The Price Of Hatred

Chapter 13: Traces of Rust and Blood

Two miles away from the quiet tarmac of the private airfield, the urban landscape collapsed into a maze of narrow, poorly lit streets. The concrete buildings here were weathered and old, their walls stained by decades of exhaust fumes and coastal humidity.

​Todd walked with his head down, the collar of his faded canvas jacket turned up against the damp night air. His boots clicked rhythmically against the cracked pavement of the sidewalk, a lonely sound in the empty neighborhood. In his right hand, he held his phone tightly against his ear, his fingers trembling slightly from a mixture of exhaustion and raw, underlying dread.

​The line hissed with long-distance static before a sharp, bitter voice cut through the receiver.

​"Why the hell are you calling me, and how the fuck did you get my number?" Tidder snapped, her words coming fast and sharp, dripping with an immediate, defensive hostility. Before Todd could even draw a breath to answer, she continued, her voice rising in volume. "If this is about James, let me stop you right there. It’s none of my fucking problem."

​Todd stopped walking under the flickering yellow glow of a broken streetlamp. He closed his eyes, leaning his shoulder against a cold iron railing. The sheer indifference in her voice felt like a physical blow.

​"He’s still your brother, Tidder," Todd said, his voice dropping into a low, strained whisper. He tried to force a sense of reality into her, to break through the icy armor she had built around herself. "I know you didn't like him. I know there's too much bad blood between you two. But he went into that hospital for one reason. He went there to rescue you, and he ended up getting caught because of it. If he hadn't come for you, he wouldn't be locked inside that prison right now. He threw his life away so you could run."

​"Fuck that!" Tidder shouted back, her voice distorting through the cheap speaker of the phone. A heavy, jagged breath rattled on her end of the line, followed by a cold, humorless laugh. "I have known James since we were kids, Todd. I saw exactly what he became. After my dad died right in front of him... since that exact day, something in his soul broke. He changed into a monster. He never fucking cared about anyone. Not the people who worked for him, not the people he hurt, and not even me. He cares about power, Todd. That's it."

​She paused, the sound of wind rustling through her phone indicating she was moving, fleeing to somewhere far away from the city. Her tone turned sharp and mocking. "Tell me, Todd. Do you really think he truly cares about you? Do you think he gives a single shit about what you’ve been through compared to what he wants? You’re just a soldier to him. A tool."

​Todd gripped the phone harder, his knuckles turning white. The words stung because he had asked himself the same questions in his darkest hours. But he remembered the boy from the village school, the boy who hadn't laughed when the others mocked his poverty. He remembered the iron resolve that had kept them both alive in the streets.

​"Tidder, I don't care about his past right now," Todd said, his voice cracking with an intense, desperate sincerity as he started walking again, his boots hurrying along the sidewalk. "I just want to get him out of there. He's the only real friend I've ever had in this miserable life. I'm not going to leave him to rot in a prison."

​"Todd, James is not your fucking friend. You haven't truly known him yet," Tidder said, her voice dropping into a flat, dead register that chilled Todd to the bone. "You only see the man who shares a room with you, not the shadow behind him. So if you're still insisting that you're going to go get him, then go get him yourself. Because I'm never fucking coming with you. Don't call this number again."

​"It's my fault," Todd muttered, his voice hollow as the guilt finally caught up to him. He stared down at his own shadow stretching out under the city lights. "I shouldn't have forced him to come get you out of there. If I hadn't pushed him—"

​Click.

​The line went completely dead. Tidder had severed the connection, leaving Todd standing in the cold silence of the street with nothing but the dull dial tone humming in his ear. He slowly lowered the phone, his chest tightening with a profound sense of isolation. He was entirely on his own now.

​He walked the remaining block toward his destination, his mind spinning with fragmented plans and impossible logistics. After a few minutes, he reached the dilapidated apartment complex where he and James had been hiding out before the hospital disaster. It was a grey, four-story building with peeling paint and a flickering fluorescent light over the main entryway.

​Todd climbed the creaking stairwell to the third floor. He stopped in front of the door to apartment 3B, his hand reaching into his pocket to pull out the brass key. He inserted it into the lock, turning it slowly. The mechanism released with a quiet, oily click.

​He pushed the door open and stepped through the threshold.

​Instantly, a cold wave of suspicion washed over him. The apartment was entirely dark, the heavy curtains drawn shut, blocking out whatever ambient light the streetlamps provided. But it wasn't just the darkness—it was the atmosphere. The air felt thin, disturbed, and smelled faintly of wet stone and iron.

​Todd didn't reach for the light switch. His survival instincts, honed by years in the criminal underground, screamed at him to remain invisible. He closed the door behind him with agonizing slowness, ensuring the latch didn't make a sound.

​Moving with a light, mechanical stealth, he slipped toward the small kitchen area on the left. As he crossed the threshold, a draft of cool air hit his face. He looked over and saw that the kitchen window was wide open, the sheer curtains fluttering gently in the breeze. They never left that window open. The security protocols were absolute: everything stayed locked. Someone had broken in.

