Page 4 of Ashfall
CHAPTER FOUR
nyx
We push another fifteen kilometers southwest to our shadow base. Nestled outside the tri-border region between Finland and Norway, we’re technically operating within a disputed buffer zone, secure enough that neighboring border control could take us in for refuge due to a prior agreement. They’ve allowed us to build up the base there for the last year, hence the delay with the units being set up and sent over. The truck rolls to a stop, and I hop right out, inhaling the crisp night air as my eyes sweep over the landscape. It still looks uninhabited in the dim light. But I know better. We have a small team of patrols roaming, setting up camp, and locking down the perimeter. Stepping onto this ground feels like walking into my past, the building serving as a bittersweet memory of when I last intercepted an area that looked like this.
The building is an abandoned power substation, partially buried near a hillside forest. Its rusted frame sags, partially collapsed on the east side. But beneath the decay lies a reinforced interior. Civilians don’t dare come near - the rumorsof radiation threats still run wild in the small villages nearby. A fabricated story, one our intel has been carefully nurturing since we infiltrated the area last year. The nearest town sits ten kilometers away, and the roads are unforgiving to anyone without experience navigating the treacherous terrain. Lucky for us, we’ve mastered maneuvering the worst of pathways. Our unit hauls bags from the back of the truck and moves toward a cemented outbuilding, which seems to be where we’re storing our vehicles, keeping them hidden from any overhead surveillance.
Graves stands at the entrance – the substation looming in the background – like a proud father. Arms folded, stance wide, and grin almost touching the creases of his eyes. He barks out directions, assigning rooms whilst a patrol gets his attention, and he chases after them. Hawk takes the lead, and we move through the center of the concrete and metal jungle. A towering metal structure lies ahead, its brown pipes streaked with decay and rust coating the walls. We reach the end of the section and enter a smaller building – this one reasonably more maintained. Stepping inside feels like walking straight into the corridor scene of The Shining, and goosebumps flutter over my arms.
A long, dimly lit stretch of poured concrete on the ground extending a hundred yards before opening into what looks like a seating area. The corridor is tightly packed with makeshift rooms lining both sides. Our improvised sleeping quarters. “Pick a room, any room,” Hawk says, sweeping his arm down the corridor. “You guys are the first in this building, so you get first dibs. Rooms are all the same - bed, chair, table. You get the drift. The two big double doors in the middle section? Bathrooms.”
There are at least ten rooms here, five on each side, judging by the number of doors facing us. “Where’s everyone else camped?” Phantom asks, opening the door to his left for a peek, then crossing to the one opposite, clearly making sureHawk wasn’t bluffing - no one wants the short straw of a shit room. “There’s another two quarters in the center, they’re smaller. That’s where Graves and I, along with the patrols, will be assigned” Hawk answers with a grin. “Don’t worry, I picked this one especially for you bunch of princesses - it’s a bit more modern than the others. Plus, the rooms aren’t as cold.” He shivers for emphasis.
Blitz snorts. “Cold shouldn’t bother you, Hawk. You’re from Britain.” She walks the length of the hall, knocking on doors and tapping walls, testing their sturdiness. Hawk chuckles. “True. Doesn’t mean you ever get used to it,” he admits. I catch the flicker of sadness in his smile. He misses home, we all do. Mine just so happened to come in the form of blue eyes, tatted skin, and aura of shadows.
After my mother died, home never felt the same. My dad’s been in deep cover for the whole six years. We only communicate through letters. He buried himself in work after she was gone, maybe because I was old enough not to need him there all the time. But I still miss him. Sometimes, it feels like I lost him too. I often wonder where he is, what he’s doing. Every time a letter arrives, relief rushes over me, stronger than I ever expect - it’s a sign he’s alive. His letters are always five pages long with life updates, jokes, and advice. They’re a small thread connecting us across the distance.
