Page 1 of Three
prologue
TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO
Project: Blood Assassin
Subject: Three
Day: 640
Time: 15:45
The isolation of all the subjects has begun to yield the desired results.
Subject Three's response to our methods has morphed into a full-body shutdown.
The subject’s coping mechanism for dealing with distress has turned Three physically and mentally unresponsive. It could be temporary. Or could create long-lasting consequences, such as emotional dysregulation and complete numbing, which would be in our favor. Emotional disconnection is part of our goal.
Yesterday’s waterboarding methods did not seem to work the way we expected. Three experienced cardiac arrest, and we had touse a defibrillator to revive the subject.
Today, we will try one more time with electric shock. I am curious to see if the subject’s physical numbness has progressed. It could be turned to our advantage, as the subject’s total mental detachment has been.
Though Three’s indifference has reached a complete disinterest in most things, the subject gives a slight reaction when witnessing violence. It is a good starting point.
Three’s unwillingness to eat is becoming quite annoying. We will have to switch IV fluids with tube feedings if the subject keeps avoiding food.
We will continue stimulating Three’s body until the subject’s mind gives us a stronger reaction. We will have to use harsher methods and different approaches, probably closer to what we employ with Subject Five.
I’m confident we are on the right path.
one
RAMIEL
PRESENT DAY
March showed up, bringing a strong wind with it. The dead skeletal tree’s branches keep trembling almost ominously under the hazy sky, the sun giving its daily goodbye from behind the run-down buildings. I slide my gloved hand through my wavy reddish-brown locks, trying to tuck a few strands of hair behind my ear. It’s not easy. I might let it grow more.
I shift in the car seat and check myself in the rearview mirror. My beard looks a bit feral now. It’s been months since I last touched it up. The hair has reached down my neck andover my cheek line. The nicknames my brothers like to call me pop into my head: Dumbledore, Cast Away, Big Lebowski. Maybe the time has come to shave it.
I grab my tumbler that readsfresh out of fucks and ducksfrom the cup holder and take a sip of whatever is inside as my eyes once again focus on the gray brick building on the opposite side and down the road.
“Serena, darling, read the heat signatures on the second floor again. Any change?” I ask my AI assistant. The mic on the black bracelet around my wrist allows me to talk to her, and the microchip inside my ear to hear her.
“Give me a moment,” she replies. The familiarity of hearing her sweet voice has the power to calm me down. “Still four heat signatures.”
Stakeouts are always a bore. I usually have one of my brothers to joke around with, but today, I don’t feel like my jesting-self. I need some peace and quiet, and what better place than this old, inconspicuous van while keeping an eye on my target, which my brothers and I refer to as a donor. I’m looking forward to working on him—and when I saywork, I mean make him pay…with blood. His blood. It might sound wrong according to our societal norms, but society-shmociety.
After what I and my six foster brothers endured when we were kids, I believe that wanting to purge pestilential evil from the world is a consequential side effect which can’t be denied.
Plus, it feels fucking good.
I was five when I was abducted and then experimented on for years—together with six other kids, my foster brothers,bloodbrothers, just annoying bros: Raph, Michael, Rague, Uri, Sari and Gabe. Until our foster mothers, Linda and Meg, saved us and tried to raise us to be respectable, self-sufficient individuals. On the surface, we are suitable by society’s standards. But if you look deeper, we are all really fucked up in one way or another.
I always thought, though, that all the pain we suffered gave us a purpose. And I’m going to fulfill it once again very soon. The donor I’m waiting for calls himself a hitman. But he’s just a sick fuck who enjoys torturing and killing his victims’ loved ones in front of them. I’m going to ask him a few questions very soon. I might use the bushhammer and some rusted nails to loosen his tongue. Or even better, those new shiny, pain-giver-looking pliers I bought.
“Two heat signatures are exiting the building.” Serena’s voice drags me out of my gory fantasies.
And there he is, the sick fuck, taking his last walk. He’s with another guy.
