This is actually the origin story of a character who won't make an appearance until book two, ideally (once I actually begin writing the series), but I wanted to write his origin story as it is actually crucial to the events of book one.
What are those events, you ask? I won't tell you. Not yet. And probably not for a long time, but you can still enjoy this short story as a standalone without knowing what is happening. I wrote it for my creative writing class this last semester. It's about an anti-villain (not the hero or protagonist, not really a good guy, but a character who is against [anti] the villain). Warning: it's not happy, so if you're looking for a happy story, I suggest you check out some of my other stories, such as "The Fortune-Teller's Daughter" or "The Gray Wolf and the Firebird" that do end a bit happier.
You've been warned.
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| Photo by Velizar Ivanov on Unsplash |
PHOBETOR
Silence followed the initial
sickening crunch of metal, and then the brief sensation of weightlessness as
the car hurtled side over side down the embankment. Glass shattered into
thousands of lethal shards and the wall caved in at a horrendous angle as the
world abruptly ceased its spinning and went entirely black.
Ransom Osborne awoke in a cold sweat
in the small hours of the morning. He worked his stiff jaw, every muscle in his
body taut, his skin beaded with salty droplets and sweat dripping from his hair.
By the roughness of his throat and the dryness of his mouth, he knew he had
been screaming again.
He blinked, absorbing the darkness
of his room and the obscured details. Bookshelves proved scarcely more than
looming shadows along the walls, and the photographs housed there were merely
blacker shapes among the darkness.
Sliding out from the comforting warmth of
the quilted blanket, he padded to the tiny bathroom adjoining his bedroom and
twisted the knob of the lamp inside, flooding the space with a yellow glow with
a faint click.
He first checked the mirror, holding a
finger to the glass. Tension eased in his shoulders as he saw the gap clearly
between his nail and flesh and their mirrored counterparts. Splashing cool
water on his face, he examined his complete reflection: brown hair in overgrown
army fashion, unruly on the top from sleep, violet circles ringing gunmetal
blue eyes, a lean and muscular body, skin clammy from sweat, and finally the
dog tags hanging from a ball chain around his neck, the thin pieces of metal
cold against his skin. His hard gaze softened when it fell upon the thin circle
also hanging on the chain; his heart thrummed with steady aching. Then he began
his ritual of counting scars.
There were too many to replicate, and they
were too specific for his subconscious to recall perfectly despite his
conscious memorization of them all, and therefore, they served as a reliable
reality-check.
He counted the bullet hole on the front of
his left shoulder located just below the subclavian artery; the jagged knife
wound on his lower right side, above his hip. The mark on his knee from a
second-grade bike accident. Then the more recent, ovular scar from where his
collarbone snapped under the pressure of the seatbelt and the shattered end
punctured his skin; his fingers ran along the slight, lingering bulge infused
into the mended bone. His gaze shifted to the long, precisely straight surgical
incision in the center of his abdomen where doctors had repaired the internal
damage. It shone pale in the light, the color emphasized by the shadows created
by the inconsistent light along the ridges of hardened muscle. Turning, he
noted the scar running along his spine, twin to the one on his abdomen, where
the doctors from Airmid repaired his spinal cord. He then pushed his hairline
aside and traced the white, elevated scar hiding beneath the roots on his
scalp. Moving downward, he traced the jagged scar in the fleshy part of his
thumb and grimaced at it smugly, savoring his short-lived stick-it-to-the-man
moment.
More he counted, finally numbering the small
white scars marring his wrists, drawn by his own hands.
All there. Perfect in their imperfection,
whole and real. Only then did the tension fully recede into the shadows to lie,
awaiting his next waking, anticipating the following moment of doubt.
Switching off the lights, he blindly
navigated the open space of his room to the door, unbolted it, and slipped
outside into the basement hall. With no light, Ransom traced the wall with an
outstretched hand as he walked, his footfalls utterly silent, eerie and
phantomlike. He needed no guidance; he knew the sublevel, as well as the upper
floors of the house with assure perfection, the same way he knew the time
without a clock. 04:32 a.m. Thus was the extent of his programming.
