Chapter Text
With your nail, you etched the seven-hundred and thirty-fourth line into the wall by your mattress. It had long become a routine to keep track of time as you wasted away in a prison somewhere. A pointless routine to desperately hold onto the life you had on the outside. The many places you'd traveled, sights seen, memories made in haste.
Nestled in the far corner of the tiny cell, you sat with your arms wrapped tight around your knees. The red tile beneath you was frigid to the touch; a welcome contrast to the sweltering air in the prison. You pictured an opened window and a steady, cool breeze in your mind.
Typically, you hated being forced to sit on the floor. Even the thin blood-crusted mattress, which was as stiff and thin as cardboard, was more accommodating than the floor. Like most things, there wasn't much of a choice in the matter. If a prisoner was caught lying on their mattress while it was daytime, they'd sincerely regret making that mistake. You'd know.
The guards could look into the cells through a small slat in the thick steel door, and if they were particularly malicious, they'd watch through peepholes. At least if they bothered to use the slat, you'd hear them opening the latch. But the peepholes? You had no way of knowing if and when a guard was watching. Waiting for you to make a tiny mistake, so they could get their knuckles bloody.
Often, when your mind retreated from your imagination and faced your wandering thoughts, you found yourself envious of the others in this prison. Sure, you were all locked away— but at least they slept in large, open barracks and ate together in dining halls. You heard as much from listening to the guards' conversations.
At least the prisoners saw each other's faces, sunshine spilling through the windows, and felt fresh air on their faces in the courtyard.
You had none of that.
The moment your head leaned against the damp white wall, you heard the sharp clank of the slat's metal latch opening. A guard threw your daily rations to the ground: suspicious-looking rye bread and a starchy, bitter raw potato. The bread wasn't completely molded, but you'd eat it even if it was.
When the latch yanked shut, you pulled yourself from the corner of the cell and picked your day's meal from the floor, and quietly ate. Sometimes, the guards allowed you rye bread, kasha, and a pitifully thin soup. On days such as this, you assuaged the gnawing in your stomach with bread and a potato.
The hunger was something you never got used to. No one did. In the early days of your detainment, hunger nearly drove you mad. You had yearned for a good homemade meal, or satiating your guilty pleasures with fast food. One time you cried too loudly from stomach pains, upsetting the guards patrolling the solitary wing; you never cried after that.
You had nothing else to do, so you paced your cell. There was only enough room for three paces— the room being so small, you could reach out and touch both walls. When that got too monotonous, you counted the seven-hundred and thirty-four lines in the wall. You repeated counting over and over, then paced again.
In the cell to your left, you heard a man screaming. You heard a lot of screaming, yelling, wails, and grown men crying out for their mamas to save them. A few turned religious, begging for their savior to descend upon them. To reach out a hand and pull them from this depravity.
But this scream was a familiar one. The prisoner had let out a gut-wrenching, agonized cry. Primalistic.
You returned to your corner, where you felt embraced by the two walls. You allowed yourself to be lulled into a sense of security, though you knew otherwise. The prisoner's screams slowly, slowly grew quieter until they were nothing more than moans of agony. Until they went silent.
The rest of the day, as always, passed both within the blink of an eye and an entire lifetime. You couldn't remember much, seemingly coming to when the guards did evening roll-call and checked to see whether you were alive or dead. You heard a cell door open, you knew it to be the one to your left, and there was a distinct, wet sliding sound.
In Russian, a guard uttered, "Another one to burn."
When they called lights out, turning off every single light in the solitary confinement wing, you wasted no time in slipping onto your stiff, bloodstained mattress. After hours of pacing the cell and sitting on the cold, hard tile floor, it could've fooled you for a luxury memory foam bed.
Nights were a relief, truly, but they were as dangerous as the day. If a prisoner happened to get on a guard's bad side, it wasn't too uncommon for the guard to accidentally slip into a cell and beat the prisoner half to death. Neither were nights quiet; the muggy air was filled with everlasting yells and cries. Even if you felt safe enough to sleep soundly, you couldn't.
You laid on the mattress for minutes, hours, you couldn't be too sure. You opened your eyes and stared at the ceiling. Nights like these made you wish for death; finally succumbing to the darkness and giving up seemed so tempting.
