Chapter 5: The Direct Approach
The forest at the edge of the rotzone was a cathedral of dead things. Leafless branches, bone-white against the bruised twilight sky, formed a splintered canopy. The air was cold and carried the wet-earth stink of decay and the distant, chemical tang from the military base’s burn pits. Carla and Dante moved through the undergrowth with a quiet efficiency that belied the heavy ache in their muscles, the sting of raw skin, the deep, throbbing memory of the night’s work.
They found Valeria where they’d left her, concealed in a shallow defilade behind a fallen oak. She was checking the seals on her medical kit, her red hair a dull rust color in the fading light. She looked up as they approached, her serious expression tightening as she took them in.
They moved like two people who’d been taken apart and hastily put back together. Carla’s blonde hair was matted with sweat and worse, her clothes stained and torn in ways that spoke of violence, not accident. Dante walked with a slight, careful stiffness, his intelligent eyes shadowed with exhaustion, a smear of something dried on his stubbled cheek.
Yet, they shared a smile. A small, private, confident curl of the lips as they caught each other’s eye. It was the smile of thieves who’d gotten away with the loot.
Valeria saw the smile first, then the rest. Her gaze fixed on Dante’s face. She pointed at her own cheek, making a small, wiping motion.
Carla followed her look and let out a low, choked laugh. It was a ragged sound. “Dante. Your face.”
Dante touched his cheek, his fingers coming away sticky. He looked at them, then back at the women. He let out a short, dismissive puff of air through his nose. “Fucking souvenir,” he muttered, wiping his face vigorously with the sleeve of his jacket. It just smeared it. He gave up, reached into his inner pocket, and pulled out the folded, stained map.
He didn’t sit. He spread it on the damp moss, holding the corners down with stones. Valeria leaned in, her medic’s eyes scanning the crude markings.
“Scavenger intel,” Dante said, his voice low and hoarse. He traced a line with a grimy finger.“Western perimeter. See this? Their patrol is a three-man loop.Clockwork. Every forty-seven minutes, they pass this blind spot in the wire. The mines here,” he jabbed at a cluster of ‘X’ marks, “are marked. Old sector, poorly maintained. There’s a path. A slim one.”
He kept talking, outlining the watchtower sightlines, the shift change at 0400, the presumed location of the holding cells based on where the scavengers had seen prisoners dragged weeks prior. Valeria listened, her face impassive, taking in every word.
When he finished, she was silent for a long moment. The only sounds were the wind in the dead branches and the distant, electronic buzz of the base’s perimeter lights flickering on.
Valeria finally spoke, her voice flat. “So, let me get this straight. The plan is to traverse a known minefield, evade armed patrols on a timed loop, circumvent razor wire, infiltrate a fortified military base teeming with trained soldiers, locate our friend within an unknown interior layout, extract her, and then traverse all of that again in reverse. Without dying.”
Dante and Carla looked at each other, then back at Valeria. Their twin expressions said, Yeah.Basically.
Valeria blinked slowly. She looked from the map to their worn faces, to the tense set of their shoulders. “Wouldn’t it be easier,” she asked, her tone devoid of sarcasm, pure clinical curiosity, “to just go to the front gate, knock, and ask if she’s there?”
Dante and Carla stared at her. For a second, there was nothing.Then Dante snorted. Then Carla let out a choked giggle. Then it erupted—a burst of ragged, incredulous laughter that ripped through the silent woods. It was too loud, too sharp, the kind of laughter that bordered on hysteria. They clutched their sides, Dante wiping fresh tears from his eyes, Carla leaning against a tree for support.
When the laughter died, leaving them breathless and hollow, Carla let out a rough, annoyed groan. She pressed her fingers to her temple, squeezing her eyes shut. “Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me.” Her voice was a rasp. “Why the hell didn’t I think of that before? Could’ve saved myself the gangbang.”
Dante looked at her, a smirk playing on his lips despite everything. “You regret it?”