His fingertips detected a slight bend in the
wall, a crevice that revealed another room, one of many spare bedrooms and
medical examination rooms housed belowground, all filled with sophisticated
technology belied by the humble exterior of the house, which to unfamiliar eyes
appeared a quaint farmhouse outside Amish country in upstate New York. Not a
military-grade safe house dating back to the Cold War with a bunker beneath
fortified to withstand a bomb if necessary.
When he reached the end of the long hall, he
slid open the double doors to the gym at his left; turning right lead to the
kitchen and stairs to the ground level of the house.
Once inside, he pressed one switch in a
panel of many, illuminating a corner of the vast gym. An oblong bag dangled
from chains from the ceiling, the floor beneath it covered in thin padding.
Along the wall hung six sets of gloves: two men, two women, and two mismatched
pairs with permanent bite marks along various sections of the material,
leftover from his golden retriever, Captain’s, puppy days. Ransom eyed the
gloves but instead wrapped his knuckles with thick fabric and proceeded to
pound at the bag, incorporating different maneuvers from boxing to krav maga to
sambo, all the while envisioning invisible enemies instead of the bag before
him.
Jab after jab he threw with balled fists and
elbows. He struck with his feet, his knees, his hands, bouncing on the balls of
his feet, twisting and ducking, panting in ragged breaths.
Without warning, the masked face of one of
his imagined enemies transformed into her—haunted olive green eyes, translucent
skin stretched over gaunt cheekbones, dark crescent moons of the dead beneath
her staring eyes, her red hair matted with wet blood, and a thick, crimson line
dripping down her face. A bit of dark blood dribbled from her cracked lips down
her jaw, dropping onto her striped blouse.
Ransom redirected his punch, throwing it
wide as, off-balanced, he stumbled into the bag, hitting the solid and
unyielding surface with his shoulder. It swung, and he clung to it, panting
hard, his eyes squeezing shut against the memories, but they fought through the
walls.
They always
did.
* * * * * * *
“Are you two ready to order?” Their waiter,
a tall, thin young man in his twenties with a clean shaven face and Italian
features seemed to materialize out of thin air.
Jenna leaned back and looked from waiter to
Ransom, her slender eyebrows quirking upward in silent question, an amused
expression on her freckled face. She was radiant tonight, Ransom thought, in a
simple striped blouse, black jeans, and the combat boots she adored. Her dark
red hair hung loose about her shoulders, framing wide cheekbones.
Opening his menu, Ransom rapidly scanned the
pages for something—anything—that looked remotely appetizing. Not that he could
eat anything when at least a hundred butterflies fluttered in his stomach, but
he forced himself to act natural; Jenna couldn’t suspect anything. Smiling, he
ordered one of the many variations of steak meals, folded the menu, and handed
it to the waiter, willing the tremor from his hands.
“And you, ma’am?” The waiter turned his
focus once more to Jenna.
“I’ll have the chicken ravioli with
alfredo.”
Ransom sipped one his water and,
once the waiter disappeared around the corner, teased, “You sure about the
pasta?”
Jenna shot him a playful glance. “I’ll run
it off tomorrow. Were you and Trayce able to figure out what’s wrong with your
bike?”
“Nah,
this guy brought in a truck in dire need of some engine work. It took us most
of the day to fix. Trayce said he’d check out my bike in the morning, but I’m
pretty sure it’s just the spark plugs. I’d do it myself, but I didn’t have the
time.” He raised his glass for more water, his mouth unusually dry, but paused,
the cool rim against his lips as the gentle notes of a piano wafted down from
the overhead speakers, soft and tender. Automatically, the calloused fingers of
his free hand began to finger the tune on the edge of the table, picking out
each chord, note, and trill, the seventeen years of piano lessons ingrained in
him so deeply as to enable him to play perfectly by ear, even on an imaginary
keyboard.
When he retreated from his thoughts back
into the present and looked up, Jenna was staring at him, her elbows on the
table and folded hands propping up her chin. Amusement danced across her lips
and in her eyes, which glittered in the candlelight. “I love it when you do
that. When you get lost in music.”
“It was never something I really appreciated
until the army. Sure, I played it, mostly because my mom forced me, but I can’t
tell you how many nights I lay awake listening to piano music—jazz, classical,
anything I could get my hands on—it didn’t matter; it reminded me of home.