In this prison, you had more than a few close calls. Coming down with illness after being fed moldy food and drinking contaminated water, being assaulted to the brink of death. So close, you heard death calling.
Death hung over you, over this prison, like a dark cloud. Death was a friend you came to know very well long before you were captured and detained. You heard its call time and time again, and you waited for it to come after you. To look into your eyes again. You felt no fear, no alarm knowing eventually this torment would cease and you'd finally know peace.
Was welcoming death's cradle a coward's move? You had fought so hard, for so long. Didn't you earn it by now?
Within these four walls, you'd lost sight of everything. You stayed alive and stayed smart, but for what? You looked back on your memories of freedom as if they were someone else's, no longer recognizing you that existed then, and you that existed now. You knew having that freedom again was impossible, not if he had anything to say about it.
Roman Barkov. If you ever saw him again, you wouldn't hesitate to kill him with your bare hands. The idea alone of choking him and draining the life from his eyes brought a wry curl to your lips. You wanted to hear him cry, to plead, to bleed as you had. You would give him as much mercy as he gave you.
None.
You had slipped into a light half-sleep when the prison suddenly went eerily silent, unlike anything you'd heard in the past two years. Something was wrong. It was silent, so incredibly silent you could hear your heart beating. Quiet until it wasn't anymore.
You closely paid attention to the confusion of the inmates, the cells and corridors flush with pulsing red lights, armored personnel carrying assault rifles and carbines. You watched guards abandon their posts and leave you all in your cells. They yelled, shouting curses and warnings. "Americans inbound!"
Overhead, you heard the deep chopping of helicopter blades slicing the night. A roar of fighter jets above, just as missiles made contact with the prison and exploded, shaking the walls.
Sitting up in bed, you stared straight at the thick steel door separating you from the madness outside. You didn't have to delude yourself with questions, because you had the answers. You damned well knew why American Forces were attacking this prison, of all prisons wherever you are.
The gunfire came closer and closer. The distant pops of bullets fired shifted into deafening bangs. Bullets whizzed down the corridor. You imagined laser sights skimming the air. Again, you heard death's call. Heard the distant gurgles of armored personnel, the death rattles, and the low moans fading.
"All clear," you heard a low, gravelly accent. British. "Check for stragglers."
Silent. The prisoners stayed dead silent. If this were any other prison, anywhere else in the world, they would be pleading for help— for release. But they heard what was done to the security guards and soldiers. While these prisoners were enemies of the Ultranationalist regime, that didn't make them best friends with the Western side of the conflict.
Light footsteps trickled down the corridor until they paused. You could barely make out the sound of keys jingling, snatched off a guard's belt. Another man with a thick Scottish accent asked, "What cell is he in?" He?
"Intel said 210."
Not a heartbeat later, the door to your cell swung open with a shrill squeak. Red laser sights flew to you, eyes behind night-vision goggles analyzing your confinement. The paint bubbling off the white walls, the cracked tile floor stained with dirt and brown blood, your etchings in the wall.
Two of the red lasers pointed directly at your forehead, while another pointed at your heart. When they killed you, it would be quick and painless. You had been patient all this time, anticipating when it would be your turn to rest. It was now.
One of the men stepped forward, lifting his night-vision goggles and ducking below the doorframe. His assault rifle now aimed at the space between your eyebrows. Red emergency lights pulsed, briefly illuminating you both. You witnessed a lot in that second; his immense frame and the mass of tactical gear and weapons fastened to him, the British flag patch sewn onto the left sleeve, someone else's blood trickling from his skull mask.
The dilated eyes underneath.
"And who the fuck is this?" he asked.
"Your guess is as good as mine, Lt.," one of the other two— the one with the Scottish accent, said.
"The intel didn't say Prisoner 210 was a woman."
"Didn't say it was a man, either," the third man said. Another Brit.
The Scotsman clutched his semi-automatic rifle tighter. As the red lights pulsed again, you closely studied him. His night-vision goggles obscured the upper half of his face, but you saw his lips pinch with thinly veiled worry. "We're running out of time, Ghost. We need to be at the extraction point in ten."
Without taking his eyes off of yours, the man with the skull mask grumbled into his headset. "Watcher-1, the package is secured. Bravo heading out."
