Destroyed

Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.

I had no control left. I was a machine. A Ghost. I’d been stupid to try and change my life path. I needed to purge. I needed pain. Agony. Torture. I couldn’t live in a body while my soul tore itself into pieces.

Throwing myself down the stairs onto the floor of Obsidian, I searched the early arrivals.

You won’t find redemption here.

My mind darted into the unknown, feeding me alternatives that I’d never thought of.

Go back. You’ve accepted who you are. Go back. Go home.

My hands clenched at the thought of returning to Mother Russia. Returning to the place where my life was ruined. I would renounce everything: turn my back on Hazel, admit I could never heal. Everything I’d fought so hard for was a complete f**king joke.

Ghosts didn’t have families. Ghosts felt no pain.

So why am I in so much f**king pain?

My vision went hazy. I couldn’t do it anymore. Hating myself for my weakness; flaring with shame for my needs, I grabbed a pen from my pocket and stabbed it into my palm.

The agony washed through me with a wave of heat, followed by prickles of release. It granted a small spotlight of rationality in the chaotic storm of confusion.

I knew what I had to do.

Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.

Zel owned me more than anyone, and I wouldn’t survive without her. Clara had gone. Hazel was all I had left. I’d kept secrets from her. So many f**king secrets.

I wasn’t worthy. I wasn’t safe.

But I could change all that.

Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.

My heart died in my chest at the thought of betraying her. She would need me. She deserved a shoulder to cry on and another person to share the burden of grief. But I couldn’t. Not yet. Not while I existed on the border of Ghost and sanity. I couldn’t hug her. I couldn’t console her pain.

The moment I let my guard down, I would snap her neck.

I couldn’t give Zel what she needed. I wasn’t whole.

And I meant to f**king deserve her.

My anger turned outward, focusing on the handlers who’d f**ked up my life.

Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.

The conditioning throbbing in my brain was right. I needed to kill. And now I had my victim. I was done being an outcast. I was done not being normal.

I thought Clara had been my cure.

I was wrong.

The f**king cure was inside me all along. I held the key to fixing myself by returning to my past and annihilating them.

Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.

“Fuck this.” I let down all my walls. I welcomed the ruthless conditioning with open arms. I smiled as the ice entered my limbs and filled my head with fog. I allowed my muscles to remember exactly what I’d been programmed to do.

I went Ghost.

And I lost myself.

Mother Russia.

The Iron Fist of a past I couldn’t out run. Bleak and barren and home to my misery.

I only vaguely remembered how I got here. I bought every ticket in the first class cabin to ensure no one touched me. I locked myself into the freakish persona of an assassin and no one—not even the air hostesses came near me.

The moment I landed, I stole a 4WD to drive into the snowy wilderness. I said goodbye to no one. I just disappeared.

Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.

The conditioning throbbed harder and harder, recognising its place of origin. I was returning to my handlers and the training was f**king ecstatic to embrace the true machine I was.

I had no belongings apart from some cash, passport, and my memories, but that’s all I needed. The establishment stole me when I had nothing, and I would return with nothing.

And then I’d make them f**king pay.

Over and over again.

I was ready to go rogue and dance in blood. The ice was back in my veins, howling like a Siberian winter. I’d embraced who I truly was—who they made me become.

“You’re not a bad man. You can’t be a bad man because I love you and well, I couldn’t love a bad man.” Clara’s voice whipped around me with the artic wind.

I shook my head as a fresh, crippling wave of grief threatened to overshadow the rage. I couldn’t let myself mourn. Not yet. Not when I had so much to do.

Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.

Sucking in a deep breath, I deliberately pushed Clara from my thoughts.

I stood on the perimeter of the establishment, hidden by thick trees. Thunder rumbled above, chasing jagged lightning, illuminating the compound in flashes of white.

My skin crawled beneath my black attire. Home. Hell. My place of birth from child to killer.

Snow flurried like icy tears—glistening in the dead of night, raining over the landscape and hiding a multitude of sins. Russia was just like I remembered—frigid, ruthless, uninhabitable.

Kill. Sever. Bleed. Devour.

Australia, Hazel, Clara,—all of it seemed like a dream. I felt as if I’d never left this terrible wasteland and everything in me said to run.

Beneath the pulsating conditioning all I wanted to do was run far, far away and never look back. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be f**king free from all of this.

My muscles tensed. You will be free. Kill them all. Make them give you freedom by taking their f**king lives.

Straightening my back, ignoring the howling wind and jagged teeth of frost, I prepared for battle. I would win tonight. I would take back what was mine.

“You always were a weakling, Fox. Got to beat that compassion out of you.”

The flashback came from nowhere as I stared at the gargoyle embellished facility—so similar to the building I’d erected at home.

“You’re no one to anyone anymore. You’re an orphan, a drifter, an unknown. We are now your family, your shelter, your owners. Never forget that.”

Rows upon rows of windows, containing cell upon cell of new recruits and old, glowed dimly in the night. My heart thundered to think how many more they’d ruined while I’d been gone.

“Time to work, Fox.”

I rolled over, clenching my teeth against the broken radius in my left arm. I couldn’t remember a thing.

My handler laughed. “Trying to recall what some dickshit paid you to do last night? You won’t, Operative Fox. We programed you to forget. You’re brainwashed to suffer short-term amnesia whenever you complete a mission. That way you cannot compromise yourself or us if you’re ever caught. You cannot lie if you don’t remember.”

I wrapped my hands around my head, trying to squeeze the flashbacks from my thoughts. I couldn’t go to war compromised. I had to stay clearheaded and be the ultimate Ghost.