After I, uh, got shot,” his left shoulder twinged, “Jack brought me my iPod
from my tent to the camp infirmary, and I just lay there, listening. That’s
when it started.” He sipped from his water glass again, beads of perspiration
dotting his forehead. “You know how some people say they ‘feel the music?’ I never felt
the music until then, like, actually felt it, as though I could reach out and
touch it, and something warm and solid would be there.”
“What do
you feel now, with this music?”
She knows, he thought, then swallowed
his fear. No, she doesn’t. Inhale.
Exhale. He willed himself to relax and tuned his ears once more to the delicate
notes floating from the speakers buried in the restaurant’s ceiling.
“Calm,
peaceful,” he replied, meeting her gaze with an expression he hoped exuded
relaxation though inside him, the butterflies flapped furiously. “Hopelessly in
love with you.”
Bright red
roses bloomed on her freckled cheeks, and he offered her a devilish grin. “It’s
too easy to embarrass you,” he chuckled, nudging her leg with his foot beneath
the table. “Takes all the fun out of it.”
Jenna’s
mouth opened to retort, but another nudge from him sent her laughing, a joyful
bubbling sound he adored. Reaching across the table, he took her hand, stroking
his thumb across the soft skin of the back of her palm, and squeezed it
tenderly before releasing it. They chatted, Jenna sharing about her week at
college—she was a journalism major—and Ransom about his week in the shop, until
their food arrived.
The waiter balanced a tray with two
steaming plates emitting the umami, garlicky, and cheesy aromas of their steak
and pasta. Gracefully, he lifted their plates from the tray and set them before
Ransom and Jenna.
“Can I get
you anything else?” he asked. Both shook their heads, and the waiter departed,
bustling off to buss another table.
Sawing into
his steak, Ransom savored the blend of tangy and savory smells that billowed
with the steam from the fresh cut. His stomach growled in response, and he
popped a piece of steaming meat into his mouth. The hot juice burned his
tongue, but he revelled in it.
“What do
you make of the gentleman over there?” Jenna inclined her head toward a suited
man sitting with two others dressed in the same expensive fashion. “They’re
dressed a little high-end. Do you think they just came from a business
meeting?”
It was a
game they often played; one of them would acknowledge a person or people in
their surroundings they thought interesting and try to create a backstory for
them.
Casually,
Ransom surveyed the room and took in the first man Jenna indicated. He was
clean-cut, his suit definitely expensive and worthy of a businessman in one of
the many skyscrapers that defined New York City, but his broad-shouldered frame
and trim waist and the gun-shaped bulge beneath his jacket barely noticeable
for those unaware of what to look for… “Private security,” replied Ransom,
devouring another slice of steak.
“Hmm,”
Jenna pursed her lips, quirking them to the side in what he recognized as her
‘thinking face.’ “I wonder what that’s like.”
“It isn’t
as exciting as you might think,” he replied dully. “Lots of long hours
following despicable human beings around, and if someone happens to shoot at
them, guess who takes the bullet. That’s not fun,” he feigned a wince and
rolled his shoulder, the one a bullet tore through during one of his tours.
“Killjoy,” she muttered playfully.
After they finished their meal,
Ransom paid the bill and then guided Jenna down the street toward the park.
Although the sun dipped below the horizon while they dined, the glowing, neon
billboards and street lamps illuminated the city; headlights from cabs and
other vehicles flashed from the street, lighting everything up like a Christmas
tree. They strolled down the sidewalk and into the park; Ransom took her hand
and led her to a fountain, around which lampposts glowed. Walking through the
park was something they did often after eating at that restaurant, but tonight,
he caught himself almost racing to reach the fountain, tugging Jenna along. He
forced himself to slow down.
When they arrived at the edge of the
basin, Ransom reached into his jeans pocket with his free hand and pulled out a
couple pennys, which he handed to Jenna.
Her brow furrowed and eyes narrowed,
and she stared at him quizzically, skepticism brewing just behind her green
irises, and his gut squirmed. His heart galloped to the beat of she knows, she knows, she knows, she knows.
So what if she knows? He reminded
himself. We’re here, after all.