​Todd’s heart hammered against his ribs, but his mind went ice-cold. He reached down toward the wooden knife block on the counter, his fingers wrapping around the handle of a heavy, eight-inch chef's knife. He pulled it free, the steel sliding out with a faint, dangerous hiss.

​Holding the blade low and inverted against his forearm, Todd crept out of the kitchen and back into the narrow hallway that led toward the bedrooms. The shadows here were thick, almost absolute. He took one slow step, his eyes straining to see through the gloom. He stopped, listening intently. Nothing but the sound of his own shallow breathing.

​He took another step forward. His boot pressed down on something thick, wet, and slightly sticky. It didn't feel like the hard linoleum floor.

​Todd stopped dead in his tracks. He kept his eyes raised, scanning the darkness ahead, but he slowly tilted his head down to look at his feet. In the dim sliver of light coming from the kitchen window, he could see a dark, glistening trail covering the floorboards. It was blood. Thick, dark poolings of it, smeared across the hallway like an intentional marker.

​The trail led directly into his bedroom.

​A sudden, sharp spike of panic pierced his cold focus. He followed the crimson trail, his grip on the knife tightening until his hand ached. He reached the open doorway of his room and looked inside.

​There, resting directly in the center of his unmade mattress, was the body of his small terrier dog. The animal’s head had been cleanly, brutally severed from its neck, the small skull resting a few inches away from the torso. Deep, dark blood had completely saturated the white bedsheets, dripping down the side of the wooden frame onto the floorboards below.

​Todd froze, his breath catching in his throat. A terrible, suffocating wave of grief and rage rose from the pit of his stomach. The dog had been his only comfort, a small, innocent creature that had kept him grounded while the rest of his world burned into ash.

​The horror of the sight held him captive for a fraction of a second too long.

​Before his brain could process the danger of his exposed position, a dark silhouette materialized out of the shadows behind the bedroom door. It was Lin. The elite operative moved with a terrifying, silent speed, his heavy tactical boot swinging forward with immense force.

​Crack.

​The kick caught Todd directly in the back of his right knee, the joint buckling instantly under the pressure. Todd let out a sharp grunt of pain as he collapsed onto the hardwood floor, his hands hitting the wood to stabilize himself.

​Instantly, Lin stepped over him, his face a completely blank mask of professional efficiency. In his right hand, Lin held a long, silver combat knife. He brought the blade down in a vicious, vertical arc, aiming straight for the meat of Todd’s left shoulder to disable his dominant arm and end the fight before it could truly begin.

​But Todd wasn't an amateur. The moment he hit the floor, his survival instincts took over completely. He rolled violently to his right, his canvas jacket scraping against the wood as Lin’s blade plunged deep into the floorboards right where his shoulder had been a millisecond before, splitting the wood with a sharp thwack.

​Using the momentum of the roll, Todd swung his leg upward, his boot striking Lin squarely in the chest. The blow forced the operative back a step, buying Todd the precious second he needed. Todd scrambled backward, his boots gripping the floor as he forced himself up into a standing position, his back pressing against the frame of the bedroom doorway. His chest heaved as he raised his knife, his eyes locking onto his attacker.

​"Do you really have to kill my dog?" Todd asked, his voice shaking with a dangerous, lethal vibration. He didn't look at Lin; his eyes were fixed on the small, bloody shape on the bed, his heart breaking under the weight of the senseless cruelty.

​A second figure stepped out from the deep shadows near the closet. It wasn't Lin who spoke—it was Kia. The younger operative stepped into the dim light, a heavy suppressed pistol held loosely in his left hand, his face wearing a cold, indifferent expression.

​"The dog wouldn't stop barking when I  breached the lock," Kia said flatly, his voice entirely devoid of remorse. He brushed a small speck of dust off his tailored suit sleeve. "And I absolutely hate unnecessary noise. It interferes with the collection process. So, I had to silence him."

​Todd’s eyes snapped from the bed to Kia’s face. The grief inside him hardened instantly into an absolute, unadulterated hatred. The air in the tiny bedroom grew suffocatingly heavy with the promise of violence.

​"Your head will be next to his on that bed once I'm done with you," Todd said, his words coming out low, steady, and filled with a terrifying promise. He shifted his weight, his grip on the kitchen knife resetting as he prepared to lung.

​Kia didn't look threatened. He simply raised his eyebrows, tilting his head slightly as he looked at the kitchen knife in Todd's hand. "You should come with me gently, If you drop the steel and walk out to the car right now, I won't have to cut your head off too. Save us both the physical exertion."

​Todd let out a short, bitter breath through his nose, his eyes narrowing into two sharp slits of icy rage. He raised the blade, the edge catching the pale light from the window.

​"Let’s see whose head goes down first," Todd whispered.

​Kia didn't answer immediately. He just looked at Todd, letting out a long, slow breath that sounded more like boredom than anticipation. He lowered his left hand slightly, his shoulder muscles tensing as he prepared to engage.

​"Do I really have to catch you alive instead of dead?" Kia muttered to himself, his voice laced with danger.