GHOST - No Man's Land

/CHAPTER 09

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[Rebecca]

Mornings are difficult to distinguish from nights down in the base. No sunlight penetrates the thick, metal walls, not this far underground. I'd woken as though returning from the dead, the throbbing headache I'd enjoyed these last few days easing a little, yet still faintly present.

I wondered if it'd been from exhaustion, fatigue, or the very real risk of a head injury.

As soon as I left my room, I set out for the same place I'd stayed in until late into the night. Pushing the door open to find the screens still displaying maps and pieces of my footage, as I hadn't been able to figure out how to power down the station.

Hunger rumbled in my stomach, but eating was far from my thoughts.

Sleep had cleared the fog from my mind. I was not leaving. Not even if they kicked me out of the facility. I resumed my analysis of the footage I'd captured during the escape from the Embassy feverishly.

Every turn.

Every detail.

Anything that could help me figure out exactly which of Ramos' accomplices had involved themselves in such an international hit.

My breath caught in my throat as the lens had captured the moment I'd stopped and stared at the office worker slung across one of the desks in a pool of her own blood. I paused the video before I knew it.

The glaring similarity between her and myself only a week ago was nauseating. It felt like ages since I pushed my way through a crowded Times Square, cramming into the overly busy metro at rush hour to get to the office.

Dressed similarly to the woman who lost her life.

As harrowing as it felt, it filled me with newfound resolve. My fingers flew over the keyboard as I continued my report. I had to prove my value. I had to. I wasn't going back.

I was not going back.

I didn't look up as the door opened. A heavy presence settled in the chair beside me. I continued clicking through the file, skipping over microseconds in the film, trying to enhance every last bit of debris I could find. It was a painstakingly slow process.

I knew it was Ghost sitting beside me. I just barely recognized the skull shaped balaclava in my peripheral.

What I didn't need, however, was him telling me how much he needed to get rid of me again. A silence stretched between us, one that he didn't seem to mind.

I looked up when I heard the flick of a lighter. He was leaning back in his chair casually, almost cockily. The end of his cigarette lit up as he took a pull, and I couldn't stop a scowl from forming on my face.

''Really? Here?'' The disdain rung clear in my voice. The aged ventilation system had taken a couple hours to properly filter in clean oxygen to replace the stale air inside the base, and here he was, as if mockingly exhaling smoke in my direction. I tugged the edge of my sleeve down.

I tried not to notice the way his balaclava was pulled up to reveal his chin. Since I'd been inside, I only ever saw him wear the mask with the physical skull stitched on it. Now, here, along with a painfully casual black shirt, he was wearing a much more simple one, with just the pattern of a skull displayed on the lower half.