Without a question, she took the
coins from his palm and leaned closer to the rim of the fountain, momentarily
taking her eyes off him and allowing him the perfect opportunity to slip a hand
into his jacket pocket and touch touch the small box concealed within that had
weighed upon him like a millstone tied around his body all evening. Taking it
out, he opened it, and knelt. The concrete was hard beneath his knee, even
through his jeans.
Jenna flipped the pennies into the
fountain, the two of them spinning side-by-side and reaching their peaks one
after another, tiny suns gleaming bright in the golden lamplight, one cresting
just above the other. It fell from its apex first. When she turned back to him
after the pennies landed in the gurgling fountain with twin splooshes and saw him, her confusion
returned in the creases between her eyebrows for the briefest of beats, and
then her hands involuntarily flew to her mouth. Her gaze landed on the ring—a
simple, twisted band with a tiny cluster of diamonds. Simplistic, yet elegant.
Like her.
“Will you marry me?” he asked, his
parched and husky voice barely above a whisper.
Jenna nodded, caught herself, and
then replied, “Yes. Yes, of course!”
Rising, Ransom folded her into his
arms, relief flooding through him and joy expanding inside his chest, so much
that it hurt, and he began to laugh. He clung to her, stroking her back,
pressing her into him, breathing in the delicate, floral scent of her perfume,
taking her in, willing himself to remember this moment forever.
Jenna pulled back enough to wriggle
her arms free enough so that her hands cradled his face. She kissed him,
melding her lips to his, and he clutched her tighter. When they parted, she
began giggling, a girlish sound that caused his heart to flutter. He beckoned
for her left hand, and when she gave it to him, he slipped the ring onto her
third finger. A perfect fit.
“Shall we drive to Jersey to tell
your parents before it gets too late?” He checked his watch. It read just after
7:00.
Jenna beamed, and with a slight skip
in her step, led him to the parking garage where she left her car.
Knowing Jenna preferred not to drive
after dark—her depth perception wasn’t terrific at night—Ransom offered to take
the wheel, and she handed him the keys.
They had been on the road over an
hour, fingers entwined, and listened to a playlist of love songs Trayce sent
them after Ransom texted him a photo of Jenna grinning widely at the camera and
holding up her hand with the ring prominent. They said little, content to merely
sit in each other’s presence and smile at one another.
The road narrowed into two lanes as
they passed through a heavily wooded stretch. Rounding a bend, a pair of
headlights flickered into view ahead, coming toward them.
Ransom thought nothing of it.
Then, as the truck neared Jenna’s
car, it suddenly veered violently into their lane.
Ransom pressed on the gas and
swerved in an effort to propel the car out of the way of the oncoming truck,
but he was too late.
The truck hurtled into them.
Glass shattered. Metal crunched.
Jenna screamed.
* * * * * * *
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
High-pitched and piercing, and
behind it, light notes of a piano.
Ransom groaned, the steady, pulsing
sound assaulting his senses. His fingers twitched against soft sheets; every
other muscle in his body felt weak and heavy, sandbags lying on the bed in
place of a living, breathing human being. His eyelids fluttered open, and
groggily, he took in the room, the monitor by the bedside—the source of the
annoying and persistent beeping—the cool sunlight seeping in through the gauzy,
opaque curtains, the metal trash bin, the counter with a sink and jars of
cotton balls and other things Ransom couldn’t distinguish. His head ached, and
he closed his eyes once more against the light.
Something thin draped over his ears
and pumped filtered air that smelled of chemicals into his nose, and when he
swallowed, his throat closed around another tube. Grogginess prevented him from
fighting it, and he lay back against the pillow.
A cool hand with slender fingers
wrapped around his arm. He forced his eyes open and squinted against the
sunlight.
A woman sat in the chair at his
side, wisps of curly brown hair fleeing from her bun and framing her thin,
angular face. Lilac scrubs adorned her slight frame. Aunt Em.
Tears glistened in her eyes, and she
squeezed his arm, a light and firm pressure below his elbow.
Ransom struggled to sit up, but his
body refused. When he glanced down, his stomach dropped. Where muscles once
rippled, his limbs and torso were thin, emaciated, and atrophied almost to the
level of Christian Bale in The Machinist.
Panic sank its claws in deep.