For a moment, no one moved. They awaited his orders. The cell was quiet, omitting the occasional radio chatter and light breaths. Above, helicopters flew over the prison, and you knew their soldiers picked off any Ultranationalist forces still alive. By the time reinforcements arrived, you'd all be long gone.
Ghost motioned to the Scotsman with a tilt of his jaw. "Grab her, Soap."
Today wasn't the day you became someone else's captive. Especially if they were here for the reason you suspected. Death stood right there, wearing an ironically fitting skull mask and balaclava. Today was the day death freed you.
Soap swiftly approached, locking a firm hand around your wrist. He dragged you up from your mattress on the floor with ease. His grip on your arm wasn't gentle by any means, but you endured worse. The red lights flashed yet again, and in a split second, you checked his vest for options; he would intercept your attempt to grab his sidearm, but his combat knife was close.
The cool kiss of the blade met Soap's neck before he could even blink. You expected bullets to have pierced your flesh, but you still stood there. Ghost was already on you, his assault rifle pressed to your head. The other Brit bristled, aiming. And Soap, you knew someone, as trained as him, could've disarmed and killed you in an instant, but he didn't. Why?
"Drop the knife, lass," Soap warned.
"Nyet," you spoke in your mother tongue but switched to English. "Kill me."
You didn't see it, but you felt the cold brush of Ghost's eyes focusing on you. Didn't see them narrow slightly while he sized you up as a threat, however little it may be, to his team and mission. "Makin' it hard not to, but orders are orders."
"Did you bring those zip ties, Gaz?" Ghost asked.
The third man, Gaz, reached for a pocket in his vest. "Yes, sir."
Your suspicions of Soap's training and skill were correct. Upon hearing of restraints, he smoothly slipped under your hold and stole the knife from your hand. From behind, a sturdy forearm wrapped your throat, forcing your chin upward and face to Ghost's. The sharp tip of Soap's combat knife pressed directly where your left kidney was. Oh, you thought, he's good.
Gaz relinquished his black zip tie handcuffs to Ghost and returned to his lookout spot by the opened cell door. Ghost set his rifle down and roughly seized your wrists with one hand. He secured the zip tie and said, "Don't think about pulling that shit again. Is that clear?"
"Fuck you, svoloch," you bit.
"I'll take that as a yes."
Outside the cell, the stench of iron and metal clung to your nose. Fresh blood pooled by the bodies of fallen armored personnel and guards. They were strewn about the place. Some had slid down the wall with their heads hung low, and some laid flat on their stomachs. Riddled with holes and shot with bullets aimed to kill. The splatter on the faded, crumbling white walls trickled down like the blood on Ghost's skull mask.
Soap held your arm with his left hand and carried his semi-automatic rifle in his right, poised and ready to shoot any hostiles.
For the first time in two years, you had the chance to look around at where you were forcefully held. Finally, you were able to walk farther than three paces without hitting a wall. Though your legs grew heavier with each step, muscles weakened from poor nutrition and being locked in that hellhole.
Ghost led the group, dispatching the occasional sentry or two with a spray of bullets before they knew it. They dropped like flies. Behind you, Gaz tailed behind and carefully defended the group's six o'clock. It seemed they were heading back the same way they came; their familiarity with the route showed in the looseness of their shoulders.
When they reached a hole in the floor, you dragged your feet. The floor had been blown through with a detonation device, accessing the prison's tunnels below. Ghost lept down and scanned the area. A wave of his hand signaled the all-clear. Soap's hand on your arm tightened as a silent warning.
"I won't jump—" Your protest was cut off by Soap's hard shove to your shoulder. You fell, too swiftly to consider the broken limbs you'd get.
But you hadn't smacked right into the ground, rather, the ground was as firm as it was soft. A pair of strong, sculpted arms had encompassed you— death's cradle— and the warmth was gone as quickly as it came. You caught a glimpse at Ghost, who stepped away and grumbled, "Fucking hell."
All of them had jumped as if it were nothing, despite wearing fifty kilograms of tactical gear and weapons. Gaz landed last, solid on his two feet and aiming down the red laser sights of his assault rifle.
Another explosion vibrated the tunnel walls. You couldn't hear the helicopters much, however, fighter jets and the missiles they fired continued shelling. Down there, you didn't hear much of the firefight, though it surely continued.
