Leon
+1+
“Day three we arrive in New Aeterna and drive through the U.S – New Aeterna border during peak time. They don’t check passports that closely so they won’t notice our fakes. There is a depot where we can ditch the rig for a few hours. Then it’s a matter of me talking Aria into getting Bless’ schedule for the day. He usually gives a daily speech at one of four locations. Once we get the location of Bless’ speech. We take him down en route.”
I finish talking and Troy nods his head in agreement. I step back from the table where my plan is laid out. I catch a breeze from the high powered fans in the corner of the command center and intel tent set up in the compound courtyard. I pour myself a cup of strong coffee while the guys look over my plan to assassinate Bless.
The plan was simple. We’d drive a truck across the country and through the New Aeterna border using fake call sheets. We’d secretly load the truck with whoever and whatever we would need to carry out the assassination. It’d be easy enough to move through the borders…I knew from experience people tended to ignore American truck drivers.
“I think I can get us a truck from a coyote. Maybe an eighteen wheeler?” Troy suggests, “That the kind of thing you need for this plan?”
I nod and Troy brightens at that little show of encouragement from me.
“Yeah, I still got a trucker alias I haven’t burned so I can drive the truck.” I tell him.
Helios looks up from where he is taking calls on his satellite phone. I’d quickly noticed Helios’ secured industrial laptops and satellite phone is the only communications in the compound. Yesterday I heard a rumor a young American had been caught by Eos with an operational iPhone and the American hadn’t been seen since
“No perches”, Helios says joining our conversation, “This isn’t an assassination. It’s a hit. I want this done execution style. Close range. I want Bless to see his death.”
“We’d just have to make sure his family isn’t around”, I offer.
“His family is collateral damage”, Eos says from his place next to Helios.
“I don’t kill children”, Sera says. She’d settled in a chair in a corner of the tent all afternoon with her back to the room, “You also you forgot the part where I don’t want to kill Bless. Especially not close range”
“Sera.”, Helios says in a calm voice that is laced with impatience, “This is a crusade. We are all going to do things that will haunt us. And if I have to kill Leon’s children in front of him because you want to be insubordinate then you are going to have to live with that. Both of us will.”
Sera raises her voice a little. “Helios, if you keep using those girls as leverage I’ll kill them myself to ---“
“Shut the fuck up Sera”, I growl at the back of her chair, “That’s my family you are talking about. Don’t you ever talk about my girls like that again, do you fucking hear me?”
“Leon—“, she says a bit of shock registering in her voice. I know she didn't mean it.
“Get over whatever moral high horse you are on, Seraphina.” I grab the back of her chair and forcefully turn her to face the men in the room, “It’s over. You are going to kill Bless. If you care about me at all. Just a little bit …you’ll do it.”
“And if I don’t”, she says because she is stubborn bitch.
“If I lose my family, then I might as well go back to the only family I have”
I force myself to stand up a little bit straighter and stand by Helios’s left side. I felt connected to that spot. I’d stood there for nearly a century. It felt good. Easy. Sera stands as if she’s about to say something but instead she heads out of the tent. No one goes after her because at this point she’s accepted that there is no escape.
---
After the successful hit on Salazar I’d been requested in the intel and command center tent where Eos and Troy where planning Bless’ assassination.
It was kind of a relief not being in tight quarters with Seraphina in that closed off bedroom. Things had been….off between us since the Salazar hit. I was trying to survive and keep my family alive. I couldn’t be reckless. She just didn’t know how to play it cool until we could escape. I knew it was better to make friends than enemies. Seraphina just knew how to make enemies.
It wasn’t that I wanted to plan Bless’ assassination, but it was easier to go along with Helios until we could escape. I was also fucking good at it. Truth was Eos and Troy needed all the help they could get. It had taken me two days to devise a plan they’d been spending months on.
Sera and I had been given a bit more freedom around the compound. Although Helios forbade any of his men from removing her handcuffs. Helios let us out of our room during the day and we were free to join the other soldiers in the courtyard and train with the militia. After breakfast at Helios’ table we’d join the other men in physical training. Sera doing the best she could while handcuffed just to spite Helios. A lot of humans couldn’t hack the SGI physical training regiment. If Helios was particularly displeased he’d have Eos and Troy drag the men who were falling behind inside the compound for some unknown punishment.
