801Chapter One
✭
Cold. So cold.
"Желание."
Longing.
Sleep pulling at eyelids. Heavy. Tired. No more, no more please. Distant dreams call. Fade.
"Ржавый."
Rusted.
Ice, frosting breath. Cracking over clenched fist. A yellow light flickering overhead, darkness blinking. Watching, savage anticipation. Unknown chills go up his spine, then disappear before they reach his head.
"Cемнадцать."
Seventeen.
Shoulders hunch, head hanging low. Hair dry and limp. Last time he washed? Felt clean? Never. Didn't matter. Irrelevant.
God, to be clean again. To wipe the ledger clean.
"Рассвет."
Daybreak.
Something surfacing. Edge of his mind, an itch, an image. A face. Blond. Bright-eyed. A smile that stirs something deep in his chest. So soft and easy to break.
A friend. A brother.
A hope.
"Печь."
Furnace.
Slipping away. Cold hand clenches around metal bar. Broken, dangling. A train. No, a bridge. A train... Reach out. Try to catch the hand offered.
To catch her.
Inches away. So close. Don't die. Don't die.
I don't want to die.
"Девять."
Nine.
Then falling.
Falling away.
"Добросердечный."
Benign.
The face — faces — disappear. Sucked away, a cruel wish. They are nothing. They are nothing. He reaches for them, but they are gone.
He can't hear their words anymore.
"Возвращение на родину."
Homecoming.
Snow. Snow. White. Blindness. Nothing here. Nothing left.
Found. A trail of blood. A broken piece left behind.
A metal table.
A metal hand.
"Один."
One.
Alone.
"Грузовой вагон."
Freight Car.
A purpose. A soldier. A tool. Nothing more. Nothing less.
To know. To hunt. To kill.
To teach.
Gray eyes burning.
A man in front of him. Fancy suit. Glasses. A familiar face. A friendly one.
But not a friend.
The soldier looks for the second face. The younger one. The girl. The one who must learn.
But she is not here.
He cannot remember why.
Then he doesn't remember her, either.
The soldier looks again, and all he knows is that something is missing.
The man in the suit tilts his head. Friendly face, cold eyes. Shrewd. Too shrewd. In a tongue that does not fit his mouth, the man asked, "Are you ready to comply, soldier?"
The soldier scans the room one last time, before settling on the man in the suit.
There is nothing there.
Nothing but the objective.
His own voice, cold, hard, unyielding.
"Ready to comply."
Brittle.
The man in the suit smiles. "Good. I have a mission for you..."