I told him about Noc when hedied,still unclear about that statement. He shouted at me in all caps - for an entire page. It makes me laugh now just thinking about it. I could picture him furiously scribbling his scolding, frustration practically radiating off the paper. Eventually, he came around - after I sent him ten more pages fighting my case - and he turned up at the home base to visit me. He was only able to visit for twenty-four hours, but the time I got with him gave me the strength I needed to keep going.
He held me the entire time, just letting me be a little girl again, safe in her father’s arms and untouched by the world outside. I haven’t seen him in person since. Duty called him back to his unit. His life is even more shadowed than mine. He’s been in service for twenty-eight years. His clearance levels are off the charts. Once, he neutralized a direct threat to the president. Earned himself a Silver Star. I beamed as bright as the one he received, knowing my mother would’ve been watching, filled with pride. A sad smile graces my lips as I think of him, and I take the room three doors down - just enough distance to avoid the full horror-movie experience of the corridor’s vibe.
I shut the door behind me, dropping my case and large camping bag to the side. The room is bare bones. A cot sits pressed into the left corner, facing me. A small desk and chair are stationed beside it, a framed mirror hanging just above. Along the bottom of the bed, running along the left wall, sits an armory and a wardrobe. I flop onto the mattress, exhaustion pulling at me, tempting me to slip into sleep. We’ve been relieved of duty for the night to settle in, but instead of resting, I grab my phone and text Adam - waiting for him to come by.
I hear him knock on the wrong door: Phantom’s, not mine. "Buzz off," Phantom calls. I laugh to myself; I swear I heard the eyeroll in his voice. "Door to the right, Adam!" I yell, knowing he’ll hear me. Adam steps inside and flops into the armchair beside my bags. “Well, this placereallyis the Four Seasons, isn’t it?” he says, arms crossed, scanning the room with mock appreciation, like he’s trying to convince himself it’s decent. I bark out a laugh. “You’ll get used to it, buddy.” Adam hasn’t been out on as many deployments as the rest of us. He’s usually stationed at base, watching the scene unfold from inside home turf.
This is his first real deployment with Ashfall. He doesn’t realize yet that thisisthe Four Seasons compared to the swampsI’ve stayed in before. We’ve had a base created as we’re in it for the long game. “Think they do room service?” he deadpans. I laugh again, sitting up to look at him properly. He’s 5’11, his skin carrying that natural underlying medium tan from his heritage. He looks skinny at first, but he’s pretty lean. Since coming here, he’s bulked up a bit, throwing himself into our training regime. Before this, once he qualified in the military, he stepped back from the full intensity of fieldwork, choosing mayhem in the form of coding.
I take a deep breath, deciding I might as well shoot my shot. "Adam, I need a favor. No pressure, but I’d really appreciate your help." I peek up at him through my lashes, pulling my knees up, wrapping my arms around them - instinctively defensive, and suddenly feeling vulnerable - I hate it. "I think I know what you’re going to ask," Then, without another word, he gets up and walks out. Well, I wasn’t expecting that. He didn’t even let me explain. Panic tightens in my chest -what is he doing? Did he investigate Noc himself? Did he report it? I push up off the bed just as a small commotion erupts in the hall.
"Damn it, Adam!She’s next door!" Phantom shouts. Twice now in thirty minutes; nobody messes with his rest time and lives to tell the tale. Adam barrels into my room, laptop in hand, slamming the door shut behind him. His face is drawn in annoyance. "Don’t look at me like that," I say, crossing my arms. "I told you my room was here!" He shakes his head and drops onto the bottom of my bed, exhaling. Unease settles over me as I perch at the edge, watching him. "I tried to clean up the image for you," he finally says, gripping both edges of his laptop screen. "It was slightly obscured by the lighting, but this should be enough for the confirmation you need." Slowly, he turns it toward me. And there it is. My heart constricts in my chest, tightening like a vice. It’s 100% Noc.