Afterward we’d mill around not talking to each other, just trying to catch bits of gossip or unrest. I’d deal myself into a card game or offer to mend an injury. I kept Sera by my side so she wouldn’t cause trouble, she would mostly just stare. Watching the bustling courtyard and this makeshift army with zero empathy or emotion behind her eyes.
She wore a baseball cap and I wrapped her face every other day to cover her burns. None of the men hassled her, there wasn’t much to give a second look except the way the cropped tank top showed off her slightly curved waist now that she didn’t have access to steroids.
The courtyard during peak hours looks more like a prison yard. Tables and military ops tents haphazardly thrown together for the skilled soldiers to work on communications, weapons, intel and strategy. It’s a scrappy operation. Everyone’s clothes are worn, none of the equipment is new and because water is scarce there is a thick layer of grime on everything and everyone.
Fights break out regularly over moonshine stashes, food and shade in the courtyard. At first I wondered why anyone would stay but then Helios would give an impassioned speech promising riches, power and comforts beyond belief. And they believed him…because he’d done it before.
-2-
I follow Sera out of the tent. She settles in a rare shaded corner smoking. As a peace offering Helios had given her two cigarettes a day and an electric lighter figuring she couldn’t burn anything down with it. She’d gotten surprisingly good at smoking in handcuffs. The cheap cigarette clasped tightly between her fingers.
“What was that bullshit”, she asks as I approach. I notice the other men around the yard watching her from a distance. No one was brave enough to cross Helios’s strict rule of not sexual assaulting women. There were actually a few men with injuries like hers, taking a stun gun to the face was clearly a favorite punishment of his.
“Sera, my family is in danger. I just can’t have you saying shit like—“
“Not that. You looked…comfortable standing next to Helios. These past few days you’ve been working with him. It’s like you want back in.”
I shrug it off.
“I'm working with Troy. It’s nothing. I’m buying time since you keep pissing Helios off.”
Seraphina looks around to make sure no one is listening, she drops the cigarette butt on the ground and stamps it out.
“Where do you think Paris is?", she whispers, "Once we find him we can get the fuck out of here… if that’s what you even want.”
“Sera—“
“You dragged me back to him.” she reminds me, “I was trying to run and you dragged me back to him. To this hell. I really need to know whose side are you on.”
“Yours”, I say because that is the most honest answer, “I had to do it Sera. I can’t lose my family.”
“Well…” she struggles to reaches for the second cigarette, “I…”
“What?”
“I’m your family too. When you dragged me back...it was like I didn’t recognize you.”
“I—I know.” I say, “But let’s just finish this one job for Helios first. It’ll be easier to escape if we have his trust. “
“Killing the Prime Minister isn’t just a job.” She says leaning against the wall.
“I have nothing against Bless but... maybe they’ll give Paris his old job back in the interim if Bless is gone.”
“I’m not killing Bless. I don’t want to be Helios’ assassin or whatever.” She puts the second cigarette in her mouth and leaves in there unlit.
“You know”, I say leaning in, “I notice…Helios has a lot of intel. He keeps it on those two laptops.”
She nods having spent the past three days with me watching Helios comes into the tent each morning with the laptops.
“He’s probably got some good shit on there”, I continue, “He’s probably got state secrets for every nation. Stuff we could use to get our SGI off the ground”
“You shouldn’t look”, she says fishing the lighter out from her waistband with her bound wrist, she maneuvers it to her fingers and lights the cigarette.
“Why not?” I ask.
“…what if there’s something on there that makes Helios justified in killing Bless.”
“You don’t trust Bless?” I ask as she slips the lighter back into her waistband
“I don’t trust any politicians.” She says blowing smoke rings.
“Not even your husband?”
“Especially not him.”
+3+
I consider this as Kav and Pilos make their way to us. Two Helions I remembered training in SGI’s old days. Around the compound they usually complained loudly about have two prisoners free on the grounds.
“I think you need to take a smoke break somewhere else”, Kav says. He was one of the younger Helions but he seems to have clout over the humans. He is carrying a box of gun parts, he has the unenviable tasks of working with Jorgen to build guns and grenades from scrap metal.
Sera tilts her head, clearly in no rush to leave the rare shady spot.
“Hey”, Kav says again dropping the box of scrap metal and getting into her face, “Look sweetheart some of us have work today, we can’t just sit around our perfect ass and do nothing—“
“Get the fuck out of my face”, Sera snaps breaking her usual cool silence when the men talked to her.
