Primal Gambit

Chapter 48: Darwin Lures the Couple

For days, the couple waited for the single call that would change everything. It would set forth a plan that had been devised since before Doerrman had returned from the last tour in Siberia. It would set free the couple that so long had dreamed of escaping together. The government promised to pull some of the troops from the forefront of the battle, but it was clear that they were still drafting and sending young men into the fray. Various news stations on the television broadcasted the latest bombings and downed cargo planes. Images of masked troops standing over piles of burnt corpses or before hanged men sent tan hues of color that splashed against the back of the den in which the ex-soldier sat alone. His mind would finally reel to the warmth and compassion of his lover when she would enter the room with a mug of tea, just to sooth his boiling temper.

Valerie struggled to maintain her life with the intrusion of Arthur Shuke. Like a child detached from reality, caring for him consumed every spare moment she had. She was directed by Darwin to leave the sinew threaded through Shuke's lips – as cutting them open and pulling them could result in a nasty, incurable infection. Valerie believed him due to what she had seen in the activist group in the past, with the images of gangrene and necrosis eating away the flesh if the operation hadn't been performed correctly. There was little she could do but wait for the call in hopes that it would come soon. She knew what Doerrman was going through. Post-traumatic stress disorder combined with both the inclusion of a strange entity in the apartment as well as a deteriorating society could prove fatal to him.

She wanted to pick up her phone and call Darwin to advance the progress of finding a place for Shuke to be held, though it would prove futile. Her calls would do little more than impede and hinder Darwin's pace. All she could do was wait. Time was of the essence: as it passed it could work out in their favor or against them entirely.

Valerie thought it was interesting the way time deteriorated things. Oftentimes she would stay up all night, unable to sleep. Mind racing – thoughts berating her. Doerrman needed to get away from The Dark City and she knew that she was the one tether he still had to it. Had they never met, she was sure he would already be long gone in search of the last inhabitable, untouched land he could find.

He was after paradise, the kind she didn't think existed anymore.

With Shuke's interdiction, Valerie was unsure they would ever find peace. The constant exposure to the mission beset upon them wore her down. There was an inherent inability to perform the daily tasks she once had before – all contact with her activist group fell short as she tended to the broken man hand and foot.

And then it came – without warning or precursor, just as the couple was beginning to learn how to deal with their kidnapped guest. Darwin called in the night, Valerie approaching the den where Doerrman sat watching the news before she even answered the phone. Her man immediately stood up and crossed his arms, brows furrowing as he watched her intently.

"Val, I have the news you've been waiting for." The voice spoke calmly. She said nothing, looking to her counterpart and smiling with a revitalized sense of freedom.

"You've found someone?" She said with a cracked, flinty tone. The end seemed so close, now.

"I have, yes. Finally. It couldn't have come sooner. A friend of a separate activist group has a cousin that runs a sort of 'halfway house' for freed captives." He took a sip of something, Valerie could hear the clinking ice cubes. She began to picture them, slowly melting into a viscous amber liquid.

"Okay..." She waited for him to continue.

"Depending on how long the creatures have been detained, this guy takes them in. With the help of volunteers he tries to readjust the mental state of the specimens back to what it once was. He says it'll be easy with Arthur." Valerie could feel his grin.

"I'm sorry, 'creatures'?" She hissed.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Men." He corrected himself, but Valerie started to believe that the slip-up was a hint toward something more. Doerrman continued to stand before her, waiting for her to put the phone down and tell him what he had so long been wanting to hear.

"Okay. When and where are we delivering him? I can't keep him here for much longer, Darwin." She could feel the sweat in her palms, the angst amassing within.

"I've rented an isolated location for you to make the drop. It's right on the border of The Outskirts, against the banks. Not too far from you. I promise you: within a week you'll be able to put this all behind you. I know the mission's been hard on the two of you but it's almost over. The end is near!" He joked cynically.

She smiled. Darwin understood her true motives.

"Thank you, Darwin. Just call as soon as you find out the day and time. I'll be waiting." She remarked before ending the call. She put the phone back into her pocket and lunged at Doerrman, embracing him fiercely.

She didn't want him to see the tears that were careening down her cheeks. He saw strength in her on the night they breached the compound and absconded with the decrepit man, and so she did not want him to see her like this now – the severity of her growing fatigue with each passing day. A lack of endurance to see the mission to the justified end was viewed in the corps as weakness.

Valerie couldn't let him see that.

He hugged back with just as much intensity and in that instant, neither of them spared a thought toward Arthur Shuke or Darwin or the mission at all. It was just the two of them sharing an infinitesimal but eternal moment.

It was almost over.