“Fuck,” I whisper, feeling the tears threatening to spill over. I tilt my head back, staring at the ceiling, forcing them down as my hands fist in my lap. But my mind is spinning, dizzy with the storm of questions and thoughts fighting for dominance. “Who is this Nocturne, Nyx?” Adam asks, his gaze searching mine when my head follows his voice. “They didn’t mention anything about him in the debrief - just said Volokov’s associates would be there.” Once I feel like I’ve wrestled my emotions into submission, I throw up my wall, locking them in. Lowering my head, meeting his eyes when I feel steeled up enough. I don’t want to tell Adam. I don’t want to tell anyone. But if Noc is alive… What is he doing with the enemy? Is he a prisoner? Does he need help? And Adam did go out his way to clear the image, I owe him an explanation, no matter how hard it’ll be for me.
“I … knew Nocturne. Everyone did, back at the Seattle base. Hell, his reputation preceded him through a few of them,” I say, my voice steadier than I feel. “He trained us for covert missions for two years. And four years ago, I joined a deployment on a special ops mission. Here. In Russia. About eighty kilometers from where we are now - monitoring Volokov.” I pause, pushing through the memories. “I joined the mission as part of the surveillance team initially. I was due for leave, so I wasn’t supposed to be there, a health and safety risk.” I scoff. “But I managed to find a way in, got myself in the background with the rest of the team.” Adam smirks. “I can only imagine what you did to get your way.” I give him a weighted smile. “I wanted special ops. I worked tirelessly to meet their requirements. That mission was my golden ticket. Even if I couldn’t engage in action, it would give me experience. A taste of what it meant to work like them.”
The next breath I take is deep and shaky. I haven’t spoken this story to a soul apart from my dad. "Cut a very long story short, Noc - Nocturne, gotkilledwhen they captured him. Isaw it with my own eyes. Theymademe watch." The mission had gone completely sideways. They expected us. We lost good people. I can feel myself getting lost in the memory, but strangely, speaking it aloud makes me feel lighter - stronger than when I first told my dad, so I allow myself the freedom.
“I was called in to retrieve the USB drive from one of our guys who’d been killed. We weresoclose, but without that drive, the mission would have been a failure. It contained evidence of the types of chemical weapons they were working on. The commander radioed in from our extraction point and told me Graves had green lighted my support. I didn’t even think twice. I ran through the woods, dodging detection, and managed to grab the drive from the body.”
“When I was heading back, I saw Noc. He was by the cliffs, about a hundred yards north. I had two options at that moment. Run back and deliver the drive, let reinforcements attempt to retrieve him. But he would have been dead by the time they got to him, we were too secluded. Or I could go after him myself. I didn’t hesitate. I secured the drive to me, stalked around the men holding him. They were preparing to shove him into the back of a truck parked at the road's edge. Just as I was about to take my shot, a hostile I hadn’t seen snuck up behind me, knocked me on the back of the head.”
I suck in another steadying breath to continue. “I was in and out of consciousness as they dragged me away. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, all of them were speaking Russian. It was like they were deciding what to do with me when I managed to regain just enough consciousness to move. I reached down, grabbed the knife from my boot and sliced the guy’s Achilles tendon." Adam visibly grimaces, clutching his own ligament. Yeah, you’redoneif someone gets you like that. Immediately immobile. "Just as I turned on the other two holding Noc, a manI’d never seen before stepped out of the building - fired a single shot into the air.”
Adam stares at me, his full concentration locked in. The laptop between us now forgotten, half-closed - abandoned like an afterthought. “The details are still a bit fuzzy,” I murmur. “And what I do remember… It’s hard to say.” I glance up at him. He nods, silent in understanding. “You loved Noc.” I give a small, bittersweet smile, my thumb absentmindedly tracing circles over the scar on my wrist. “It was Volokov. We all know who that is now anyway. I didn’t know I’d still be chasing him down four years later. Still hunting.” I take a breath, forcing the words out, pushing past the weight in my throat.