“You wanna try that again with some respect?” Kav demands.
She rolls her eyes, “Get out of my motherfucking face”
“You think you can talk to me you demonfucking cunt”, He says looking both ways to make sure Helios doesn’t hear him, “Helios has lost his damn mind. We know the rumors about you, girl. You should burn in hell for what you did to ‘Memnon and Titus—“
I don’t move fast enough to stop Seraphina from lunging at him, Kav clearly anticipates the fight and lands a fist right in her face. She lifts her arms forgetting they are cuffed and Kav lands another hit. She falls and Kav raises a boot to stomp on her jaw but she catches his sole with her forearms and uses her upper body strength to push him over. She pushes herself up and Kav is up for the count too. Sera pulls hard on her handcuffs and there is a slight ping as the chain breaks.
“Shit”, slips out of my mouth at the sound of those handcuffs breaking.
Pilos tries to warn Kav, but before Kav can register that she broke her fucking handcuffs she hits him and I hear the bones in his nose crack. The two collide and pull each other down in a tangled mess. Kav was always a strong and skilled fighter, but the thing was (and I now knew this having shown my own daughter) Sera fought like a girl. She fought for her life; she dug her nails into this eyes, bit any exposed skin and would land a blow whenever his crotch was open. She rammed her elbow into his solar plexus and his hands went slack, she attempted to clamor away but he grabbed her ankle.
Sera twisted and turned in his grasp until she was on top and used her weight to her advantage, he bucked underneath her and she hit him once, twice, three times. He was out cold but she still didn’t stop landing blow after blow. I immediately jump in and a few humans try to help me pull her off Kav, her fist are stained red and when we finally get her up she spits on him.
“What the hell is going on here”, the crowd easily parts for Helios. He looks at Kav on the ground. No…he looks at Kav’s body and back at Sera. She seems to realize what she’d done but the horror of beating a man do death never crosses her face. Just like the pain of losing a fellow Angel never crosses Helios.
Eos hands Helios a pair of thicker steel handcuffs. Wordlessly, Helios cuffs Seraphina’s left wrist and drags her across the courtyard, it happens so suddenly she doesn’t put up a fight. He unceremoniously cuffs her to one of the exposed water pipes, right out in the middle of the blazing sun. I hover by Helios.
“The heat”, Helios says, “This isn’t your punishment.”
Sera averts her eyes.
“Fuck Kav”, Helios continues, “Your punishment is knowing I will never forgive you for what you did to Titus. And that if you kill another one of my Helions…I will bring your son here and you can be trapped together again. He will learn the glory he should have had as a Helion.”
Helios unfolds one of Arrow’s school pictures. Seraphina looks away…I don’t think she’d even glimpsed him in 2 years. He leaves it there out of her reach and heads back to the tent.
I pick up the picture so she won’t have to look at it. There is nothing else I can do so I head back to intel and command. Eos and Troy are still putting together logistics for my plan but I barley hear it. If Helios had a current picture of Arrow, it meant Helios had information. Good information all stored on those laptops. When the sun hits its peak I bring Seraphina some water, if any of the guys have an issue with it they don’t say anything. Then I head back to work.
+++
The end of the work day can’t come fast enough. I jump when Troy sets down a shot glass next to me. He pours in some scotch and slides it over. Troy had been a spindly young kid last time I saw him 16 years ago. Now he was all brawn and muscle. The sun had bleached his beard of color but his eyes…those were still inquisitive.
“It never felt right that you weren’t there during the Regime”, Troy says
I sip and listen.
“I mean if anyone should have been there with Helios during our glory days of New Aeterna…it should have been you.”
“Had my own fucking glory days.” I tell him.
“I don’t get it Leon…how could you leave us for a Demon and that whore?” This could be a test. Maybe Helios sent him to test my loyalty. Still, there was a part of me that thought I could bring him to the right side, “I mean what the fuck is with Paris Prince not telling humans he’s a demon.”
I shrug
“Paris never told them he was an Angel. People just never asked.”
I turn back to work, going over the schematics we would need for the rig to transport us to New Aeterna.
“Dinner’s in five.” Troy pushes his chair back and pulls a key from his belt, “You notice Eos today? He’s trying to copy you? Acting like he cares about intel or planning…I heard Helios is ready to demote him. Just an FYI. You might get your old spot back.”
