As Grim as the Reaper | PREQUEL Simon 'GHOST' Riley

SEVENTEEN

You let out a gleeful squeal when you came across a hard drive, one that clearly had been missed when the destruction of the room had ensued.

Fiddling with the wires, you squatted to the floor in an effort to save the small square of electronics, whispering to yourself as your fingers worked to connect it to your handheld scanner.

Thank god for military-grade portable tech.

Yet another noise left your lips as the screen lit up, indicating that the hard drive still had a little life left in it.

"Found a hard drive. Still good."

"Good." Laswell spoke, "Take it, hopefully there'll be something useful on it. And keep an eye out, Shadow is still picking up something in the area."

"Solid copy, ma."

As you rose from your knees, shoving the small device into a pouch on your vest, the door behind you burst open with force, the metal making a clanging sound as it collided with the filing cabinet stacked behind.

Whipping around, you came face to face with two soldiers, each of them armed with an automatic weapon.

No match for your knives.

"Oh dear," you spoke with a smile, "Do you boys really think this is a good idea?"

The two men looked at you, then at each other, clearly baffled by your calm demeanour.

"Reaper? Baby, you good?"

"Two guys thought they'd get the drop on me."

"How stupid of them."

You could practically hear the proud grin in Graves' voice, which only riled up your confidence more.

The men raised their weapons, lasers pointed at your body, but you caught the way their hands shook.

"So, you sure wanna do this?" you asked once more, slowly unsheathing your knives.

One of the men scoffed, speaking with a heavy middle-eastern accent, "We have guns. You have knives. I'm sure we can handle the likes of a woman."

"Well, don't say I didn't warn ya."

With one last silent look between them, the men cocked their weapons, but you'd already lunged. One hand flung a knife, landing into the neck of the first soldier as you knocked the other to the ground.

Your other hand plunged your second knife deep into his abdomen before yanking it back out, only to raise it once more, and drive down into his chest.

Clean cut. No nonsense.

The Reaper claimed her victims.

Barely breaking a sweat, you rolled off the body, taking a few deep breaths.

"Targets eliminated, Actual. Two males, definitely Hassan's men."

"Good girl. Search them and get on the ground."

Laswell praised you, before her attention switched to General Shepherd and the Shadows, questioning how the fuck two AQ men got to you undetected, raving about how they were lucky as hell that you knew how to handle yourself.

You knelt down beside one body, rifling through the pockets for anything of use, verbally groaning in frustration as you came up empty. That was, until a flash of white poking out of the second man's shirt caught your attention.

Crawling over, you picked it up, unfolding it.

It was a list.

02.08.22. 1900. Ambush Check.