Frail chest heaving, his breath came
in shaking pants. The monitor screamed beep-beep-beep-beep
in rapid succession as his heart rate spiked. “Em,” he tried to speak around
the tube, but only soundlessness escaped from his lips. Em, he mouthed, even as he hyperventilated, the tube down his
throat increasing his alarm. His pulse raced. His thin limbs flailed as he
clawed at his throat with skeletal fingers.
“Shh,” Emilie said, holding him down
by his shoulders. “I’m going to remove the tubes, but I need you to relax. Can
you do that?”
Heart still thundering in his chest
and ears, Ransom nodded weakly, and his arms flopped to his sides.
Several unpleasant moments passed,
and then Emilie disposed of the both the feeding tube and the oxygen mask
before she peeled off her latex gloves and discarded them in the metal trash
bin.
Relieved, Ransom breathed in air
that didn’t taste of chemicals, air he remembered, craved. Meanwhile, Emilie
filled a paper cup with tap water from the counter sink. “Here,” she said,
holding it to his parched lips. “Drink slowly.”
He obeyed, his foggy mind trying and
failing to piece together a single coherent thought.
“What happened?” he croaked at last.
At that moment, a man a little over
over six-feet tall with a slender, muscular build and black hair that grayed
near the temples stepped into the room. He was dressed simply in a black
sweater, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and blue jeans. His expression
lit up when saw Ransom.
“He’s awake.” Miles Locke’s steady
voice resonated through the room, his timbre deep and Leicester accent
prevalent, the vowels shallow and elongated.
Turning from her nephew to her
husband, Emilie said, “He woke up a couple minutes ago.”
“What happened?” repeated Ransom as
Miles took a seat beside Emilie. The effort to speak taxed his entire body.
“Where am I?”
His aunt and uncle exchanged
hesitant glances, and Ransom’s stomach dropped. His hands began to tremble.
Jenna.
Ransom’s heartbeat raced again as he
recalled the final moments, the headlights, Jenna’s scream, and then nothing.
“Jenna,” he struggled to sit, “Where is she?”
Gently, Miles pressed Ransom against
the pillow, bidding him to be still, as Emilie began slowly, “You were in a car
accident. A drunk driver hit Jenna’s car and sent you both spinning into a
ditch. It was bad, Ransom. They had to cut you out.” Tears dropped from her
eyes and ran down her pale cheeks. “The paramedics said Jenna,” she swallowed
once, twice, and continued, “said she likely died on impact.”
No. Tears stung Ransom’s eyes, and he was too tired to fight
them back. No, no. The room reeled,
and his lungs refused to fill. It wasn’t
supposed to be like this. He pictured the ring, saw it vividly on her
finger. She was just alive. Just yesterday. Not yesterday.
Cold sliced through him when he
realized that he didn’t know. Long enough for his muscles to wither to
nothing...he stilled.
Miles continued when Emilie could
not. “The paramedics lost you a couple times on the way to the hospital. You
suffered tremendous internal damage, and your spine was broken. You were
paralyzed from your chest down. Your brain also suffered so much damage that
the doctors at the hospital didn’t think you would ever wake up.”
“How long?” Ransom whispered. “How
long was I asleep?”
Miles and Emilie exchanged another
glance that ignited fury inside Ransom, so hot it threatened to burn through
his skin. “HOW LONG?” he bellowed, his fists shaking violently now and his
throat and vocal chords straining.
Miles exhaled deeply. “Nine months.”
Nine months. Jenna had been dead for nine months.
“How?” was all Ransom managed as his
rage fizzled out, leaving his cheeks wet with tears and his body exhausted. He
longed for sleep, to drift off from this nightmare and wake in the real world,
on the morning of the day he planned to propose.
“You were practically in a
vegetative state.”
“Miles, are you sure now it a good
time?” interrupted Emilie. “He just woke up.”
But Miles dismissed her. “The
hospital doctors couldn’t do anything for you. Do you remember Airmid, the
project I was working on?”
Ransom remembered. Project Airmid
was a medical-based program in the theory stages that Miles and two of his
scientist friends, doctors Darien and Malcolm Grimes, biochemists and
neuroscientists, and all-around medical and technological geniuses began when
writing their doctoral dissertations. Other than that, Ransom knew little about
the it.