“Fuck no,” Carla shot back instantly, pushing off the tree. “But Christ, it’s tiring. One after the other after the other. It’s fucking exhausting.” She said it like she was complaining about a long shift at a shit job.
Dante sighed, the sound carrying the weight of the world. He looked down at the complicated map, at the deadly puzzle they’d just acquired at such cost. He slowly folded it, tucking it back into his jacket. He looked at the distant, glowing sentry lights of the base. “Okay then,” he said, his voice now clear, decisive. “At dawn, we knock on the door and ask.”
Valeria nodded once, a crisp, satisfied motion. “Good.”
The silence after Valeria’s pronouncement was dense, filled only by the dry rustle of the dead forest. Carla stared at the map-less ground where their elaborate, painful plan had just evaporated. A strange, weightless feeling bloomed in her chest, part relief, part utter foolishness.
Dante broke it, kicking a rotten branch. It shattered into powdery fragments. “Knock and ask,” he repeated to himself, shaking his head. “I feel profoundly stupid. And remarkably well-fucked for no reason.”
“Speak for yourself,” Carla muttered, arching her back with a wince. She could still feel the ghost of hands, the deep, specific ache. “I got the reason. I just didn’t get the simpler solution first.” She looked at Valeria, her blue eyes assessing. “You’re a genius and I hate you a little for it.”
Valeria simply shrugged, closing her medical kit with a definitive click. “Medical training. Always diagnose before you operate. You two just started cutting.” She stood, brushing moss from her knees. “We need to sleep. Dawn comes whether we’re clever or not.”
They didn’t dare light a fire. The cold seeped into their bones, a deep chill that made every old bruise and new ache sing a symphony of discomfort. Carla lay on her side, every shift reminding her of the scavenger’s relentless pace. Dante sat with his back against the oak, eyes open, watching the distant pinpricks of light that were guard towers.
“You think they’ll just… give her to us?” Dante’s voice was quiet in the dark.
“No,” Carla said, her voice flat against the earth. “But they might let us see her. And if we can see her, we can figure out the next move from inside. That’s more than we had an hour ago.”
“Assuming they don’t just shoot us on sight.”
“Then we’ll be dead and well-rested,” Valeria offered from the shadows, her tone dry as dust. “Now shut up. Some of us need to be alert for the diplomacy.”
Dawn arrived as a seep of grey light, leaching the color from the world. They washed in an icy creek, the water biting away the physical remnants of the camp but leaving the memory etched deep. Carla finger-combed her hair, trying to make it look less like a nest. Dante cleaned his face properly, the cold water shocking his skin awake.
They approached along the cracked asphalt road as the sky turned a sickly pewter. The base loomed, a jagged silhouette of prefab buildings and welded steel surrounded by fences crowned with glinting wire. It was quieter than they expected, a low industrial hum undercut by the occasional distant shout.
Hands in the air, they walked. Three soldiers on the rampart tracked them with rifles, the black eyes of the scopes unwavering.
“Halt!” a voice boomed from a speaker, scratchy with distortion. “State your business!”
Carla took another step forward, her voice cutting through the damp air. “We’re looking for our friend!” She kept it simple, loud. “Arami! Early twenties, dark hair, last seen being brought here!”
A pause. One of the soldiers on the wall turned, barking something to someone behind the parapet. Moments stretched, filled with the thump of Carla’s heart. Then, with a grinding shriek of metal on metal, the enormous main gate began to swing inward.
A single soldier stood in the gateway. He had a sharp mohawk, the sides shaved to gleaming scalp, and held his rifle with a casual, proprietary ease. A massive, genuine smile split his face.
“Johnny,” he announced, as if they’d been waiting for him. “Took you long enough to show up.” His eyes, bright and appraising, scanned each of them, lingering on their torn clothes and tired faces. “Come on in. Slowly.”
They entered, the gate groaning shut behind them with finality. The interior was a bleak courtyard of packed dirt and oil stains.
