Ghosts of the Past (A Call Of Duty: Ghosts Fanfiction)

Chapter Thirty Four

Two days later, I was sitting on the edge of a bench in a courtyard, flipping my father's coin around in my fingers—one of the only things I'd been able to tuck away with me through the great escape. My body was scrubbed clean, face not looking as bad as before with the dirt, sweat, and scabs mostly dissipated. I had pulled my hair back into a bun, braiding the shorter pieces along the sides and combining it into the back. The uniform on me was blank, but black like the one's I'd worn in the Ghosts' base weeks and weeks ago.

    The ribbed edges of the coin were worn in some places from constant fiddling by first my father and then myself. I studied the little object so intently as if it could give me the answers I was growing desperate to find out: what had happened to my father and how did Rorke truly know him? What was the true story?

    "There you are, Ashlyn," Keegan's deep voice brought me away from my process of flipping the coin and I cleared my throat. 

    "Sorry if you've been looking for me."

    "The General wants us to group up in the east command."

    I raised my head to see Logan next to Keegan, his dark eyes glittering intently as they scanned me. I wanted to shy away, but I steeled myself as I'd practiced for the last two days. I would never let Logan, or Carter, see me like that again. 

    It's too late. Now he's seen what he's truly achieved with you. I ignored my thoughts as I tucked my coin into my breast pocket.

    Logan and Keegan both had also cleaned up quite well in the last two days. They wore a similar pair of black pants and long sleeves, muscular forms filling them. Logan's hair had been trimmed up, but the light brown was still a least an inch long and swept up in ruffles atop his head; his facial hair was trimmed again and the bags under and around his eyes had depleted a bit. Keegan looked just as he had, with a slight bit less of exhaustion and stress around his blue eyes.

    "What about?" I stood to greet Keegan more directly.

    "An assignment," Keegan wouldn't say more, I knew, as he brushed past me. "I have to make one stop on my way there. The two of you go now."

    Logan ignored me as he turned to head to the east, as mentioned by Keegan. I had a feeling with the confidence he strode with that he'd taken to studying the base. Smart.

    The two of us said nothing as we may our way to an elevator. Logan pressed the button, his towering form making that bile rise in my throat again. Everything in me screamed to get away from him...more of that primal survival instinct he'd finally knocked loose.

    "Do you have any idea on what this is about?" I managed as the elevator made it's way down to us.

    Logan shrugged lightly, his brown gaze staring ahead at the numbers. "No, but I'm hoping we can get out of this place for a bit."

    "The food kinda sucks," I attempted to let my walls down a smidge, trying to shove warmth between us even though it repelled like two same sides of a magnet.

    Logan's lips twitched, showing my feeble attempt worked. "You can revert to the rabbit if you'd like."

    We reached the mostly-empty command room shortly after the elevator ride. Keegan was peering down at an electronic table, reading something alongside it—he'd beat us there. His unmasked face raised when we entered, blue eyes tracing my form once. Across from him was the gray-haired General from two days prior, his face beginning to wrinkle around pale blue eyes.

    "As mentioned, we're going on an assignment," Keegn reverted back to the map and manuscript before him. "We're to infiltrate a factory up in western Canada. There's a lead on some...important tools there for Rorke specifically. We're to extract what we can of the weapon then destroy the place. Stealth first then we get loud if we need."