“I contacted Darien and Malcolm, and
they flew in with their team from London and moved you to one of their remote
facilities upstate. That’s where we are now.” Miles gestured to the window as
though Ransom could walk over to it and look outside. “They repaired your
spine, your brain. Generated new tissue growth to repair your temporal lobe.
Reconnected your spinal cord and reversed your paralysis. It worked.” Excitement gleamed in Miles’s eyes, and he spoke faster
the more it grew. “Ransom, they saved your life.”
“But not Jenna’s.”
Miles stopped mid-sentence, his mouth
agape. Then, shaking his head, he replied, “There was nothing we could do. She
was already gone.”
At that, Ransom turned his face to
the blank wall, closed his eyes, and surrendered to sleep.
* * * * * * *
After
months of treatment and physical therapy at Airmid, Ransom slowly regained his
strength and stamina, though his heart, since the moment he opened his eyes,
seemed vacant, a gaping chasm left in his chest. Each day he trained harder and
harder with the physical therapists and with other patients of Airmid. Then one
afternoon, Emilie returned from her home with Ransom’s motorcycle in the back
of the truck she and Miles shared.
“Trayce dropped it off at the house
a couple days after the accident,” she explained as Ransom surveyed the sleek
black Kawasaki Ninja, once his most prized possession. “Miles and I kept it
until we thought you were strong enough. I also brought you this,” she
stretched out her arm. Between her fingers sat a folded piece of paper.
Brow furrowing, Ransom took it and
unfolded it to read the address scrawled in green pen: a cemetary. “Is it…?” he
began, but his throat closed, choking off the rest of his question. In
response, Emilie nodded, a sad smile forming on her lips. “I thought you might
enjoy the drive.” She gestured to his bike, “but I can go with you if you don’t
want to be alone.”
“Is it safe?”
“Mentally and physically, you are
more than capable of driving. Is that what you wanted to know?”
He shrugged; the answer sufficed, plus
it would be good to be alone, unsupervised from the doctors and nurses and
suited security officers that patrolled the compound. As if sensing his
thoughts, Emilie added, “Don’t worry about the guards at the gate. They’ll let
you through.”
Stepping forward, Ransom wrapped his
arms tightly around his aunt, the address crumpled in his fist, and whispered
his thanks.
“She’s buried near a giant oak tree
on the northeast side,” said Emilie as she handed Ransom his helmet. “You can’t
miss it.”
He slipped the helmet onto his head.
It cradled his temples and neck, and he found in the conforming pressure a
comfort that he never found in seatbelts. “See you later, Em.” Swinging a leg
over the seat, he buckled his helmet and started the motor, the bike quaking like
a thoroughbred in the gate before the Derby, and his heart began to race, part
with the thrill of freedom, part with fear of being on the road for the first
time since the accident. He revved the bike in farewell and shot Emilie what he
hoped was a confident grin, but inside, nothing filled save the mingling of
anticipation and fright.
When he
arrived at the cemetery over an hour later, Ransom meandered between the rows
of headstones until he spotted the oak, and he stopped short, his legs refusing
to approach Jenna’s grave. Seeing it meant acknowledging that she was dead.
“I’m not ready,” he whispered under
his breath. The tremors returned to his hands.
Standing alone, he breathed in and
out for several heartbeats, and then willed himself to go on. Ransom stared at
Jenna’s headstone and her name carved into the stone. Seeing it denied any
doubts he harbored. She was dead.
What he
said to her grave, he couldn’t remember when he returned to his bike, but his
cheeks glistened with tears and his eyes were red and dry, unable to weep
anymore.
In sober
silence, he drove the long road back to Airmid.
Dusk fell as he arrived at the
compound and drove through the double gates as they swung open to admit him.
Ransom parked and hunted down Miles, no doubt in one of the many programming
rooms located around Airmid’s facility. Sluggishly, he walked down one hallway
after another. As he passed the corridor leading to the wings of examining
rooms, a man in an expensive suit with close-cropped hair strode past, and as
Ransom made brief eye-contact with the security man, he paused, blinked, a hazy
circle of recognition prodding him. He knew the man from somewhere...somewhere
before the accident...he was almost certain of it. But when he turned to
examine the man again, he had gone. Probably
saw him around here, supposed Ransom, but his memory placed the man
elsewhere...he shook the prickling sensation away.
