𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐃 {𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐧 '𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭' 𝐑𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐲}

10 | the dead will continue to haunt us

The streets he had driven down were solemn and empty. The sidewalks looked old, as if they were built a hundred years ago. The trees were barren of leaves and the grass was a dull green.

It seemed as if the sky had suddenly turned a painful grey, one that you would see just before a rainstorm in the middle of the day.

"Where are we going?" I ask him.

His answer was bleak, "A graveyard."

I squint my eyes at him. It's almost as if I had predicted this sort of thing would happen. Now I just had to prepare myself for whoever had fallen.

The car creeps slowly through black iron bars, then parks on the side of a large grassy plain of headstones.

"Why have you taken me here, Ghost?"

I was scared that whoever it was that had died I had not been able to say goodbye to.

"You need to feel the anger that we all did. You need to know who did this to you."

He steps out of the car, and I step out too, walking around the car before landing by his side. I didn't say a single word as we walked up the hill of overgrown grass and dirt.

Then, the figure of a man standing comes into view. His attire was solely of black, and he had his hands stuffed into his pockets, staring down at the covered dirt. There was no headstone.

I made out the man to be Alejandro, a man I only knew briefly.

We approach him from behind, either of us quietly landing on either side of him.

He had no tears, no sign of sadness on his face. He was just staring at the dirt blankly.

"I should have known," Alejandro whispers, "I let it happen again."

Ghost stays silent, so I do as well.

He takes his hands out of his pockets, and I watch as his hand curls around something before he squats down, placing a single ring onto the dirt before covering it up with the dirt.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ghost's head turn. When I turn my head, his eyes were burning through mine.

"Valeria Garza," He speaks, "A snake who betrayed us all."

My eyes widen slightly, the vision of her walking around us as she gave us the option of life or death filled my mind.

The ring spawned from Alejandro's pants pocket must have been for her.

"She had ordered you on that mission to solely kill you," Alejandro starts, "She had no hope for you or your abilities. And even if you were to survive it, there wasn't anything in the communications room."

I bite down on my teeth, the memories of rounding that corner, so eager to get into that room flashing through my eyes.

"The computer had been destroyed before you had even gotten there. There was nothing to be found. It was an entire waste of time."

Now, I see why Ghost had brought me here.

If it wasn't for her, I would have been on deployment right now in a series of other missions getting closer and closer to Makarov. But no, I was stuck in a hospital doing meaningless physical therapy for a muscle that could have been easily protected.

"She knew that we would come after her after that night, so she ran and hid. We found her in an old hotel, her door barricaded and locked."

"Price and Gaz had gone to kill her, and when they had finally gotten to her, Price had no hesitation in shooting her in the head," Ghost continues.

"And to think she had changed," Alejandro sighs, "I was so stupid."

It had finally struck me that that woman was never an ally to me. She had threatened to kill me and my team, tortured and beat us while we were unconscious, and tied us up to where we had no way of getting out.

She was never on our side.

She had sent me on that mission in hopes that we would get killed. Zero protection other than a knife. We were bound to lose. And lose we did.

We were farther away from Makarov than we ever have been. Crucial time had been wasted on her, trying to track her down and kill her. Time that we didn't have.

Makarov could be anywhere in the world right now, but all I knew for certain was that he was nowhere close to us. This was going to be one hell of a fight.

"This isn't over," Ghost says, "Although Valeria is dead, her spirit isn't. Her men are still out there preying silently on us."

"But she was right about one thing," I say, "We're going to need an army."

They both turn to me, nodding.

Ghost's eyes lock onto mine, a sense of confidence filling his iris, "This isn't just Makarov anymore. It's Los Almas too. Valeria is dead, but the dead will continue to haunt us."

—
A/N

Little filler for what's to come 🤭