Project Apex (26 page)

Headlights flashed over the window, and she ducked away out of sight, despite being on the second floor and invisible from her place in the shadows. The flatbed truck rolled towards the factory, kicking up dust in its wake. Suvari felt her stomach somersault as the truck came to a halt, and two men jumped off the back. They were joined by the driver. The two men from the back were armed with weapons, a baseball bat and machete respectively. The driver had a shotgun, which he carried leaning on his shoulder, barrel pointed straight up. All three men had their faces covered. The two from the back were wearing balaclavas, the driver wore a bandana over his mouth and nose and a grubby red baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. She watched as they spoke and gestured at the building, snatches of words making it impossible for her to understand what they were saying.

Please move on, please move on, please move on

She repeated it to herself, mouthing the words silently. Her request went unanswered, however as the three men entered the building.

"Quickly, hide," she whispered in the dark.

The children looked back at her, unmoving, perhaps through fear, maybe through misunderstanding.

"Go now, hurry!" she said, ushering them towards the hulking, rusted machinery which was long dead.

They moved, this time, not in response to Suvari, but the sounds of the men who they could now hear, their voices echoing through the building. Suvari made sure they were all hidden, then closed the door to the machine room. If anyone was to be found, she would make sure it was her and not the children. She moved to an office down the hall, papers and folders strewn across the floor and forgotten, the smell of damp and rot clinging to her throat as fear made her breathe in great ragged gasps. The office was furnished only with a broken desk and an empty filing cabinet, neither of which would stop her from being seen. She turned back, intending to try one of the other rooms, kicking herself for not mapping out the building layout or an escape route, when she heard them coming, heavy boots on steps, hushed chatter. She saw their elongated shadows appear and knew she was trapped. The only option she had was to go back to the machine room, and she wasn’t prepared to do that. Left with no choice, she waited for them to come.

She locked eyes with the first of them as he came around the corner. It was one of the ones from the back of the truck, the one with the machete. He seemed surprised to see her. For a second, there was silence, the two locked in eye contact, which was broken when the man spoke.

"What are you doing here? Who are you with?" he barked as he strode towards her.

She couldn’t move, and no words came to mind as she stood and stared. He grabbed her by the arm, his grip strong. "Who are you with? Who brought you here?"

She still couldn’t answer, and could hear the others coming now, jogging up the steps to join their friend. She tried to squirm away, but the man was too strong, his eyes glaring from the holes in his balaclava. The others had joined their friend, and were surrounding her in the corridor, all barking questions at her at the same time.

Suvari flinched away, fear hot and bitter in the back of her throat. She could smell sweat and alcohol, and beneath that something else. Something coppery. Fear took over then, and she lashed out, scratching at the face of the one holding the machete and contacting only with the fuzzy mask covering his head.

He grunted, and slapped her hard across the face, making white stars dance across her field of vision. She felt them bundle her to the floor, each goading the other on as she kicked and screamed.

"Hold her down," The one she'd scratched said as he set the machete on the floor and started to unfasten his jeans. "I’m going to teach this bitch a lesson in respect."

Suvari thought of her sister, of the haunted look in her eyes which had inspired her to escape the same fate. If she had been alone, she would have fought, but she had the children to think of. They were her responsibility and she had to do right by them. Perhaps if she let them have their way. They would go away and leave her alone. She relaxed her body and stopped struggling.

"Alright, that's better," the one with the gun said. "I want to go second."

"You went second on the last one," Baseball bat said. "It's my turn."

"Alright, whatever. Just get on with it."

Machete pulled his pants down and clambered on top of her, snatching at her jeans. She remained calm, trying to drift away in her mind to a distant place, somewhere away from what was about to happen to her. She thought of the beach, of white sands and cool oceans.

He climbed on top of her and pushed inside

She thought of cool drinks and beautiful foods, perhaps a beach barbecue with her friends and family back in the civilised world.

He was thrusting now, face buried against her neck, hot, foul smelling breath on her skin as he violated her.

She drifted deeper, trying to recall the comforts of her life which seemed so distant, so far away. The comfort of her own bed. Cable TV. Itunes. Fast food. Simple things to anyone else, but proof to her that she had escaped the slums and made something of herself.

His motion was increasing now. Eyes bulging as he thrust against her, increasing in speed as his friends cheered him on.

Fortunately, it didn’t take long, and he exploded within her, grabbing a handful of her hair as his body tensed. Tears rolled down her face and into her ears as he stood and pulled up his trousers, making way for the next of his friends, the one with the baseball bat this time. Once again she drifted off to somewhere far away as baseball bat followed his friends lead, only he was much larger and more rough, and she screamed as he raped her, which only seemed to heighten his excitement.

When he was done, he joined his friend, who handed him a cigarette. The two smoked as the last of them took his place, he with the gun and red baseball cap. He clambered onto her, and now no amount of thinking herself away could save her from the horror of what was happening. She might have lay there and let them do as they wanted, knowing when they were done there was a good chance they would kill her.

"Hey, there are kids in here." One of them said, standing at the door to the machine room.

Terror and anger came in quick succession, as did the instinct to protect. She looked up at the leering eyes of her baseball cap clad would be rapist, and something in her snapped.

She reached out and grabbed the discarded machete from the floor beside her, and in one motion, driven by the mixture of emotion surging through her she swung it at her attacker, the blade embedding in his neck.

Blood.

