Chapter 4: The Domestication of a Super Soldier
The oil lamp’s flame guttered, throwing the shadows of the rusted pushpins into a frantic dance across the yellowed newspaper clippings. Aris stood over the coffee table, his finger tracing a route on a faded map of the industrial sector. Jimmy fidgeted on the sagging couch, his eyes darting between the map and the closed bedroom door.
“The access point is here,” Aris muttered, tapping a spot. “But if Charles gets tipped, he comes straight down the river corridor. He’ll be on us in minutes.”
Jimmy sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Patriot doesn’t agree with Consuelo going on the mission, and he still has the final say over her.” He said it like a lament, a statement of immutable law. “This is an opportunity, damn it. What are we going to do? She’s the perfect counter. He literally can’t fight her at full strength.”
Aris was thoughtful, running his hand along his jaw. The stubble made a soft, scraping sound. He stared at the bedroom door, behind which the century-old couple had retreated after the tense breakfast. “How the hell did women back in the day get things from their husbands?” he mused, the question flat and tactical.
Jimmy shrugged, bewildered by the pivot. “I don’t know. When you were married, how did your wife get you to do what she wanted?”
Aris’s face went still for a second, a cold, distant look passing through his eyes. Then it vanished, replaced by a sharp, calculating gleam. He thought, then laughed—a short, humorless bark. “You’re a genius! Follow me.”
He swept the maps into the folder and strode toward the kitchen. Jimmy scrambled after him, confused.
Consuelo was at the sink, her hands in soapy water, scrubbing the pan from the eggs. The domestic normality of it was jarring. Steam rose around her, softening the fierce line of her profile. She didn’t turn as they entered.
Aris leaned against the doorway, sighing exaggeratedly. “Motherfucker, Jimmy, I don’t know what to tell you. I just hope everything goes well.”
Consuelo turned to look at them while drying a plate with a threadbare towel. “Everything okay?”
Aris gestured toward Jimmy, his expression morphing into one of weary concern. “Jimmy was telling me he’s worried about the mission’s success. We’ve been through so much, and sometimes we feel so close and yet so far!” He spread his hands, the picture of a frustrated leader. “It’s just that so much information gets lost thanks to the fights with Charles that instead of taking one step forward, we only take half.”
Consuelo looked at him, worried. The towel stilled in her hands. “And how can you avoid that?”
Aris sighed, a masterclass in presenting a problem with no solution. “I don’t know. By keeping Charles from reaching the lab.”
Consuelo thought, her black eyes moving from Aris’s manufactured despair to Jimmy’s genuine, nervous tension. She put the dry plate down. “I could go.”
“I appreciate you offering,” Aris said, shaking his head with a semblance of regret. “But Edward already said no.”
A small, knowing smile touched Consuelo’s lips. It wasn’t the kind smile from breakfast. This was different, older, edged with the cunning of a woman who had navigated far more dangerous men than Aris Thorne. “Let me handle that.”
Aris placed a hand on Consuelo’s shoulder, his grip firm, appreciative. “I really appreciate it. You’re truly a good person.”
Consuelo smiled at him, a sweet, guileless thing that didn’t reach her eyes, and left the kitchen, the towel draped over her shoulder. Her footsteps were silent on the worn floorboards.
When they were alone, Jimmy let out a long, shaky breath and sank onto a rickety kitchen chair. He looked up at Aris, his face pale. “And you are a very bad person, manipulating her like that.”
Aris just laughed, leaning back to look down the hall where Consuelo had gone. “That wasn’t manipulation, Jimmy. That was giving a master artisan the proper tools. She knew exactly what I was doing. She just decided the cause was worth playing along.” He pushed off the doorway, his lightness vanishing. “Now shut up and help me check the charge on the EMP devices.”
Consuelo didn’t go to the bedroom. She turned into the small, cluttered living room and walked to the bookcase. Her fingers trailed over the spines of the forgotten paperbacks and technical manuals until they found what she was looking for: a small, framed photograph she’d noticed earlier, buried behind a stack of munitions catalogues. She pulled it out.
It was Edward. Not the Patriot, just Edward. Maybe from the late 50s, judging by the car in the background. He was leaning against the fender, wearing a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, smiling. It was a real smile, unguarded, the kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes. She’d only seen that smile a handful of times, usually when he thought no one was looking. He held a bottle of Coca-Cola.
She took the frame apart, slipping the photo free. The paper was cool and slightly stiff between her fingers.
She found him on the building’s grimy roof, a place of cracked tar and rusted ventilation ducts. He was standing at the edge, looking out over the twilight city, his broad back to her. The fading light painted his shoulders in shades of orange and gray. He didn’t turn as she approached.
For a minute, she just stood beside him, following his gaze to where the river cut a dark path through the glittering urban sprawl. The wind up here was stronger, pulling at her braid.
