Dog Days

Chapter 114

As I toil around in the kitchen, Loki sits on the coffee table in the living room. Hela and Tig still work in the closet, hanging the massive amount of clothes.

I search through my produce as I think of a way to ask Hela for what I want. I look over the lion's mane mushrooms and enoki mushrooms as I try to find a way to ask her.

After a moment, I call out "Hela?"

He pokes her head out and asks "What's up?"

I furrow my brow and ask "After you're done, can you bring me those mushrooms I asked you about?"

She gives me a confused look and I wink at her, before she smiles "Oh, yeah, sorry I forgot. I can get them for you now, if you want?"

I smile at her "I don't need it, just yet. Just when you have time."

She nods and gets back to work as I finish throwing together the broth. I move on to cutting my produce into long thin strips, as Loki looks down in a dull haze.

I know that something is weighing heavily on his mind.

After a thirty minutes of me slicing vegetables, Hela and Tig walk out of the room and Hela declares "We're all set. I'll go grab those mushrooms."

I furrow my brow and ask "Do you think you can give us about thirty minutes?"

She nods in understanding and they walk out.

After they're gone, I take a seat on the couch, in front of Loki "What's going on in that brain of yours?"

He takes a deep breath and declares "It's time I tell you the absolute truth, and I don't know how much of it you'll like."

I take a deep breath and remark "I don't think I'll like any of it, but that's not because of you."

He nods, before declaring "When I was interrogating Sif, alone, she told me that they were coming for me. She purposely let your men die, so that it would lead to me being assigned to your platoon."

He can't even make eye contact with me as he declares "I grilled her for whatever information I could, but she died. I knew it was only a matter of time until they showed up, and going through her messages, I found code words like: rig, and eye of the hurricane, or supernova, and I found out what the plan was. That's why I was telling you to get out of camp."

He gives me a sad smile "After you got hit, I knew your only chance was to stop the fighting. They wouldn't ground a chopper if bullets were flying, so I gave myself over and started developing a plan on getting myself out."

His eyes never lock on me as he states "They video taped every single second, and after the second video you saw, I started to see that they weren't actually doing anything with the videos. They were using it as a form of psychological torture."

He furrows his brow and declares "I knew I would have to cave, eventually, to start gaining their trust, but I had to make it look real..."

He sighs "For the most part, it was. I did reach the breaking point, were my body and mind where so exhausted, I couldn't think about anything other than what was happening. I-"

He takes a deep breath and I rest my hand on his thigh. He takes a deep breath and declares "They wouldn't let me sleep, and I was so malnourished that I wasn't thinking straight. The only thing they wanted was the Anthrax."

He sighs "I started doing things to Thanos, so I could eat. It was this rice porridge, and my stomach could barely handle it."

He shakes his head "I eventually agreed to making him anthrax, but I knew I would just be patched up and sent onto the next mission..."