“He just knew.Guessedthat there was something between Noc and I , and he taunted him in front of me. And Noc… He took it. He just stood there, and didn't fight back. Thatwasn’tlike him. I knew then - he had to be severely injured. Too broken to resist what they were doing to him.” The memory tightens around my chest, squeezing like a vice. But I can’t seem to stop the words flowing from my mouth. “Volokov turned to me, strolled right up and gave me this.” I lift my wrist, showing Adam the four-inch scar that runs vertically along my arm.
“Guess he hoped I’d bleed out there, that it’d be the end of me. But something changed in Noc when that happened. Hecame alive, fought against their grip, screaming something in Russian back at Volokov, thrashing to break free.” His last moments replay like a jammed tape in my mind. Over. And over. “Then, Volokov made two of his associates hold me down, head yanked up by the hair whilst he grabbed Noc, whispered something in his ear…” I swallow hard, but it’s futile. The words still come. “And then Volokov threw Noc off the cliff … emptying his magazine as he fell.”
A tear slips free, rolling down my cheek before I can stop it. Adam reaches over and gently wipes it away, his other handclosing around my scarred wrist. “I lost too much blood,” I whisper. “Between that and the concussion, I blacked out. I couldn't save him. In my head, there was no way he would have survived. He was thrown into the river, full of bullet holes.” Pausing my words as my voice sounds hoarse, I steady myself before continuing. “I don’t know how long I was out. But my earpiece was crackling - static noise, like someone was trying to reach me. It woke me up. I remember shouting into it, calling for help - praying it even worked. I tore my shirt, did my best to compress the bleeding, thankfully it seemed more like a warning slice rather than to inflict a fatal wound. I only made it to the end of the road before collapsing again, my vision going in and out from the head injury.”
Another deep breath. “Two days later, I woke up in the hospital. I still had the drive on me, the team was celebrating our win, showering me with praise.” A choked sob threatens to break free, but I push it down. “I couldn’t even be happy.” My voice wavers, my eyes burning. “The man I loved had just been executed in front of my eyes and I couldn’t tell a damn soul what he meant to me.” Grief tightens around me, thick and suffocating. Not just for Noc. For the girl Iwas. Lost. And alone. Holding a shattered heart with no one to turn to, no guidance on how to go on.
I look up at Adam, seeing the turmoil etched into his face as he absorbs my story. “I haven’t told anyone apart from my dad,” I admit. “No one knows Noc and I were together - we’d have gotten in trouble for it. I understand if you don’t want to help me if it’s against your morals. But Ineedto find him. I need to know how he survived, and if he’s in danger.” Adam lets out a long breath, like he’s been holding it the entire time. “I won’t tell anyone, Nyx. Thanks for trusting me with this - it’s safe with me.” While we have our moments, our partnership is solid, all of us in 616 are, we’re like a family. “I ran his face through thedatabase,” Adam continues. “Strangely enough, nothing came up, even after I cleaned up the image.”
I frown. Our facial recognition system is the best in the world. The FBI even uses it. Why wouldn’t it pick him up? “Then, I searched Nocturne’s file.” He picks up the discarded laptop between us, fingers flying across the keys, deep in thought. When he turns the screen back toward me, my brows furrow. “I don’t understand. Does that mean he doesn’t have a file? They wouldn’tdeleteit - the system doesn’t work that way. All mission details are kept on record. Even our codenames flag if we’ve been involved in operations.”
Adam drags his hand down his face, exhaling sharply. “I dug a little deeper, not too far. But… his file is classified, Nyx. I don’t know what that means. And I don’t think it’s wise for us to ask outright.” An uneasy feeling settles deep inside my bones. There’s a reason it’s locked. Butwhy? “Can you search mission reports, training logs, any records that would list names of participants?” He nods. “I can get into them easily enough, not supposed to, but I know a backdoor in the system. Give me something to narrow it down.” I rack my brain, struggling to pinpoint something useful. “Check the files from 2020. Marksmanship training at my home base.” I try to sit patiently as Adam types, but the seconds drag painfully slow as I give him rough dates and my name to look at as an attendee.
