Chapter 4 Eyes In The Dark........

The vehicle stopped with a jolt.

Cleora's neck snapped slightly with the momentum, but she didn't flinch.

The blindfold itched against her skin, soaked slightly from sweat.

They'd been driving for hours, and somewhere along the journey, she'd felt the shift, when the terrain changed, and the air grew thicker, and when Luciano's tone shifted from casual to clipped.

Someone yanked the van door open, and looked into the corner where she sat,

"What do we have here?, a woman!!," the voice said.

Cleora edged forward and stepped down, her boots hitting gravel.

The blindfold stayed on as footsteps crunched around her, she could hear whispers, boots pacing, even the hum of something distant, maybe a generator, vacuum or chainsaw, or maybe another van.

The air here tasted metallic.

Then finally the blindfold was removed.

She blinked rapidly trying to adjust here eyes to sudden brightness, wven though the light was dull, everything hit her at once.

The sky was dim, choked by clouds, and the compound around her was surrounded by towering walls of blackened stone, some laced with old vines that had been scorched halfway down.

A few armored men leaned against buildings like ghosts watching a new soul arrive in purgatory.

Smoke curled from chimneys and weapons were holstered but never out of reach.

No one smiled, no one waved.

Luciano walked past her and muttered without looking, "Welcome to the Capital."

She took it in silently, her expression unreadable, this was the heart, the seat of the beast.

The last place anyone would expect to find a Vesper.

The mafia's base was carved into a jagged ravine like a wound in the earth, partially hidden from sky drones.

It was brutal and sharp and everything was either metal, ash-colored concrete, or forged by hands that didn't believe in comfort.

Then came the stares.

Men paused in their conversations, while a few tilted their heads, some sneered.

One even spat near her boots. She was a woman in a camp where softness was outlawed.

Cleora just held her ground with one hand in her pocket, thumb playing with the lining. Her stance? Relaxed, too relaxed.

"Fresh meat?" someone muttered.

"I bet she won't last a day," another said under their breath.

Luciano stopped at a checkpoint, whispering something to the guard.

The gate clanked open, as they stepped through, she felt it a chill crawling up her spine.

The way you know when a predator's watching you.

Her eyes scanned slowly and then she saw him.

The senior man leaning against a post, arms crossed, features half-lit by a red bulb.

His face is older, harder, cruel in the corners. Scar above the left brow with a lazy grin that didn't reach his eyes.

But she knew that face, he was one of them.

One of the men who'd stormed her family estate with a loaded rifle and chaos in his eyes.

The kind that doesn't blink when a child screams, her lip twitched but she didn't let it rise into a full expression.

Their eyes locked as he studied her, looked her over like he didn't recognize her,why would he?

The face was new, but something in her stare made him narrow his gaze.

That stare wasn't normal, it was bold and sharp, a tad bit too sharp for someone just brought in blindfolded.

Luciano introduced her to a few names that went through one ear and out the other.

She didn't care, she had her attention on him, a man now on her hit list known as Eldino.

He lingered even after the others moved, watching her like an itch he couldn't place.

And he didn't like her stare, not one bit.

"You lookin' for trouble, weasy girl?" Eldino finally snapped, stepping forward.

She tilted her head,with eyes half-lidded, tone dry. "I just like ugly things, they fascinate me."

Some of the recruits behind her snorted.

Luciano turned, frowning "Cleora."

"I'm just being honest," she said, brushing past them and walking into the barracks without being told.

Eldino's jaw clenched as he watched her go like a man watching a fuse disappear into a barrel of gunpowder.

Later that night, Cleora lay in a steel bunk with no mattress, just a thin sheet and a concrete wall against her spine, she didn't sleep.

The camp murmured around her, and the sound of men laughing with no humor, of fists pounding sandbags, of distant gunfire.

The others muttered about her being too pretty, too bold, won't last with such attitude.

But she didn't speak, she waited and observed.

Then came the call.

A bell rang once, signalling that training was starting, how she knew this?,

Well Bida had said so much along the journey.

Some brief seconds of silence passed, before she heard a knock on the door of her steel bunk.

Hey, it's Luciano, come on out, we've got some important events planned out for today.

Cleora rose, slow and deliberate, slipping on her boots without a sound.

The sheet she'd lain on was barely wrinkled as sleep hadn't visited her, not in this place, not when the air still reeked of bloodied legacy.

She opened the steel door to find Luciano waiting, already suited in a combat vest, sleeves rolled up, cigarette burning low between his fingers.

He looked her over with a slight squint, as if trying to read through her skin.

"You good?"

She gave him a single nod, my wellbeing can be discussed by the day's end.

"Good, follow me."

The early morning air was colder than expected, laced with the burn of oil and gunpowder.

The sky, still bruised by night, cast the compound in eerie shadows.

They passed a courtyard where other recruits had gathered, about twenty of them, mostly men.

A few turned to look at her as she joined the line beside Luciano, their faces were painted in anticipation, some of pain, some of hope to rise, hers remained unreadable.

An instructor barked orders, then gestured to the far end of the grounds where weapons were laid out on a long steel table.

"No names, no ranks," he growled,"Just one rule, earn your place or get the hell outta here."

Luciano leaned close to Cleora,"This is how they weed the weak, so don't dissapoint me, I've bragged quite Alot, also watch your back, especially from the ones who smile."

Cleora scanned the crowd and found a strange face glaring at her with unexplainable hate, arms crossed near the edge of the yard, watching her like a bloodhound scenting a storm.

She smiled at him, not warmth, but a cute warning.

Let them underestimate her.

It would be the last mistake they made anyways.