Deadlock || ᴠᴍɪɴ

Chapter 14

Everything about V’s story was fascinating.

As a child with no parents, he had spent his childhood in an orphanage and gone to military college on a scholarship. He underwent training while in school, and enlisted in the army straight after graduating. After serving with the green berets, he became a member of the Delta Force. The official name of the Delta Force was the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta. True to its name, it was an elite unit that carried out special missions.

Members were thoroughly drilled, not only in fighting, but also in the operation of armoured vehicles and aircraft, disarming explosives, storming tactics, guarding high-profile figures, emergency first aid, and hostage rescue to prepare them for any situation. V also underwent gruelling training before being assigned to a secret mission overseas.

Although Jimin wasn’t privy to the details, he’d heard unsettling rumours about the Delta Force being involved in illegal activities such as overseas assassinations. Whether for this reason or not, the Delta Force was not officially recognized by the Department of Defense, even with its reputation as a top-class special forces unit on the global scale.

“In Delta, we did things in teams of four. Our team was really close – Frank, Jonathan, Noel, and I. They were all reliable guys with a great sense of humour. Just being with them made the most unbearable missions bearable. When we weren’t working, we lived on Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Eventually, we decided to pitch in a buy a beach house together. On our vacations, we’d wash off all the dirt and baggage we accumulated from work and relax until our next mission. Those three guys were the best friends I could ask for. Noel, especially, was someone I could never replace. He was my lover.”

Jimin felt a sharp jab in his heart at the unexpected words. He knew that V had a lover in the past, but his existence felt all the more real once he knew his name and their specific story.

“Noel was two years older than me, but he and I hit it off from the start,” Dick said. “He was a kind-hearted, laidback guy who was nice to everyone. But he suddenly started acting strange after I came out to him. At first I thought he was put off by me for being gay, but it actually turned out that he was gay, too, and he’d had feelings for me for a while. Naturally, we started dating. Frank and Jonathan acknowledged our relationship and accepted us with no issue. Until then, I’d been all alone. But now, I had a kind lover and understanding friends. For the first time, I felt like I had a family. But that happiness didn’t last long. Corvus robbed me of it. It happened in a flash.”

V cut off and looked down at the palm of his hand, as if to search for what he’d lost. He slowly clenched his hand into a fist and resumed his story. It was a story that Jimin found unbearably painful.

One February two years ago, V and his team were given urgent orders to assemble. A depraved, armed cult called White Heaven had taken a hostage and had locked themselves into a building in a standoff. The mission was to rescue the hostage and suppress White Heaven completely. Usually the Delta Force handled overseas missions, but V and his teammates surmised that the US government must have chosen the Delta Force for this mission because they wanted to get the incident under control before it could go public.

“We weren’t given any specific information, but that’s a common thing. We go where we’re told and carry out the mission as directed. We’re never told why.”

That night, V and his teammates followed orders as they usually did, and immediately departed Fort Bragg to head to a mountain cabin in South Carolina, where the hostage was being kept. When they arrived, they were told that a negotiator from the army was already speaking with the perpetrators, and that there was no need to storm the building.