Shadows of Betrayal
The rain fell in sheets, drenching the barren landscape where Captain John Price stood, his eyes fixed on the horizon. The mission was over, but the storm inside him raged on. Taskforce 141 had been through hell and back, but nothing had prepared them for this—nothing had prepared him for this.
Y/N was gone.
Not dead, though sometimes Price wondered if that would have been easier to accept. No, she had left of her own free will, turning her back on everything they had built together. Once a trusted member of Taskforce 141, Y/N had chosen a different path, aligning herself with Phillip Graves and his Shadow Company. It was a betrayal that cut deeper than any wound Price had ever received in battle, one that tore at the very fabric of his being.
They had been inseparable once. Y/N wasn’t just another soldier under his command; she was his confidant, his partner in every sense of the word. Price had seen something in her from the start—something fierce, yet compassionate. She had a way of balancing him, keeping him grounded even when the world around them was falling apart. And somewhere along the line, Price had fallen for her. He had fallen hard.
But now, she was gone.
The memory of their last mission together played on an endless loop in Price’s mind. They had been tracking Graves, knowing that he was up to something far more sinister than what he let on. Graves had always been a wildcard—dangerous, unpredictable, but nothing had prepared Price for the moment when Y/N, his Y/N, had chosen to stand by Graves’ side.
It had happened so fast. One moment, they were clearing a compound, fighting side by side like they had so many times before. The next, she was standing with Graves, her weapon trained on the team she had once called family. Price had felt his heart stop, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing.
“Y/N, what the hell are you doing?” Price’s voice had been a mixture of shock and disbelief.
But her expression had been unreadable, her eyes cold and distant. “I’m sorry, John,” she had said, and those words had shattered something inside him. “This is something I have to do.”
Graves had smirked, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction as he placed a hand on Y/N’s shoulder, as if claiming her as his own. “She made her choice, Price. Maybe it’s time you made yours.”
Price had barely registered the gunfire that followed. Soap and Gaz had moved instinctively, their training kicking in, but Price had been frozen, unable to believe what was happening. He had been too focused on Y/N, watching as she fought against her former comrades with a ruthlessness he had never seen in her before.
They had barely escaped with their lives that day, but the real damage had been done the moment Y/N chose Graves over them—over him.
Back at base, the atmosphere was tense, everyone walking on eggshells around Price. They knew what Y/N had meant to him, but no one dared bring it up. They didn’t have to; the pain was written all over his face. It was in the way he spoke less, in the way his eyes lingered on the empty spaces where Y/N used to be.
In the privacy of his quarters, Price let the facade drop. He stared at the small photograph on his desk, the one taken during a rare moment of peace between missions. It was of him and Y/N, arms slung around each other, smiles on their faces as if the weight of the world hadn’t yet settled on their shoulders. That photo was from a different time, a time when he believed they could take on anything as long as they were together.
Price’s fist clenched around the edge of the desk, the wood creaking under the pressure. He had been through betrayals before—soldiers lost to enemy fire, allies turning their backs in the heat of battle—but none of it compared to this. Y/N had been his rock, the one person he could always count on, and now she was gone, taken by the darkness he had tried so hard to protect her from.
