“What do you want to make it even?” Case yells back.

My attention snaps to my right. Case is not far from me. Maybe twenty or thirty feet.

“Oh, we are not to negotiations yet, friend.” Garrett laughs. I know he’s crouching down on the other side of the truck, out of view of Case’s sniper scope. Garrett’s told me stories of the Company assassins. Ruthless men. Inhuman. And extremely bent on finishing the job once they start.

What is Case’s job here?

Jesus, Sydney. You really are dumb.

I pull myself together and take my attention back to Garrett. He’s still hiding behind the truck, playing it safe. “Don’t you want to know how poor Sasha has fared since her captivity?” he yells. “Let’s compare prisoners, shall we Case? You fucked Sydney, right? I mean, that was in the plan, so I know for sure you did.”

And there it is. I am nothing but Case’s job and Garrett’s plan.

“If you raped Sasha,” Case growls, “I will string you up from a tree and let the wolves eat you alive.”

“Semantics, Case. I gave you Sydney to play with. You’ve had her for weeks. I’ve only had Sasha a day.” Garrett laughs. “She can fill you in later if you save her. We’ll see how that goes. So don’t get on your high horse about what I did to Sasha. Sydney didn’t exactly want to let you take her v-card. But in the end, she gave in. Because if there’s one thing that Sydney is that Sasha is not, it’s malleable. She bends. This one here, not very bendy. She’s a fighter, huh, Case? Did you teach her that? Or her father? Did you know I planned that whole night? Hell, did you know I’ve been planning your demise since the day you shot my girl?”

“She wasn’t your girl.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. You wanted her too. But instead of accepting the fact that she was mine, you decided to kill her.”

Silence from Case. I have never heard this story. Even though my head is every sort of fucked up from all the lies and manipulation, I know I’ve never heard this story.

Case steps out into the open, his rifle in front of him, like an offering.

Garrett peeks up over the top of the truck and he smiles as he walks around the front end.

Sasha is lying on the ground in a tied-up heap. She has no coat on and it’s freezing out here. No gloves. Her face looks half frozen already, since it’s planted firmly in the snow. Her eyes are wild when she sees Case, and she starts kicking her feet.

“Let her go, Garrett. She has nothing to do with any of that.” Case’s voice is steady but low. Like he’s raging inside and one wrong move will set him off.

“Oh,” Garrett laughs. He’s dressed in top-to-bottom white snow gear, just like me. I feel like we’re a team just looking at us. It makes me sick. “You killed my girl, Case.” He removes a gun from his pants and points it at Sasha’s head. Case readies his rifle again. “We were soldiers. We follow orders.”

“She was twelve fucking years old!”

“Just like Sasha. Is that why you really saved her that night, Case? Sydney told me under the drugs what you said to her that night. You’d be back? That’s what you told her?” Garrett laughs. “You set this whole thing up. It was the perfect opening. A path to revenge.”

“I undid Sydney,” Case says.

“You sure did,” Garrett snarls. “You did it just right, Case. Fucked her up even more than I could ever hope, I’m sure. You’re the best, huh? I always knew you’d come through.”

Listening to these two men talk about me like I’m a thing is the most degrading moment of my life. Worse than Case fucking the virgin out of me. Worse than being drugged and manipulated by Garrett to do his bidding. I’m not even a person in their eyes.

“Our orders, Case, were to kill the mother and take the daughter to make an example of them. I did my part—”

“You raped that woman. Tied her up in a shed and kept her for days before you killed her.”

“—your part was to hand the daughter over to me.”

“I asked her whether she wanted to go with you or die. She chose death, Garrett. She would rather die than be with you. That’s why I killed her.”

Garrett shakes his head slowly and with a disgusting smile on his face. “I think you really believe you did the right thing back then. I really do, Case. So let’s see if you can do the right thing again today. Your choice back then was to let me have her or kill her. So your choice today is…” He stops to huff out a laugh and a shiver runs down my spine. Because I already know what he’s gonna say. “Kill her”—he nods to Sasha—“or let me take her away. Alive.”

“Or,” Case says, his voice still that low rumble that’s just on the verge of wild, “I kill you and she leaves with me. Alive.”

“That will never happen, Merc.” Garrett uses his trade name like they are friends, and it makes Case stiffen, as I’m sure it was intended.

“How do you figure?”

And then Garrett looks straight at me and stretches out his arm. He points to me, beckoning.

Case backs up, his rifle still trained on Garrett, and realizes I’m still in the game.

“Because the acorn never falls far from the tree.”

“Sometimes all you can do is fire that gun and pray your aim is true.”

– Sydney

My whole world spins as those words echo through my head.

The acorn never falls far from the tree.

My two guns are in my hand before I even realize I’ve pulled them out. My feet carry me out towards Garrett and Case. But only one man is being targeted.

Case.

The other gun is aimed at Sasha.

We had my trigger word wrong the whole time. Case never undid me, it was a trap. The whole thing was set up by Garrett to be a trap.

“Sydney,” Case says off to my right. “Sydney, listen to me. Remember when we talked about what he did, Sydney? He brainwashed you. He just triggered you.”

I know this. I know with every fiber of my being that I’m on autopilot. But I can’t stop. I’m not even sure I want to stop. Case ruined my life. I was sixteen years old. The brainwashing had worn off again. It was an opening, a crucial moment in time where things could go either way. Salvation or damnation.

Case chose damnation. He damned me to hell that night. All to save that girl out there in the snow. I was a job and he never finished it. I wasn’t worth it to him. I was nothing to him then and I’m nothing to him now. I lied, Sydney. But if you stay real still and go back to sleep, you’ll never have to think about it again.

“Sydney,” Garrett says, and glances at me for just the splittest of seconds. “If he makes one move towards me—”

Case takes the opportunity and gets off one shot, right through Garrett’s gun hand. Garrett spins as flesh and weapon go flying, drops to the ground, holding his injury as blood spurts out where fingers used to be. He lowers his eyes for a moment and catches his breath. And then he looks up. And the evil in those eyes makes me want to piss myself. “You’re gonna regret that.” His voice is even and steady as ever. “Shoot him, Sydney.”

Case takes a step towards Sasha, his gun aimed at Garrett, but my itchy trigger finger stops him. Sasha yelps as snow and ice splatter across her face from the shot that misses her by inches. And the bullet from the other gun flies past Case, because when I look over, he’s still alive.

What the fuck am I doing? Oh my God, I almost killed them.

“Finish her,” Garrett says, “and then shoot Case.”

My head floods with chaos. Memories. Violence. And more. So, so much more. Humiliation and servitude. My life is a living nightmare.

I have to blink my eyes to stop the spinning.

“Sydney,” Case says. The world is in slow motion as I turn my head. His rifle is trained on me. “Sydney,” he says again. It comes out in slow motion too. Syyyyyddd-neeeee. I find his face, just in time to watch his mouth move. “Hush,” he says. “Huuuuuuuush.”