Chapter 176: Finish The Work
Draven’s POV
The air didn’t smell fresh anymore.
I opened my eyes slowly and found myself somewhere that looked like a theatre. Men hovered over me with knives, their faces covered.
Fuck. They had come to finish the work.
"What the shit ... who the hell are you people?" I asked, struggling to get myself off the table I’d been placed on.
"Mr. Blackstone, can you stay still? We’re trying to save your life," one of them said.
Oh. They were doctors. That was when it hit me.
I hadn’t died. But I had fallen off a gallery, and I remembered May falling on top of me. Why couldn’t I grasp anything beyond that?
"What happened? Where is May? Where are the rest of my people?" I demanded, adamant about getting my questions answered even while they were trying to save my life.
My voice came out too loud. I wasn’t in my right state of mind, and I knew it. Thoughts crashed into me all at once ... the mission, my people, my teammates. It was like someone was slamming several doors inside my head at the same time.
"We’re sorry, Mr. Draven, but we’ll have to put you under anaesthetic," one of the four doctors said.
"Wait ... let me see something first."
I raised my head to look at my abdomen. It had been cut wide open with surgical knives. I wanted to puke. I had never seen myself in such a state before.
I dropped my head back with force.
They injected me with the anaesthetic. It was the only way.
I passed out slowly, hoping my body wouldn’t be in pieces when I eventually woke up. Or that I wouldn’t simply be dead. Fuck ... anything could happen.
---
I opened my eyes again slowly.
At least I knew I was alive.
No restraints on me, and I wasn’t in a hospital bed. I quickly checked my abdomen ... it had been perfectly stitched.
Then they were all around me at once. Zeno. Salvatore. Valentina. Ciro.
I almost smiled.
"What the..."
"Thank the goddess you survived, Draven. It could have been disastrous," Salvatore said.
"What exactly happened? The last thing I remembered was being stabbed in the upper abdomen."
𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶
"The doctor said it did a lot of damage to your digestive organs, but the surgery was successful," Valentina said.
"What about the mission?" I asked.
"Selene is still alive. And so is the Alpha we were assigned to kill," Ciro said.
"Let’s leave him ... he needs more rest," Zeno said.
"How is May, before you go?"
I didn’t know why I cared about May so much, but I needed to know.
"She was shot, but she miraculously survived. She’s a fighter. We’ll all meet soon ... Tony wants to see everyone," Ciro said.
They left.
And all I could think about was how much of a failure I was.
Where was Jade when I needed her the most? I only felt like a winner when she was around. I loved her, and I was missing her like crazy. She wouldn’t have let me spiral like this.
I would go find her. She was the kind of woman I couldn’t find anywhere else.
While in Morvaine, I hadn’t seen Astrid. I had expected to ... but it had been a long time, and she must have moved on in whatever way she could.
If I had seen her... maybe I would have killed her. No. I wouldn’t have been able to pull the trigger.
We hadn’t just fucked ... there had been an exchange of feelings between us, most of it coming from my end. Even though it turned out she had been using me the whole time, playing with my feelings, right up until I was tried and exiled because of her.
It made me hate her. But a bitch would always remain a bitch, huh?
Right where I lay, I hoped she had gotten what she deserved ... or better yet, that I would be the one to give it to her.
Fuck.
I fell asleep and woke again in a shorter time, taking just enough rest to get my body moving.
I walked slowly toward the main dorm.
They were all there, standing like soldiers.
May was in a wheelchair. Fuck. This was serious.
Tony stood in the middle of the room.
"You had one job. Just one job!" His voice was already carrying through the glass doors before I even stepped inside.
I hung back for a moment. It was going to come back to me ... it always did. What was the worst that could happen? I asked myself, then summoned the courage to step in.
I entered their midst and received no warm welcome. Either I wasn’t valued, or everyone was being reprimanded and no one had the time for pleasantries. Maybe they hadn’t even acknowledged May’s return either.
"Hello, Tony. Hello, May," I said.
Everyone went quiet and stared at me.
It was strange ... those looks on their faces like they were ready to shoot or stab me all over again.
"What’s going on?" I asked.
"You’re a failure. That’s what’s going on," Tony said.
"I’m sorry on behalf of all of us. We ran into some unforeseen circumstances and..."
"Spare me the story." He cut me short. "My soldiers are either successful or they die on the battlefield. That’s how serious any mission is. It would have been better if..." He slammed his hand on the table. "Fuck!"
"We can do it one more time, Tony. We promise we won’t miss this time," May said.
We all turned to stare at her.
That was the kind of thing only stupid people said.
She was in a wheelchair, at the brink of death, and she wanted to go for another round.
"We need to think about this carefully," I said. "If we go a second time, they’ll be prepared ... our strike won’t hit the way it’s supposed to. And May, you’re barely holding on. I didn’t expect you’d even survive that gunshot."
"Thank you very much. But I don’t give up easily," she replied.
I was laughing on the inside. Only people who still had breath in their lungs were ever this confident. The second time around, she wouldn’t survive it. I offered that thought up as a quiet prayer to the goddess ... let her be the one to die in our place. The overconfident little bitch.
"Get ready. You’re all going to carry out this mission again," Tony said.
Fuck. Tony was the master of illusions. The man had never once set foot on a battlefield himself.