The Wild Charge (Dartmoor Book 9)

Prologue

London, England

"Again."

The voice crackled through the PA system, piped into the room via overhead speakers. At the sound of it, the boy they called Number Ten tensed all over, despite the deep ache in his muscles; braced himself for another round.

The light went dull and deep blue with an electronic hum, and orderlies in white jumpsuits hurried out of hidden door panels in the walls to remove the unconscious bodies that lay slumped, sprawled, and bleeding on the floor. One even brought a mop, and hastily cleaned the blood and sweat from the floor.

A clicking came through the speakers: tick-tick-tick-tick. A countdown.

The orderlies hustled away, with their various burdens, and the hidden doors snapped shut and sealed.

Tick-tick-tick.

Ten twirled his knife, because he'd learned that he liked doing that, and because it allowed him to take a better grip on it without using two hands. His palm was full of sweat; his clothes stuck to him, and droplets rolled down out of his hairline, dripped from his nose and chin. His insides quivered: in need of food, in need of sleep. Neither of which he would get until he'd satisfied his handlers.

Tick-tick-tick...thunk.

The lights came up. Bright-white, making him squint. Steam boiled up from the grates in the floor. The far doors slid open, and in poured more men, dressed all in white, so they blended in with the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling, faces shielded by the visors on their helmets.

Ten twirled his knife again, deepened his stance, and made ready for them.

There were five. They spread out, as they entered, shoulders tucked, hurrying fast and low. They flanked him, encircled him. They carried short, telescoping batons – vicious enough to break bones if they got a clear shot at him.

Ten let them hem him in, aware of their footfalls behind him, before him; clocking their tells: who was left or right-handed; who was tallest; who was quickest. Who held himself a little gingerly around the middle where bruised ribs were still healing. Ten took a last breath – and then moved.

A feint, first, drawing two forward; then he ducked the swipe of a baton behind him, dropped, spun, and stabbed the nearest man in the thigh.

He bellowed, and dropped, clutching at his wound – he dropped his baton, too. Ten rolled, snatched it up, and kicked back upright with two weapons.

He caught the man with the bruises right in his sore ribs, and then delivered a roundhouse kick to his helmet to finish him off. He fell like a stone, and then there were three.

Exhaustion was an easy thing to suppress, in moments like these. Training and adrenaline propelled him through every strike, every kick; every dodge, and weave, and trick. He was sixteen years old, and he'd long-since learned to control his body so that no bit of effort was wasted. Even if he did, sometimes, like to push it a little. To add a flair.

Showing off, his handlers said, disapproving. Pretentious little shit.

But he was so much better than the others. He wanted to be recognized for it, despite the futility of such hope.

The last opponent fell – and Ten nearly did. He gulped down air, and braced his feet wide apart, swaying where he stood amid the broken sundial of unconscious bodies spread out around him. A smile tugged at his mouth as he glanced up toward the smoked-glass window set high above, behind which he knew the handlers were watching.

Did you see me?

Did you see that?

The PA crackled. "Again."

~*~

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Reese hung from a stout beam that had once been a railroad tie, his wrists crossed and chained together overhead. It was an effort to hold his head up, one that would have been wasted, now, and so he let his chin rest on his chest, and stared down at his lean, bare torso, and at his fitted black tac pants, and his bare toes, pale against the dark dirt of the floor.

The burn in his shoulders was terrible, and would only get worse. If he hung here long enough, his own weight would eventually pull the joints from their sockets. Now, though, he was able to take a few steadying breaths and ignore it. Mostly. Just as he'd been told to. Instructed to.

He closed his eyes, and forcibly pressed back his awareness of his own body, all his various hurts and strains. Concentrated instead on his surroundings.

The shed. The faint creak of the beam as he swayed; the scents of earth, and damp, and musty boards. He could smell the old, moldering grass stuck to the deck of the riding mower shoved in the back; could smell the sweat and deodorant of the men who waited back against the walls, veiled in shadows. Five of them. Strangers, friends of his handler.

"Reese," his handler said, in his familiar, grindstone voice. "Get ready."

He lifted his head, and took a breath; flexed his arms as best he could to feel the chain dig into his wrists.

"Engagement in three-two...one."

The first man came barreling out of the dark. Reese tightened his core, ready, and waited, waited – struck. His bare foot caught the man in the throat, and sent him reeling back, coughing, choking, clutching at his Adam's apple.

There was the second man, and Reese let him get in closer than he'd let the other – so he could lock his thighs around his throat and squeeze. The man gasped, wheezed, and started pummeling him, at his hips, and legs, and waist; one solid blow against his ribs sent a hard shudder through Reese's body; he swore he felt the vessels burst, felt the first stirrings of what would be a nasty bruise.

But he held tight, sitting now on the man's shoulders, the chain slack above him.

He twisted his wrists, working against the binding – and then was free.

His hands – numb and full of pins and needles from being overhead – he laced together tightly, and then brought them down hard on the man's temple. The man fell, and Reese managed to jump clear and land lightly on his feet, ready to meet the next attack.

In a matter of moments, he stood alone in the center of the shed, in the puddle of pale light that fell in through the gaps in the ceiling panels, the crumpled forms of much larger, stronger men sprawled unconscious around him.

His handler stepped forward, then, the light cutting across his impassive face like a knife. He surveyed Reese, from his ruffled, pale hair, to the bare, pale toes dug into the earth. He nodded, once. "Better than last time. We'll try it again tomorrow."

Reese took a breath, and let it out, the pain electric through his ribs.

He was fifteen years old, and this was his only purpose.