It cascaded, spewing out onto Suvari as her assailant gargled and dropped the gun as he clutched at the blade still hanging from his neck. His friends were too late to realise something was wrong, Baseball Bat only registering Suvari rolling onto her side and firing the weapon a split second before the top half of his head exploded in a shower of blood and bone, his body bouncing off the door frame to the machine room and sliding into a sitting position.

Mr. Machete, realising his weapon was now embedded in his dying friend’s neck, held up his hands. She could hear him pleading, yet couldn’t make out any words under his balaclava, which suited her fine. She was still angry, furious in fact at what he'd done to her, for potentially putting the children in harm’s way. The blood on her was hot, the smell of smoke from the gun strong, the ringing in her ears from its recoil in the confined space making her head throb with dull monotony. Machete took a half step forward, and it was all she needed to justify her actions. She fired. The shot wasn’t as accurate as the first, although it still hit her target. She was so close it would have been almost impossible to miss. He took the full force of the round in the stomach, slamming into the machine room door, which buckled open under the impact.

Machete lay half in, half out of the room, trembling and trying to hold his guts inside his body.

Suvari, on the other hand, was surprisingly calm.

She got to her feet, and walked towards her moaning assailant, sparing a glance at his friends. Red Cap was on his side, eyes open and unblinking, blood pooling around him from the machete wound in his neck. Baseball Bat was a bloody mess, his head a mangled mass of pulpy flesh and bone. Their raping days were over, and now, only one remained. She stood at the door to the machine room at Machete’s twitching feet, he was moaning, and she could see a slick coil of entrails which he wasn’t quite managing to hold in. He was begging for mercy, and yet the throbbing in her groin told her he deserved none. In fact, she felt nothing at all, only a cold indifference towards him. Without any semblance of remorse, she levelled the gun at him waited, making sure he looked at her, ensuring he knew what was coming. She waited until his eyes grew wide in recognition. She pulled the trigger.

The hammer fell on an empty chamber. Frustrated, she opened the gun, flicking the catch and folding the barrel over.

Empty.

Machete was begging now, begging for mercy, begging for help, begging for his mother. Suvari ignored all pleas. Instead, she went back to Red Cap and searched his clothes, checking his pockets for extra shells for the gun he'd been carrying before his demise. She couldn’t find any, and frustrated she tossed the weapon aside. There was a moment of silence apart, of course from the repeated moans of Machete, who was still trying to hold his innards in the hole in his stomach. She knew he was already dead, and that it was just a matter of time, and yet it didn’t quell her rage. Her eyes drifted to the blood spattered baseball bat which had rolled against the wall. Without consciously controlling her actions, she grabbed it and stood, returning to the machine room entrance.

He only grunted once as the first blow came down. She didn’t stop until she could no longer lift her arms and the tears had dried up along with her screams of rage. When it was done, Machete’s face was unrecognisable, a miss-shaped bloody pulp. She tossed the bat aside, the wood echoing against the concrete floor as it rolled into the shadows.

Suvari looked around, and saw the children looking at her, eyes wide and frightened.

Frightened of her.

She could only imagine how she must look, covered in blood after just murdering three men, three fellow human beings. She told herself they deserved it, yet it didn’t make things any easier. Her stomach rolled, and she thought it was a good thing she hadn’t eaten anything for so long, or she might have vomited.

"Come on," she said, surprised how steady and even her voice was. "We have to go."

The children followed without question, and she wondered if it was because they still wanted her as their protector or because they were afraid of what she would do if they didn’t.

"Don’t look, keep your eyes on me," She said, and then paused. "Wait here for a second."

She went back into the corridor and back to Red Cap. She went through his pockets again, this time finding what she was looking for, then returned to the children.

"Ok, come on. Remember, don’t look at anything but me."

She led them down the hall, past those she had killed. Despite her orders, she knew the children had looked. She heard them gasp, some started to cry, which cut her deep and caused her more pain than the physical assault she had just endured. She briefly asked herself what might come of it, about what vile diseases these men carried who had raped her. She pushed it aside, telling herself there was nothing she could do about it now either way. She led them downstairs, through the building and to the flatbed truck. She helped the children inside who obeyed wordlessly, the expression on their faces betraying their silence.

They were afraid of her.

Suvari climbed into the cab, and closed the door, seeing herself in the mirror for the first time since the attack. Her face was a mask of blood, but she was still the same Suvari, or at least, for the most part. There was something different in her eyes, she could see that much for herself, and yet couldn’t put a finger on what it was. Using the keys she had taken from Red Cap’s pocket, she started the van. She had no idea where she was going, and in a way, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the children and keeping them safe. Putting the truck into gear, she pulled away into the night as the city continued to burn at her back.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

IRAQ FOOTHILLS

AFGHANISTAN

IT WAS ALREADY HOT. Branning had watched as the sky turned from black to purple then orange and finally blue as the sun crept over the horizon line. Drenched in sweat, he walked alongside Hamada, tense and sharp, ready for anything. Despite their agreement to work together in order to recruit Hamada’s men, there was nothing even remotely close to trust. One thing which did amaze Branning was that up in the craggy landscape of rocks, you could almost forget the world was in chaos. It was already well over thirty-eight degrees, and the punishing heat of the day was showing no sign of abating.

"How far?" Branning asked, snatching for breath. He had removed his t- shirt and tied it around his head to keep the sweat from running into his eyes. The pale green material now a few shades darker.

"Not long," Hamada said. "My men should be close."