response, Ayana cut off Port Mrei.”

“Cut off how?”

“Pretty much in every way possible. The only shipments that come to the island go straight to Ayana docks. No personnel goes to Ayana anymore. Starting yesterday.”

Shock washes over me. “What do you mean?”

“Just like that.” She snaps her fingers, and the girl in her arms jerks, instantly looking up at her. “Ayana is in lockdown. No one crosses the surveillance division line between Ayana and Port Mrei. No one.”

Fuck… “So, what do we do?”

“Unless someone is coming for you with an army, you have to wait it out.”

No one is coming, of that I’m sure.

Another day passes, and my patience snaps. Ali and I have been here for a week, and I can’t sit still and do nothing, waiting for Ayana to restore relations with the town—if that’s even a possibility.

“Is the port an option?” Ali asks during one of our conversations about the possible escape from Port Mrei.

“I don’t think so. It’s under lockdown. Probably more under Butcher’s surveillance than Ayana’s.”

“We can leave the way we came,” Ali suggests. “Or at least try.”

I mull over the idea. “ Try is a bad option. We don’t have any weapons. That’s taking a fifty-fifty chance of being shot.”

“What else?”

“Get a satellite phone.”

“Where?”

“Right. Where… With you shooting those guys, we might’ve put ourselves on the top of Port Mrei’s most wanted.”

I chuckle as I catch the small ball one of the girls throws me and toss it to another.

Ali stares at me with a clear indication there’s something bothering him.

I give him a backward nod. “Spill.”

“About those men,” he says. “I got there a little late when they got you and Maddy. And I couldn’t take a chance of being spotted. So, I didn’t get in the trees. I stayed in the bushes.”

“Okay?”

“I don’t usually miss. But I think I shot Skiba in the shoulder. I think he was moving when we were leaving.”

There’s nothing worse than knowing that your worst enemy got away. No, it’s not Butcher anymore. It’s fucking Skiba, the guy who dared touch my Maddy. Who set his filthy eyes on her and dared even imagine a sick scenario of doing things to her in his head.

Hatred takes root in my mind, then spreads like thick tar through my entire body, making me want to claw at myself from the inability to do anything about him.

If my main goal a week ago was to return to Ayana, it has changed.

Ali sees it on my face. I’m not even trying to hide the spite for the guy who once was my trusted man.

“I’m sorry,” Ali says. “It’s unfortunate.”

“It is. And I have to finish it.”

“Bad idea.”

“Dangerous.”

“It can wait.”

I shake my head. “It can’t.”

“You can’t do anything without weapons.”

“True. So, I need weapons.”

And that’s one of the agendas when Candy comes in later tonight. She brings another book for the girls. There’s another young woman with her, in her mid-twenties, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved button up, hair tied in a ponytail. Young, pretty, but seemingly exhausted.

“One of the little ones is hers,” Candy says, then notices my suspicious stare. “She is good. Won’t say a word.”

It’s only a little reassuring, because no one is safe, and everyone talks under pressure.

The woman sinks onto the floor where the girls sit together reading and cuddles one of the girls, then all of them, and reads a book to them while we have a conversation with Candy.

Candy is wearing more makeup than usual, a long skirt, and a pretty blouse. She smells like cigarettes and liquor, and her gaze is daring like it used to be.

She gives us banging news.

“You might be in luck,” she says. “Several military helicopters just landed at Ayana.”

“Military?”

“Giant. Maybe the Chancellor got military support. Maybe they’ll send a search party for you.”

I doubt it. And the military doesn’t make sense. I know all the contracts that Ayana is tied up in. It can’t be the US. Can’t be mercenaries. Even if Archer signed something new since my disappearance—and it’s only been a week—they wouldn’t have time to get here.

“What sort of military? Describe,” I ask.

“Not American.”

“What makes you think so?”

“They have some strange insignia.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a crown. And it has two letters. AT.”

Aleksei motherfucking Tsariuk.

I chuckle, then turn to Ali.

“Tsariuk?” he asks.

I nod. “Never mind, Candy. Those have nothing to do with our current situation.”

But my mind instantly goes to Maddy. If Tsariuk tries to break our deal and steal Maddy away, I will fucking find him. I’ll unleash the whole world on him once I get out of here.

“I’d like to ask you several things,” I tell Candy. “I’m sorry we are taking up your time and food, but?—”

“Cut the nonsense, Raven. I owe you. What do you need?”

There’s her business-like tone, her former power emerging to the surface. Hiding the two most wanted guys in Port Mrei is already more than I could’ve asked from her. Except what I’m going to ask next.

“Weapons. Do you have any?”

“Will they be returned?”

I frown, not understanding.

“That’s our only defense in case things get bad,” she explains.

“They can get worse?”

“Do you know why they are here?” She motions toward the girls as she brings her voice almost to a whisper. “Because they’ve become part of a certain demand.”

I don’t need to ask what sort of fucked up demand for little girls that is. Ali, next to me, shifts on the floor, his hands balling into fists. My mind goes straight to the images of Emily and runs nasty scenarios of what Candy is talking about.