“That’s so”, I say hating the thrill that runs through me
“After dinner we drive out to some fuckin shit-hole. Girls will do anything for 20 bucks if you want to come.”
“You know Helios doesn’t like that shit.”
I walk with Troy as
he unlocks Seraphina’s cuffs, Helios had left her out in the Mexican sun for
nearly six hours. I help her up and she
can barely stand. She keeps her arms around me as I walk with Troy to Helios’
table. We pass the line of lower-level Angels and humans waiting impatiently
outside for the pot of beans and leeks to heat up being served by the old man from the kitchens.
Once inside the compound Sera lets me go and begins to crawl/walk upstairs when a voice stops her.
“Seraphina”, Helios calls from the hallway, “Join us.”
It’s not a request.
Sera’s jaw tightens and she turns, heading down the steps towards Helios.
“Seraphina”, Helios says, “Tomorrow I want you to get acquainted with the gun Jorgen’s manage to put together for you. If we’re doing this assassination close range…it has to be done right the first time. Do you understand?”
Her eyes cut to me briefly
“Yes, sir.”
“Sir?” Helios says amused, “I like that.”
“I bet you do.” And the gravel in her voice from all the smoking makes the response sound more flirtatious than it should.
Helios begins to stay something back but Sera just heads up the stairs. Helios smiles to himself heads into the dining room.
I follow.
+4+
The next day I mind Seraphina while she trains with Jorgen. I walk with her to the makeshift armory that was probably a gardening shed in another life. It’s stacked with bins of gun parts, broken arrows and chipped knives. Sera runs her hand along an automatic crossbow Jorgen had tinkered together with loose parts and scrap metal.
“Revolution ain’t what it used to be.” I say looking at the rusted out pieced together weapons
“We’ll get our riches in the next life.” Jorgen says typing in a ten digit code on a lock that opens a locked closet serving as the armory safe. Inside the safe is six finished assault rifles and semi-automatics. More importantly there are shelves of ammunition and crossbows.
Sera nudges me and I notice a case of white gold bullets that had been manufactured by the Demons just before the regime. Those were rare finds. Sera makes a slight eye gesture towards the weapons again. I nod. If we were going to get out of here we needed those white gold bullets.
I think fast but sloppily
“Bitch”, I shove Seraphina into Jorgen’s work table before he locks the closet. Sera “loses” her balance a little then shoves her shoulder into me hard.
“Get your hands off me.” Sera snaps.
I shove her again this time into the armory safe, she fake trips and knocks down the shelves of guns and ammo.
“SHIT”, Jorgen yells scrambling to right the shelves. While Jorgen scrambles to reorganize Sera pushes a few scattered bullets towards me and I tuck a few plus a knife into my belt.
“She came after me.”, I say once Jorgen has the armory safe organized again, “She’s just jealous Helios is letting me back in.”
“He wouldn’t put up with you for a fucking second if I wasn’t here”, she says and even though we are fake fighting to distract Jorgen, that one hits.
We make to fight again but Jorgen gets in the way.
“Drop it.”, Jorgen says, “Sluts not worth it.”
Sera spits in his face and Jorgen backhands her.
“Always just a slut until your cock wants to get wet”, she
says the anger real this time.
“Shut the fuck up,” Jorgen says, “You don’t need to talk for target practice.”
Despite her injuries Sera’s eyes are still good. Jorgen unlocks her handcuffs and gives her the gun Helios wanted to be used to kill Bless. It’s made from scrap parts so it takes her time to get used to it. She shoots down four vultures and a mean venomous looking lizard that sneaks up on us. Helios gets a full report from Jorgen when we get back.
“You’re doing good Seraphina. Jorgen gave you high marks”, Helios says. It’s an awkward follow-up meeting in Helios’ room/office. His room is simple with full bed, dresser and a cluttered desk. I note the two satellite laptops that he brings down to the tent are underneath the bed--which looks like it’s never been slept in. There are file cabinets in the closet.
Helios’ satellite phone rings and he curses when he sees the number. He orders us out the room and I hear something about ‘Ohio’ before we are ushered back to our room.
After another dinner at Helios’ table Sera and I are locked in for the night. We’d fallen into a strange routine of letting the water run clear in the bathroom while we beat the roaches out of the sheets. I’d wash off first then help Sera, who was always cuffed, out of her clothes. I always say a prayer for my girls before falling asleep.
