“Now, general,” I snapped, moving the gun into my right hand in a demand that he stood and followed me to the next room, where his office was.
“Please excuse me,” he kicked his chair back and stood in annoyance, not wanting to alert a security breach and cause a scene in his own unit. I may be killed for threatening a superior officer, but he would have his ass kicked by his superiors too.
I knew that if I played my cards right, I had this in my pocket. No one wanted to have their careers over with because of an immigrant woman, let alone a misogynistic old man in his late sixties.
“Are you fucking crazy?” he turned to me and kicked my arm, demanding that I stopped threatening him as he slid the doors shut. His voice remained low, probably unwilling for our conversation to be heard from the other room and make him look even worse than he already did.
“Where is Galenor?” I demanded, keeping the weapon locked on him and allowing my dominant hand to reach his desk and desperately slide through papers, hoping to find any kind of information that would help me. He must have knowledge of this. I knew he must.
“Are you drunk, Harrow? What is wrong with you?” He forced his thick brows into a deep frown and threw himself on a sofa filled with old files and ancient maps, losing his patience. He pressed his fingers to his temple as if trying to find it again and sighed deeply, filling the room with the stench of his breath.
“Go back to your post before the team penalises you.”
That was it. My breaking point.
I was sick and tired of everyone treating me like a silly young girl, one that could be passed around and told anything, one that would not question orders and do what she was told. I snapped then, slapping both my palms on his desk and using my wrists to push everything on the floor, making his documents and daily work a pile of mess adorning the old mouldy carpet.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, stupid cunt?” he lost his temper and wanted to stand but I immediately directed the gun back at him, forcing him still.
“Tell me where Galenor is.” I took the few steps that separated us, stopping inches from his head, the pistol aimed at the perfect distance to blow his brains out.
He swallowed dry, understanding he had no way out of this but to tell me what I needed to know.
“I don’t know who Galenor is,” he spoke slowly, as one does in a hostage negotiation. I attended those lessons; I knew the old man’s tricks. “We have no one by that name,” he spoke, reassuring me.
“The subject of my trial!” I shouted, forcing his memory back along with a press of the pistol into his forehead. I’d been there. It sucked like a bitch, and I knew the old man wouldn’t like it.
“Are you crazy?” Milosh snapped at me, his grey-blue eyes filling with sudden realisation. “That’s what this is about?”
“Yes, that’s what this is about,” I retorted, feeling my face turn crimson from the anger boiling in my capillaries.
“Silly girl,” he sighed again, only this time his breath came out different. More calm and regretful. “You are risking everything, Ellyana…” he spoke softly, making my breath stop with the sound of my name on his lips. He’d never done it, not once. He never recognised my origin, not even when I was a child, abused and beaten every day under his watch. He then started to shake his head. “Don’t throw your hard work away for a faerie. It’s not worth it.”
“How would you know what worth is? All you do is rot in here and complain about how difficult your life is, when you have no idea what real pain feels like,” I accused, feeling my eyes sting with tears.
“Harrow,” he leaned back into the couch, eyes suddenly sorrowful and pinned on me. “I know what you have been through. I know how hard you worked to get here—”
“But you chose to turn a blind eye!” I shouted, my eyes unable to hold tears back and let them drop on my cheek. I didn’t feel their sting, too filled with rage to do anything but shout at the man who saw me grow up. The only one who had had the power to stop all the dreadful things that happened to me. “You chose to leave me all alone. To be robbed from my family, mistreated and abused. Beaten every day. You did nothing, Milosh. Nothing!” I shouted, drying my tears with the back of my hand.
“It helped build your character,” he retorted. “It made you stronger, sharper than everyone, always alert.”
“Because I had to be!”
We both stopped, long seconds scrubbing away the years of memories. “I wish I would have done something to stop it,” he finally spoke, his lips pressed together, features defeated.
His admission did nothing for me, the regret of an old man would not wipe away the years of pain. Still, I decided to give him a chance to rectify his wrongs.
“You still have time, Milosh,” I said, making his attention fly to me. “You can do something now, to help erase all those times you did nothing.”
The general blinked and dipped his chin, an agreement that my request would be considered.
“Do whatever you must to bring him back to me.”
A waiting game began when I returned to the living quarters. After the conversation with Milosh, I watched him make phone call after phone call while I sat frozen on his sofa, struggling to keep all my emotions together.
He was doing it. He was finally doing something for me and the idea that even this old man who hated me all my life felt the need for redemption told me that he must have known, deep down, that something was very wrong with my assignment trial.
Watching him struggle to bring Galenor back to me confirmed my suspicions. He was innocent. And it was up to me to get him out.