As Ransom rounded a corner of one of
the long corridors, he barely avoided bumping into a well-dressed man whose suit
was perfectly tailored to his tall, lean frame. A aura of power radiated from
him, and on impulse, Ransom stood straighter.
“Ah,” said
the man, surprised, turquoise eyes scanning Ransom from head to toe, reminding
Ransom of the scrutiny of a commanding officer. Short, sandy blond hair fell
neatly to one side of his narrow temples, and sharp cheekbones jutted out
beneath his striking eyes. Yet though his features were harsh, crows feet at
the corners of his eyes softened his appearance. “Mr. Osborne.”
Judging by
his accent, the dropped r’s and round, elongated vowels, Ransom placed the man
as a native Londoner. Southern British, at least. One of the Grimes brothers, he supposed.
Confirming
Ransom’s suspicions, the man extended his right hand and introduced himself.
“Darien Grimes. I was on my way to find you, actually. What providence that we
should run into one another here.”
Ransom
shook Darien’s hand, noting the raised calluses on his fingers and palms, which
he found odd for a businessman. From personal experience, Ransom knew the
pattern as belonging to rigorous combat training. Thick skin on the back of
Darien’s knuckles also confirmed at least some sort of background in martial
arts.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
“Yes,” Darien spoke quickly. “You
see, I read in your file about your military history as well as your language
skills—your mother was Russian and taught you the language, correct?—and
contacts overseas, and I may be in need of a man such as yourself. I’m putting
together a new program and wish to invite you to be part of it. You are a
perfect candidate and, I believe, would be well-suited to it. You wanted to
help people, yes?—that’s why you joined the army so young.”
Nodding in response to the first
question, Ransom opened his mouth to inquire the type of program, but Darien
either took no notice or cared little about Ransom’s query and continued, “The
project concerns special operations on a global level. You see, there are
things governments, due to their, shall we say, less-than-covert natures,
cannot achieve. By instituting and perfecting this program, I hope to save
lives, prevent...meaningless deaths.” His gaze met Ransom’s. “It might help you
take your mind off your grief and give you something to fight for. You miss
combat, don’t you.”
“Yes.” It was the first time Ransom
acknowledged the yearning he sometimes felt for the battlefield, for the rush
of adrenaline, for the sensation of peering through his scope, fixing an enemy
in the crosshairs, and firing. Taking a life to save many or to save one, it
didn’t matter to him so long as a good man or woman returned home at the end of
the day. While dating Jenna, he persuaded himself against missing it, but she
was dead.
“Deep down,
I think we all do.” He sighed and tugged at the hem of his suit jacket. “That’s
why Miles, Malcolm, and I decided to take the research from Airmid and expand
upon it, test its possibilities and potential.” Darien read Ransom’s surprise.
“Ah,” he grit his teeth. “He didn’t tell you, I see. This isn’t a project for
the faint of heart, Mr. Osborne.”
“Call me
Ransom.”
Darien
inclined his head and smiled, displaying two rows of bleached-white teeth.
“Very well. This project will test you mentally, physically, and emotionally.
It will require you to make decisions that may cost someone their life in order
to save others. You may spend years undercover and overseas. You may even die.
In truth, I cannot even guarantee that you will survive the initial
conditioning the program requires,” Darien’s gaze remained steady and
unwavering, his voice low and tone smooth. “Are you still interested?”
Unbidden,
images of Jenna flashed through Ransom’s mind—their meeting, and their first
date at a coffeehouse, the subsequent dates at various spots, their walks
through the park, the way her mouth twitched in amusement or quirked to the
side when deep in thought, the taste of her lips, the smell of her hair and how
it never fell exactly how she wanted it. The brilliant expression on her face
when he proposed. The ring on her finger, the weight of her hand resting on his
thigh as they drove to tell her parents. The love in her large eyes as she
looked at him and smiled softly mere seconds before the truck struck them and
sent the car careening down the embankment.
Helplessness clenched his heart and lungs in a
vice grip, preventing him from breathing, from standing straight. His vision
blurred; his ears filled with the ringing from after the accident and the
steady tempo of the heart monitor, to which the words you couldn’t save her, couldn’t save her sang in an endless taunt.
Ghost memories, he told himself, but his body and senses reacted nonetheless.