“He asked you to talk to me,” Edward said finally, his voice a low rumble.
“Aris? Yes.”
“And you’re going to try.”
“I am.”
He chuckled, a dry, empty sound. “You should save your breath. The answer is no.”
Consuelo didn’t argue. She didn’t plead. She reached out and took his hand where it rested at his side. His fingers were cold. He flinched at the contact but didn’t pull away. She turned his hand palm-up and placed the small, square photograph in it.
Edward looked down. His breath caught, a tiny, almost imperceptible hitch. The arrogant, angry mask he wore like armor didn’t just slip; it shattered. His face went blank with shock, then softened with a pain so profound it looked like physical illness. His thumb brushed over the image of his own smiling face, over the bottle of pop. A artifact from a life that had been stolen from them both.
“Where did you find this?” he whispered.
“On the bookcase.” She moved closer, her shoulder brushing his arm. “You looked happy.”
“I was trying to be,” he said, the words thick. “I was trying to live like you were just… gone. Like you’d left me. They gave me that damn letter. I’d look at that photo sometimes and think, ‘That’s the man she killed.’” He turned his head to look at her, his green eyes glassy. “But you didn’t.”
“No,” she said softly. “I didn’t.”
“I let them take you,” he said, the confession ripped from some deep, septic place. “I was so angry, so proud… I signed the paperwork. The ‘voluntary relocation for powered maternal stabilization.’ I thought you’d chosen them. Chosen the baby over me. So I let them take you.” A single, furious tear tracked through the grime on his cheek. “I gave you to them.”
Consuelo felt the truth of it land in her gut, a cold, heavy stone. She had suspected, but hearing it was different. She didn’t pull away. Instead, she leaned her head against his shoulder, feeling the tremor that ran through him. “You were a fool,” she murmured, no heat in it. “A proud, stupid fool.”
He let out a wet, ragged laugh. “Yeah.”
They stood in silence for a long time, the photograph trembling in his grip. The city lights began to wink on below, one by one.
“I need to go on the mission, Edward,” she said, her voice barely audible over the wind.
He stiffened. “Consuelo—”
“No.” She lifted her head, looking up at him. “Listen to me. You gave me to them. For forty years, I was their experiment. For sixty more, I was their ice sculpture.” She took the photograph from his loose fingers and held it up. “You owe me more than your protection. You owe me my agency. You owe me a fight.” She tucked the photo into the chest pocket of his shirt, patting it flat over his heart. “Let me fight. For me. Not for Aris. For me.”
Edward stared at her, his internal war plain on his face. The overbearing husband, the guilt-ridden man, the tactical commander—all clashed behind his eyes. He looked from her determined face to the hidden photograph over his heart.
He cupped her face in his big, calloused hands, his thumbs stroking her cheekbones. His gaze was desperate. “If he hurts you… if he so much as touches you…”
“Then you’ll have to get in line,” Consuelo said, a flicker of her old, terrifying smile returning. “Because I’ll have already torn his wings off.”
A reluctant, grim smile touched Edward’s own lips. He leaned his forehead against hers, their breath mingling in the cold air. “You fly support only. You engage at range. You scream the second he shows. You do not let him get close. You follow my commands. My every command.”
Consuelo nodded, her nose brushing his. “Okay.”
“Say it.”
“I’ll follow your commands.”
He searched her eyes for deceit, found none, only a fierce, waiting gravity. He kissed her then, hard and possessive, a seal on the bargain. When he pulled back, his voice was the Patriot’s again, all business. “We infiltrate at 0300. Tell Aris he has his aerial defense.”
His agreement hung in the cold air between them, a contract written in breath and old guilt. Consuelo looked up at him, at the hard line of his jaw now softened by the twilight and the weight of the photograph in his pocket. The strategic part of her mind noted the victory, but a deeper, older current pulled at her gut. This scarred, angry giant had just handed her a piece of his control, and it felt more intimate than any penetration.
A slow, triumphant smile curved her full lips. She reached up and traced the line of his beard with her fingertips, the touch feather-light. “There’s my husband,” she whispered, her voice a warm contrast to the chill wind. “The one who protects me and gives me what I want.”
Before he could form a retort, she closed the distance and kissed him. It wasn’t the chaste brush from moments before; this was all claiming heat and skilled pressure. As her mouth moved over his, her hand slid down from his cheek, over the solid wall of his chest, and down the front of his pants. She found the rigid length of him already straining against the worn fabric of his jeans. She palmed him through the denim, then deftly worked the button and zipper open.
Her cool fingers wrapped around his cock, and he hissed into her mouth. She stroked him, slowly at first, then with a firm, knowing rhythm, her thumb smearing the bead of moisture already gathering at his tip. Within moments he was rock hard and throbbing in her grip, his body betraying his conflicted mind.
