Last place, he thought, turning into an alley littered with garbage that housed the street
paupers. Last place and I'll go home. If God willed that I would fail so then will I fail.
The city held a nearly paralyzing atmosphere of spiritual depravity. He felt it thicken as he approached the noisy chaos of the hidden night club. The traffic of intoxicated guests arriving and leaving led him to not worry about being noticed.
Obscene music bounced off the walls as men and women emptied out, falling senseless on the sidewalk. It was enough to weld up that old feeling of sickness. He swallowed hard as it threatened to sink into his core.
It was these places he had would only appear to drag his brother from un-contemplative suicide.
The heartless party imitating hell raged on below the base of the building. He turned from the entrance, scanning the street boulders and boxes, rather busying himself with searching anywhere else than inside the pandemonium pit itself.
He walked towards a figure near the back of the alley.
Alright you illiterate blunder, don't mess this up.
He approached her silently. Stepping closer until multiple feet away, he leaned himself against the same boulder, his face to the opposite side.
The figure didn't flinch, or even move an eyebrow. She was slender, or more so just very tall, hunched backwards with one elbow at her side and the other in its fist, holding a cigarette.
"Guarantee if you need something I don't have it."
He had only known her distantly while they were both teens. Her voice had lowered significantly from the smoking addiction but he still recognized the listless spirit in her tone.
Come on, what do you say? Speak!
"You ever go inside?" pause, "Farsi?"
She immediately flicked her gaze. He still faced directly ahead, his silhouette betraying his recognizable profile.
"Never." She shifted her stance in an offhand, rigid manner. "I'm passed that level of loss." she paused. "This stuff," nodding toward the drug club. "This stuff took my people. Either as victims, or as villains. And I'll stand here to figure out what they had thought was so appealing about the sight of all in the first place." She finished with a restrained air, almost hoping her lack of emotion would be read as drama.
"Funny the way we bounce off and respond to the scary things by staying as close to it as we can." He replied, without a drip of affection.
"Humans are exquisitely stupid creatures," he went on, "a few of us have like three more teaspoons of stupidity than others; insanity will never balance, and in the end we're just better off listening to something bigger than us."
He paused and smugly credited, "That's what my sister said."
Farsi raised an eyebrow. He now faced her slightly.
"Sister in law, you know." He said in an obvious tone.
"As in, the sister of your wife, yeah?"
He shook his head. Her eyes widened.
"You managed to marry Aksel-, no way I do not believe you." Her accent thickened. "And also that she is smart?"
"I didn't manage it, that 'something bigger than us' did."
"Kaan, your brother was not able to love the sweetest fool even slightly, let alone someone who thinks!"
"You do not need to convince me." His expression was licked with disgust. "I would've much rather left him to his own destruction, but I couldn't."
"So it's better to send them down in pairs, yes?"
"You cannot assume the future of someone you haven't seen in years and another you've never met." He sounded aggravated. "Listen."
Eye contact.
"I didn't come back here to walk these cursed streets with leisure. I came back because there used to be four of us, and nobody's ok without somebody."
Silence.
"I don't understand what you want from me." she said.
He hunched over, his fingers prodding into his forehead.
"I started a militia the day Roxanne was killed" he began. "I trained these men how me and Aksel had trained ourselves. I tracked the gang that trafficked her. That's how everything we're doing now started. We end gang dynasties, raid brothels, overturn child trafficking headquarters, we don't take many prisoners but we do rescue. We build families, and we protect everything we have."
"But you're royalty-"
"Yes, and?" He picked his face up from his hands.
"Obviously that's how you fund all this, you trillionares," She said, unimpressed, "But you're the first born Al-Qadir son, there's no way a prince can-"
"Yeah, I-" He looked down again. "Aksel holds the obligations of that birthright, now." Her eyes widened in shock.
"And I left that to him just as a sacrifice I needed to make. I needed to keep rescuing the people like my wife and my daughter. And I couldn't do that with this empire breathing down the back of my neck. There is a way I could've fixed this dynasty, Farsi, but I choose to put myself into what I am already invested. Aksel holds the Middle Eastern Al-Qadir fortress in our childhood palace, like how I hold our North American residence, where we guard what we love."