I catch sight of the girls, sitting on the floor in a circle, their heads touching as they lean over a picture book they probably read a dozen times.

Fucking fuck.

“Yeah, anything goes these days,” Candy says. “Those four had to be hidden because… Well…” Candy sighs. “We are used to pretty much anything. Them?” She nods toward them. “If someone finds out and comes for them, I will shoot the motherfuckers in their faces. And I need a gun for that.”

“Got it. What gun do you have?” Though I know one gun won’t cut it.

“A nine-millimeter. A forty-five. A twelve-gage shotgun. And just enough ammo for several rounds for each.”

Ali and I exchange glances. It’s not much. Not at all. Enough maybe to venture out of Port Mrei, but I wouldn’t leave Candy stranded. It’s definitely not enough for what I have in mind.

“Where can I get more? I’ll repay threefold. If I’m alive. Anyone you trust here who could get me ammo and guns? Possibly grenades. A bulletproof vest would be helpful, too.”

She snorts. “Maybe a helicopter?”

I don’t smile, just stare at her.

“Shepherd,” she says with a slight hesitation. “He’s the only one I can trust to be quiet.”

“Butcher’s cousin, huh?”

“Yeah. Butcher tried to kill him. Didn’t succeed. Butcher doesn’t really care anymore. Shepherd and a few of his men are lying low. Minding their own business. Northern part of town.”

“But you talk to him.”

She doesn’t respond.

I cock a brow. “A beau or something?”

“Or something.”

“Can he get a satellite phone?”

“Not sure.”

“So, is that a yes or a no for the weapons? I need you to find out ASAP, Candy. We can’t sit here forever.”

“Tell me what you want to do with all that.”

And that’s where the second favor comes in. “You said Butcher’s men took several of your girls. Where?”

“The headquarters.”

“Where’s that?”

Candy rolls her eyes with a heavy sigh, stares in silence at the floor, then the cots, then meets my eyes again. “I wouldn’t try anything if I were you. Even if you bring a dozen guards, Butcher has more men. On patrol twenty-four-seven. Ready to shoot anyone who comes close. Everyone is a snitch. Kids, too. Especially them.”

“Kids?”

“Yes. Butcher bribes them with food. Brainwashes them. He has air monitors, believe it or not. He monitors airspace. Did you hear about the helicopter from Ayana being blown up the other day?”

I shake my head.

She nods. “Of course, you haven’t. I’m telling you now. Butcher has?—”

“You know where that is? His headquarters?” I press. I don’t need a lecture on safety.

“Sure. Everyone does.”

“Know anyone who’s been there and knows the patrol set-up? Perimeter? Head count? The interior?”

She smirks and tilts her head at Ali. “He dragged your half-dead ass all the way here so you could go get killed? Or you planning on bringing an army there? You can’t even get in contact with your own people.”

She stares me down. I don’t blink, don’t look away. I want Skiba’s blood. And Butcher’s too. And I am not hot-headed anymore. I need to know what, where, and how. If I think I can’t pull it off, I won’t even get close.

“It’s a bad idea,” Ali says next to me.

“No shit,” Candy snaps. “Maybe you should figure out how to get out of here and back to Ayana. Then think about revenge.”

“We will get out of here,” I say. “But I need to pay a visit to someone first.”

She shakes her head, uncrosses her arms, and heads for the door that leads to a staircase upstairs. The other woman rises to her feet, too.

“One more thing,” I call out to Candy.

She stops before opening the door and turns toward me.

“I know it’s a lot. But if you can get it, that would be great. That doctor… Can you find out if he has a dozen or so bullet shots? They were distributed everywhere after the Change.”

“And they are?—”

“Syringes. Besides that, I need a paralytic agent for those.”

She cocks a brow. “Specific, aren’t you?”

“I know. He’ll get paid for those. If he has a leftover stock of medication, I’m sure he doesn’t have any use for that anyway.”

She narrows her eyes on me as if trying to figure something out. “You don’t have anything to lose, Raven. You are gambling with your life. But I guess having nothing to lose is a blessing in times like this.”

She looks again at the girls and, without another word, leaves with the other woman.

Ali studies me without a word.

“I want to infiltrate Butcher’s headquarters,” I say, though he already knows that.

“It’s a death wish.”

“Could be. But I’m killing the motherfucker who threatened Maddy.”

“I should’ve done my job right,” Ali says.

I nudge him with an elbow. “You can’t do everything, Ali Baba.” I wink at him.

A little smile appears on his lips.

“You don’t have to go along with this,” I assure him. “I will get it done, and then we will get out of here.”

He chuckles and gives me a once-over. “You know what I admire about you?”

That’s a big word. I didn’t even know he liked me, let alone admired.

“You make decisions and act with absolutely no regard to common sense, safety, and warnings. As if they don’t exist for you. Like you are a Superman. Your confidence… It’s dangerous. And Candy is right. You act like you have nothing to lose.”

“Wrong. I do. That’s the reason I’m doing this.”

“Maddy.”

“Her, yes. Once I’m done with that fucker who threatened her, I will come back here and?—”

“I’m in,” Ali says, taking me by surprise. “What’s your plan?”