Fingernails dug into his palms, and the pain grounded him to the present.
“Mr.
Osborne—Ransom—are you well? Should I summon one of the nurses?”
Swallowing
hard, Ransom straightened and steadied himself against the wall. “I’m fine.”
Sympathy
softened Darien’s sharp features, and his posture slackened. “Memories? Forgive
my momentary lapse in manners. May I offer my condolences for your loss; I
cannot imagine how heartbroken you must be.”
“Thank
you,” Ransom muttered.
“My project
will help with that, too.”
“With
what?”
Darien’s
gaze flicked to Ransom’s still-shaking hands. “That. Your physiological
responses to emotions. I saw your brain scan,” he confessed. “In fact, I lead
the team working on repairing your brain. But I digress.” Darien chuckled.
“Your amygdala and temporal lobes suffered the most damage; they regulate your
emotion responses and memory, you understand. You’ve experienced strong
flashbacks and emotional responses before, haven’t you.”
It wasn’t a
question. Since waking from his coma, Ransom had experienced mood swings and
uncontrollable flashbacks that he attributed to PTSD, but he couldn't fight
them, couldn’t reason with them like he did before and stop them from
overwhelming him.
Darien read
his response in the silence. “My program requires a sort of dream hypnosis in
order to maximize muscle memory. I’ll explain it all later if you wish, but
that is the short version of it. You will be under for a couple hours or so
every day. We can put you in one of our hyperbaric oxygen therapy chambers and
monitor your brain function. If done correctly, we can repair more of the
damage. We can, of course, do that without your being a part of the program,”
he chuckled again, but there was a distinct lack of mirth that set Ransom on
edge. “Consider it for as long as you need, Ransom. Please, talk it over with
Miles—he can give you more information—, and come back to me when you’ve made a
decision.”
“I will,”
he replied, but already knew his answer. Discussing it with Miles and Emilie
merely provided him with a sounding board, an opportunity to hear him declare
his choice before he told Darien.
The following morning, after a
mostly sleepless night, Ransom knocked on Darien’s office door, and stepped back
when it swung inward. When Darien, who sat at his desk staring into a computer
screen that shed bluish light onto his chiseled features, looked up and saw who
stood in the threshold of his office, a broad smile parted his lips, but it
didn’t reach his eyes. He gestured for Ransom to enter. “Good morning!” he said
chipperly. Ransom spotted two empty coffee cups in the wire wastebasket. “I
trust you spoke with your uncle?”
“I did, and I have an answer for
you.” Ransom straightened and addressed Darien with as much of a soldier’s
posture as he could muster. “I’m in.”
* * * * * * *
Years
later, Ransom lay behind the rampart of a rooftop, a rifle propped against his
shoulder and scope targeted on a well-dressed businessman who stepped out of
his favorite coffeehouse onto the sidewalk, his unbreakable routine. Ransom
adjusted the scope, tracking the man in his crosshairs, his rifle barrel steady
and unwavering.
Project PHOBETOR had worked,
eradicating most of Ransom’s emotional responses, including the tremors in his
hands that began after the accident. Later, he would break, but now, he was
utterly and completely calm.
Sandy blond hair ruffled in the
breeze that whipped through the wind tunnel created by the skyscrapers; the
man’s coat flapped. Ransom leveled his rifle, took aim, and blessed the bullet
that would end Darien Grimes.
And then a brunette girl stumbled
directly into Darien, obstructing Ransom’s shot and spilling Darien’s coffee
all over his expensive coat. Ransom cursed and watched as the girl
apologetically brushed off Darien’s coat. Too
apologetically, thought Ransom. Sure enough, he peered through his scope
and watched the girl lift and pocket something black and square-shaped:
Darien’s wallet.
Ransom grinned slyly, marking the
girl. He would find her later, hopefully before Darien’s men did.
Opportunity lost, he watched Darien
climb into the waiting car and disappear before packing up his rifle, slinging
it onto his back, and fairly leaping down the fire escape. Behind a dumpster in
the back alley waited his bike. Hopping aboard it, he masked himself with his
helmet, wheeled the bike about, and headed home.
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As always, feel free to leave any questions or comments below, and I'll read and respond to them as soon as I can! Thanks for reading!
~Abigail Blair