"The point is-" he began once more "I need, or we need, a female fighter working with us. She's got to be tall, preferably above 180 centimeters to stand with the guards and see well over heads. Kids don't trust our burly rescuers like they do females. And also" he paused, "We don't like hitting women, but someone has to take out those pimps, and I think with enough pride-loss and aggression you could work with us."
He knew he wouldn't be able to read her expression so he didn't bother facing her. In the pensive silence he stood expressionless.
"I'm waiting for the part that's gonna make me not wanna do this."
He inhaled, "There's too much of that to say everything right now, but I'll give you a few, granted I'm not even slightly concerned. You're broken enough to do anything. Just like I was. Just like everyone you'll work with has been. You will never become one of your male co-fighters, only their underhand shot. But they'll never be you either. The point is to have someone that is able to do the things they can't."
She rotated the cigarette between her fingers, studying it passively.
"Flatten that one as your last and you'll spend your life gutting out these clubs instead of standing beside them."
The moment she did he pushed himself off the boulder and started down the alley.
His heart was relieved, compared to minutes before, but a certain heaviness bore down on his conscience. She was ruthless, she was raised well and strong, as much as he remembered, at least. She would probably adjust to everything the same the others did. But nothing he could say would prepare her for what it all entailed.
He had convinced himself that recruiting her would settle the worry and burden he felt for his dead sister's only friend. All this time he had known she was somewhere, lost, now she was a few feet behind him. There was no doubt it was better for her, but better didn't mean less pain.
After several minutes of silence he spoke."We're set up in the other corner of Kandahar. We're gonna finish off-"
He stopped abruptly and looked back at her "Your belongings, I forgot, where do you live?" He shook his head, disappointed in his lack of thought.
"I don't think I own anything I'm gonna need, not even papers, just another stack of clothes and some money," She shrugged carelessly, "and cigarettes."
He raised his eyebrows and silently turned and began walking again.
"My wife is medically trained, she is going to give you a physical. You'll be given two weeks to get over your smoking addiction during the time you'll be reset to the way we function."
"Hopefully-" he added gruffly "you're not much of an issue. As soon as we turn over our last 'errand' here and you've been checked by Darlene- I'm taking her back to the states, I don't like having my wife in the worst city of the Middle East. In fact, I don't like it here in general. The deal was that I'd come and find you because Aksel wasn't going to."
She laughed.
"I'm don't think it will take too long. I don't think I'm so messed up. Just my lungs maybe."
She'll be fine. Nothing to worry about anyway.
"Well that's good. Listen, Aksel and the other leading members have only trained men, other than Vyeka but that's different. Anyway, you will be in charge of increasing your own strength and lethality. You will train alongside the rest but not under the instructors, except for tactical procedures. These men will be your sparring partners, for the most part at least. You will have multiple physical and mental check ups in the US at certain intervals, as well as time off the field, during which you'll work civilian and security jobs at our residences on a salary."
"Mental checkups, you said?"
"We're here to be fighting hell on earth, Tara, and that effects us in more ways than we'd wish."
"Okay," she paused. "You know I don't have faith-"
"Ah yeah? So you're following someone you last saw a decade ago down some random streets based on what?" He shook his head. "Because you've given up under the weight of fear itself?"
"It's like what you said before, you know I'll do anything." She responded evenly. "And to me the worst of what could happen is better than the current suicidal idleness my brain has been suffering from this whole time."
Kaan wanted to shake his head again. Just wait till you meet Vyeka, you little depressed gremlin.
His brain began to crowd as he neared the place they had been set up for the past month. We gotta suit up and get out of here in the next moment. No chance of even seeing Darlene.
Now in the soundscape of the preflighting helicopters, he caught the glance of one of the outside guards and tipped his head backwards to Farsi. The guard returned a nod.
His path deepened.
Their surroundings were now pitch black, everything, only operating on hearing and the vision of silhouettes. The route was complicated to Kaan himself, who had marked the logistics of the garrison initially.
"Al Qadir in, three minutes to HELO departure, air team ready, ground team ready."