Edward broke the kiss, his breathing ragged. He looked down at her, at her hand working him, and a dark, possessive smile of his own answered hers. “And there’s my wife,” he growled, his voice rough. “The little slut, always so ready to spread her legs for me.”
He tangled his hand in her long, curly hair, fisting it close to the scalp, and yanked. Not enough to hurt her invulnerable body, but enough to make her gasp, to force her head back and her body to arch against his. The dominance in the act was a language they both understood, a twisted echo of their history.
Consuelo moaned, the sound swallowed by the city’s distant hum. Her free hand clutched at his shoulder. “Fuck me.”
Edward didn’t need telling twice. He shoved her backwards, not toward the roof’s edge, but onto the rough, tar-papered surface of the roof itself. “With pleasure.”
They undressed in a frantic, graceless scramble, a race against the cold and their own devouring need. Jeans were pushed down, her shirt torn open, buttons pinging off into the dark. In seconds, she was on her back on the gritty tar, and he was over her, poised at her entrance. He gripped his cock, nudged the head against her wetness, and shoved himself inside her in one brutal, claiming stroke.
He stayed there, buried to the hilt, muscles trembling with the effort of stillness. She was so tight, so hot, clenching around him like a slick, living fist. A low groan was torn from his chest. He looked down into her face, her black eyes wide, her lips parted. In the twilight, he could see the woman from the photograph, the woman he’d grieved and hated, the woman he’d doomed. Something in that look broke through the last of his fury.
His hand came up and wrapped around her throat. Not to choke, not yet, but to hold. To possess. He squeezed, just enough pressure to make her pulse hammer against his palm. Then he began to move.
He fucked her with a furious, driving rhythm, each thrust slamming her body into the unyielding roof. The air filled with the wet, rhythmic slap of skin, their grunts, her sharp cries. Consuelo threw her hips up to meet him, her nails scratching long, white trails down his back that healed almost as fast as they appeared.
“You’re mine,” he chanted against her ear, each word punctuated by a deep, punishing thrust. “Only mine. You understand? You take my cock, you fight my fights. Mine.”
Consuelo couldn’t form words. She could only gasp and moan, her legs locking around his waist, pulling him deeper. The coarse texture of the roof burned against her shoulder blades, a counterpoint to the devastating pleasure of him filling her, stretching her, owning her. The hand at her throat tightened another fraction, cutting off her air for a breathtaking second before easing. The dark edges of her vision sparkled, merging with the stars above.
Edward’s pace became erratic, brutally fast. He was chasing it, trying to fuck away a century of pain. She felt him swell inside her, felt the imminent, taut coil of his release. She was right there with him, hurdling toward the edge.
“Cum for me,” he demanded, his voice a ragged ruin. “Cum on your husband’s cock, you perfect, fucking nightmare.”
The command, the raw filth of it, was the final key. Her orgasm ripped through her, a silent, seismic convulsion that clamped down on him like a vice. She arched off the roof, a choked scream leaking from her lips. The intense, pulsing grip of her was his undoing. With a final, deep grind, he buried himself and came, a hot, liquid flood that spurted inside her as he groaned her name into the crook of her neck.
He collapsed on top of her, his weight a crushing, welcome anchor. They lay there on the cold, dirty roof, slick with sweat and come, his softening cock still inside her, his hand gently loosened from her throat to caress the line of her jaw. The city’s lights blurred below them.
After a long while, he shifted, pulling out. The night air felt shockingly cold on their exposed skin. He helped her up, wordlessly handing her clothes. They dressed in silence, the earlier violence transmuted into a heavy, spent calm.
Back inside the safe house, the others were preparing. Aris looked up from a circuit board, his eyes sharp. He took in their disheveled hair, the raw energy that still pulsed around them. “Well?”
Edward walked to the sink, splashed water on his face. He didn’t look at Aris. “She’s on point for aerial interference. We move at 0300. Pack the dampeners for her scream unless you want your ears to bleed.”
Aris merely nodded, a flicker of satisfaction in his eyes. Jimmy avoided looking at them entirely, focusing intensely on packing wire coils into a duffel bag.
Consuelo went to the bedroom. She needed to feel the phantom ache between her legs, to let the memory of his hands on her throat settle into her bones like armor. She opened the small wardrobe they’d filled with mall clothes. Her fingers bypassed the dark, practical gear and settled on something else.
She laid it on the bed: a vintage-style, deep crimson corset, and a pair of fitted black tactical pants. It was a statement, a fusion of then and now, of the weapon and the woman. She would meet Charles not as a faded memory or a contained housewife, but as the Terror, fully awakened.
From the living room, she could hear Edward’s low, commanding voice beginning the mission briefing. She touched the photograph she’d left on the nightstand, the one of him smiling. Then she began to dress, each hook and strap a deliberate step toward the night’s work. The echoes of his possession still throbbed within her, a powerful, dark fuel.