If the Ultranationalist sentries had any inkling of a brain, they would have fled the moment they heard them coming. But they were fed such extremist propaganda, fooled into believing fighting was for glory and honor. They were wrong. Many would die thinking they were a necessary sacrifice for their cause, while the eyes of a few might open too late. They would hold on, but not for long. Not against this.
In the tunnels, the group swiftly pushed on. Soap gave up on holding you, he simply half-dragged, half-pulled you along. You tried keeping their pace, but as the seconds ticked by, their hastened steps turned to an outright sprint. The explosions grew louder. Some parts of the tunnels collapsed, and if the group didn't leave in time, your exit soon would be, too.
"They started the bombardment too early," Ghost fumed. "Are they trying to kill us?"
Chunks of concrete and other debris crumpled from the ceiling of the tunnels, crashing close to you. You looked up to see straight through the prison to the open, star-filled night sky and didn't have time to admire it. Another explosion, closer this time. Pipes burst, spraying boiling water on the slippery floor. The dark tunnels filled with steam.
The familiar deep whirling of helicopter blades became louder and louder. You were barely able to make out how the tunnel opened to the night, how the glowing, pale moonlight reflected off a helicopter hovering at the exit, and how the very foundation of the prison violently shook.
Outside, the summer night was pleasantly warm, unlike the sweltering heat and moisture in your cramped cell. My old cell, you thought, I'll have a new one soon. The helicopter lowered, thankfully, instead of throwing a rig or rope ladder— both of which you couldn't use, especially with the zip tie binding your wrists.
Gaz hauled the sliding door to the side, cracking an uneven smile at the pilot. The night, in addition to the lack of interior lighting in the cabin, had your eyes straining to try to discern the pilot's features. A subtle blue glow bathed the cockpit's gauges and switches, barely silhouetting the man's long face and straight nose, the week-old stubble along his jaw.
Effortlessly, Gaz climbed into the helicopter. The night-vision goggles lifted away from his eyes and the helicopter pilot shook his head.
"You look like der'mo," the pilot said, voice weighed down by a Russian accent.
He turned his back on the others and faced the cockpit. Gaz wasn't phased by the sly comment, taking his place in the co-pilot seat. "It's nice to see you too, Nikolai."
Soap fancied himself a door gunner, sitting on an ammo can and manning a Gatling gun. He, too, lifted his night-vision goggles for the moment. The Gatling gun wouldn't have much use if he couldn't see the targets, after all. His sight drifted from you stalling at the side of the helicopter, to a figure close behind you.
The only man who hadn't yet gotten onto the helicopter; who clearly led the mission entirely dependent on the fact you didn't run, didn't put them in jeopardy, or cause the lives lost that night to be taken in vain on a fool's errand.
The zip tie handcuffs dug into the flesh of your wrists, sure enough to leave a violent, bright-red memento in a few hours. You didn't ask for this particularly painful souvenir, but he had given it to you anyways. He didn't need handcuffs, however, one of his hands would do just fine. He showed you earlier, didn't he?
Fed up with your stalling, Ghost hauled you into the helicopter and dropped you on the floor of the cabin. Your restrained hands shot out to brace for the fall, but your right shoulder collided with the floor. He hadn't thrown you off a building, but it sure as hell felt like it.
The only thing you could hear was the deafening whirl of the helicopter's rotors as the pilot, Nikolai, readied to take off. Even then, you knew they heard the pained noise that'd escaped your mouth the second you hit the metal floor with a thump. If you had any energy left in you, you wouldn't have slipped up; as you had with the prison guards, you refused to show them how much pain you were in, but the exhaustion gnawing at your bones dampened your pride.
Instead, you shot a weak glower at the man in the skull mask and balaclava, who was no longer facing you. He took his place on the edge of the helicopter and secured a nylon line to his vest. If he'd forgotten, you could have pushed him off when in flight. Soap must have had the same thought and he too attached a line to himself, lowering his night-vision goggles.
Gaz watched from the co-pilot seat, his neck craned. "Must you always be so rough, Ghost?"
"Didn't you know?" The corner of Soap's mouth curled as he said, "That's how he likes it."