“Weapons,” Johnny said, his smile not fading. “On the ground. All of them.”
With reluctant, slow movements, they complied. Carla’s pistol, Dante’s knife and a compact hold-out revolver he’d kept in his boot. They landed in the dust.
Johnny looked at the small pile, then directly at Valeria. His grin turned knowing. “All of them.”
Valeria met his gaze. Her expression was serene. She reached behind her back, under her jacket, and produced a sleek 9mm pistol. She placed it gently atop the pile. She smiled back at him, a small, tight curve of her lips. “Those were all of them.”
Johnny threw his head back and laughed, a loud, barking sound that echoed off the walls. “Wild. I like you.” He toed the weapons toward another soldier who’d approached. “Now. Your friend.”
“Where is she?” Carla demanded, stepping forward. “We want to see her. Now.”
Johnny’s smile became more of a smirk. He gestured with his head. “I can take you to the building where she is. Can’t promise you see her. That’s above my pay grade.” He turned and started walking without waiting for agreement.
They followed him past low, windowless structures, their footsteps loud in the confined space. He led them to a central building, three stories of grim, utilitarian concrete. At the entrance, he turned, blocking the door with his body. His smirk was outright puckish now.
“This is as far as I go.”
“Take us to her,” Carla insisted, her voice low and dangerous.
“I can’t go in there,” Johnny said, his tone shifting to one of conspiratorial warning. “I value my continued breathing. But if you want to risk yours…” He leaned closer. “Third floor. Section 3-B. Room two.” He stepped aside, granting access to the dark doorway. “Good luck.”
The trio exchanged a look. Dante nodded once. They stepped inside.
The interior was institutional, lit by flickering fluorescent strips, smelling of stale bleach and mildew. The door swung shut, muffling the outside world.
“What’s the play?” Dante whispered as they started up a concrete staircase, their footsteps echoing. “We’re clean. No weapons.”
Valeria unzipped the front of her cargo pants. From a hidden compartment sewn into the inner thigh, she produced a small, black Derringer pistol. She checked the two tiny barrels calmly. “I’m not.”
Carla let out a long, shaky sigh of relief. “Thank Christ. At least one of us plans for things going to shit.”
They reached the third floor, the designations for Section 3-B stenciled on the wall in fading paint. The hallway was deserted, silent except for the buzz of the lights. They moved toward Room 2, tension coiling tighter with each step.
Then a sound sliced through the silence—a sharp, high cry. It was Arami’s voice, strained, but not with pain.
They broke into a run. Dante hit the door first, shoving it open.
The scene inside imprinted itself instantly, a snapshot of shocking, intimate chaos. Arami was astride a huge, muscular man on a narrow cot, her dark hair whipping as she moved. The man—his face obscured by a black balaclava, his torso a map of scars and old ink—had his hands gripping her hips, driving up into her with a powerful, relentless rhythm. One of his hands slid up to roughly squeeze her breast.
Arami’s head was thrown back, her eyes closed, a deep, pleasure-wracked groan tearing from her throat. Then she turned her head, bliss smoothing her features, and her eyes fluttered open.
They locked directly with Dante’s from across the room.
She screamed.
The masked man moved with terrifying speed. In one fluid motion, he rolled, pinning Arami beneath him and yanking a .38 revolver from a holster on the floor. The barrel swung toward the door, his finger already on the trigger, his covered face revealing only two furious, intent eyes.
“No!” Arami shrieked, grappling his arm, forcing it down. She stared at her friends, her expression a riot of shock, panic, and something else. “Close the door! Close the damn door!”
Dante slammed it shut. The three of them stood frozen in the dim hallway, the echo of the gunshot that didn't happen ringing in their ears. The only sound now was the frantic buzzing of the lights.
Valeria slowly holstered her Derringer. She blinked, once, processing. A faint, almost medical curiosity lifted one corner of her mouth.
“Well,” she said, her voice perfectly even. “Our virginal Arami is not so virginal anymore.”