This time I don’t let myself fall asleep. I wait until it’s around 2am and get out of bed.
Sera stirs but I hold her still.
“Shhh”, I whisper, “I’ve got a plan. Go back to sleep.”
I pad over to the door and knock. I’m glad to see Troy is on shift to watch us.
“What’s going on?” Troy asks.
“I need to talk to Jorgen.”
“You can talk to him in the morning. You’re still a prisoner, Leon.”
“It’s important. It’s about the mission.” I keep my tone neutral. Troy trusts me so he doesn’t pick up the lie.
“Fine”, he sighs, “I need to escort you.”
“Sure you want to leave Sera alone in there? I can go alone.”
Troy looks back at the seemingly asleep Seraphina. “Jorgen’s cot is in the far right corner by the busted A/C. Don’t take too long”
I head down the steps and move among the raggedy cots and lumbering sleeping men towards the back. I spot Jorgen and tug at him
“What”, Jorgen shakes himself awake.
I hold out my hand and flash some of the white gold bullets I’d stolen earlier.
Jorgen starts awake and closes his hands over them
“Were did you get those?” Jorgen asks.
“I think Sera took them earlier from the armory. We need to get these back before Helios finds out. He’ll flip if he sees these out of the armory safe. He’ll blame you, Jorgen.”
“We should kill her for this—“
“Helios won’t like that either. I’m trying to save you from trouble. Let’s put these back.”
“I’m telling Helios about this.” Jorgen says.
“No you’re not”, I say finding my old bravado, “It’ll cause a fuck ton of trouble. I think I know best…I don’t see you eating at his table. Help me with this and I’ll see if I can get you a seat. No more leeks and beans.”
Jorgen gestures to Troy that he is taking me outside. Jorgen walks with me out to the makeshift armory. Once inside I key into how his fingers moving across the keypad. I get maybe eight of the numbers and commit them to memory. I can maybe fudge two.
Luckily he just tosses the white gold bullets on top of the pile, not noticing the few I still had stashed away in the room.
“What are those for anyway?”
“Traders”, he says slamming the closet door shut.
+++
The next day I follow Sera out of the command tent for her smoke break. The courtyard is overcrowded today because the factory is closed yet there is no one in her shaded spot.
“I got the code to the armory safe”, I say when I’m sure no one can hear, “I also grabbed a knife yesterday…and I still have some of the white gold bullets hidden upstairs. That plus the key is the start of an escape plan.”
“So you do want to escape?” She says.
“Look, Sera. I don’t need your shit”, she raises an eyebrow but stays quiet, “Is it tempting? Being here? Doing my old job ? Doing it damn well? Yeah. But my loyalty is to my family. To you.”
She searches for her next words.
“Good”, she says, “I’ll lose you to the suburbs but not him.”
“You got me”, I say, “Now how the fuck are we getting gout of this.”
“We have to do this like Salazar”, Sea says this time she lets me help her light the cigarette.
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t do anything here”, she explains, “The compound is familiar ground. We have to escapee en route to the Bless assassination.”
So far Eos, Troy, Helios, Sera and I were the only ones on that mission.
The truck Troy borrowed from a coyote was already bring outfitted with hidden compartments to get Sera and Helios across the border. I’d be driving under my trucker alias while Eos and Troy would follow close behind in a non-descript car. Because the plan was to drive across the country to New Aeterna. There were plenty of places we could ambush them.
“Leon”, Sera says and I shake my head to focus, “You okay ?”
“Yeah.”, I start working out a new plan, “If we want to get Paris and get the fuck out of here, I’ve got an idea. Here’s what we are going to do.”
Author’s Note
I know this may be another angsty chapter but one of the things I wanted to get at here, with my super basic feminism themes, is that Helios in chapter 7 when Paris, Leon and Sera are together --Helios has three of his enemies around him but he only has Sera restrained, because he know he has more to worry about on account of that whole “female rage” thing. On a more basic level Helios (like Paris said in an earlier chapter) is using Sera as a weapon but when she has free will…well... she turns quick.
I had to dig deep in the well of Compulsion and Sundays to get the feel I wanted. I also feel like I should hire SHV to write mini-stories about what else is going on at the compound, because I felt like that should be here but I didn’t know how to do it.
Jorgen is another character from Little Rebellions to appear. He was Adonis’ partner.