Discarded By Him, Claimed By The Enemy

"Get down!"

Etta Foster's voice was a raw tear in the fabric of the blizzard.

She squeezed the trigger just as a second infected creature lunged from the swirling snow. Its claws raked across her abdomen before she could fire. The crack of her tactical pistol was swallowed by the howling wind as the first creature, lunging toward Morgan Hayes, crumpled into the snow, a dark stain spreading from its head. But the damage was done. The deep gash in her belly was not just a wound-it was the entry point for the R-type variant, a pathogen that, once contracted, has a significant probability of turning its host into a hyper-aggressive, highly dangerous mutated creature. Even a single scratch could trigger a catastrophic transformation.

Her own blood was a much hotter stain, soaking through the layers of her fatigues. The infected gash in her abdomen screamed with a pain so white-hot it felt like swallowing fire. Every breath was a ragged gasp, sucking in air that felt like tiny needles in her lungs. She slumped against the frozen bark of a pine tree, her vision starting to swim.

The rest of the NorthCom mercenary team was a mess of panicked shouts and sporadic gunfire. Their defensive perimeter had collapsed into chaos.

Morgan, huddled behind a rock, was still screaming, her cries attracting another shambling figure from the swirling snow.

Etta gritted her teeth, ignoring the violent tremor in her hand. She raised her pistol again, lined up the shot, and fired. Another body hit the snow.

After the shot, the last of her strength gave out. The gun felt impossibly heavy, and she slid down the trunk of the tree, landing hard in the deepening snowdrift. Through the blur of her fading vision, she saw the evacuation helicopter descend, its landing skids punching into the snow fifty yards away. The side door slid open, and the warm light of the cabin spilled out.

"Move! Everyone to the bird!" Torres shouted.

Hands grabbed her. Someone-she couldn't see who-hoisted her up. Morgan was being dragged by two other mercenaries, her legs barely moving. Together, the team stumbled through the knee-deep snow toward the idling helicopter. Etta's boots left a trail of blood-soaked footprints.

They reached the open hatch. Etta was propped against the fuselage, too weak to climb. Morgan collapsed onto the deck just inside the cabin, sobbing. Etta slumped against the edge of the hatch, her body half inside, half out, her legs still buried in the snow.

Jeffrey Herrera stood in the doorway, untouched by the chaos, his form silhouetted against the warm light. He looked down at her, then at the wound on her abdomen. His expression remained cold and unreadable. Hope, desperate and stupid, clawed its way up her throat. He would come for her. He had to.

Jeffrey raised a hand, not to wave her forward, but to press the communication bead in his ear. His voice, filtered through the comms, was devoid of any emotion. "We have a situation. Etta Foster is compromised. Confirmed exposure to the R-type variant. As a reminder, this pathogen-once contracted-carries a high probability of turning the host into a devastating mutated bio-weapon. There is no cure, and the transformation can occur within hours."

He was speaking to the entire team. To the men and women she had fought alongside for five years.

"A vote is required," Jeffrey continued, his tone that of a CEO chairing a board meeting. "Standard protocol for compromised assets in a hostile zone. All in favor of extraction, raise your hand."

No hands went up. The silence was heavier than the snow-laden air.

"All in favor of containment protocol-leaving the asset behind to ensure the safety of the team and the mission."

Morgan's hand shot up first, her face streaked with tears and snow. "She's been exposed! If we bring her on board, we could all die! We can't risk it, Jeffrey!"

One by one, other hands joined hers. Men she'd shared rations with, men whose lives she'd saved, now sealing her fate with a simple gesture.

Etta's heart felt like it was being squeezed by a frozen fist.

Jeffrey lowered his hand from his ear. He looked directly at her, his eyes meeting hers across the short distance of the open hatch. "The vote is unanimous. Etta Foster, you are classified as a non-recoverable asset."

The words didn't feel real. They were just sounds, ripped apart by the wind.

His second-in-command, a man named Torres, trudged through the snow toward her. He didn't offer a hand. He didn't offer a word of comfort. He simply knelt and unclipped her rifle from its sling, his movements efficient and impersonal. He took her sidearm from her limp grasp and stripped her of her comms unit.

The wind howled, a physical force that stole the breath and the warmth from her body. The temperature was dropping fast, plunging well below zero.

Torres tossed a small, plastic-wrapped first-aid kit at her feet. It contained gauze and antiseptic wipes. A final, insulting gesture.

As he turned to leave, Etta's hand shot out, her fingers, numb and clumsy, closing around the hard leather of Jeffrey's boot. She tugged, a weak, desperate plea.

"Jeffrey," she rasped, her voice barely a whisper.

He looked down at her hand as if it were something unclean. Then, without haste, he used the toe of his boot to push her hand aside, his movements unhurried and clinical, as if clearing a piece of equipment that was no longer needed.

"This is for the good of the company, Etta," he said, his voice flat. "It's a calculated loss."

A calculated loss. That's what she was. After everything.

The last bit of warmth in her chest extinguished, leaving a hollow, frozen cavern. She watched him turn his back on her and step deeper into the cabin, each step a final nail in her coffin. He was drawing a line, not in the snow, but between their lives.

The roar of the helicopter's engines intensified, whipping the snow into a blinding frenzy. Just before the cabin door slid shut, Jeffrey paused and looked back at her. There was no remorse in his eyes. Only a cold, arrogant expectation. He expected her to understand. To accept her sacrifice for his "greater good."

The helicopter lifted off, a black beast ascending into a white sky, leaving her utterly alone.

Etta did not scream his name. She did not beg. A raw, guttural snarl tore from her throat-defiance, not despair. She pushed herself backward, away from the downdraft, her palms scraping against the frozen ground.

"Not here," she hissed. "Not like this."

She crawled. One hand in front of the other, dragging her wounded body through the deepening snow. The first-aid kit was still clutched in her numb fingers. She found a fallen pine and built a crude shelter against its trunk, packing snow around the branches. She staunched the bleeding with gauze and snow. The cold numbed the pain. She ate nothing. She drank melted snow.

The infected kept coming.

They shambled out of the blizzard, drawn by blood. Etta killed them with her Fairbairn-Sykes blade-the one hidden in her boot. Close-quarters. Brutal. Each kill tore her abdomen open a little wider, but she did not stop. Ten. Maybe fifteen. She lost count.

When she had no strength left to fight, she set traps. A tripwire strung between two trees, connected to a flash-bang salvaged from a dead mercenary. A pressure plate made from a broken ammunition box, buried under snow. Rudimentary. Desperate. But it was something.

The storm raged on. The snow fell heavier, thicker, a white blanket intent on burying the clearing and everything in it. Etta drifted in and out of consciousness, the pain a distant, throbbing drumbeat. She was almost completely covered now, a small mound in an endless expanse of white.

Then, through the haze of her fading consciousness, she saw it.

Two points of intense, white light, cutting through the blizzard. They grew closer, resolving into the headlights of a vehicle. Not just one vehicle, but a convoy of heavy, armored trucks, moving with a silent, predatory grace. They rolled into the blood-soaked clearing like ghosts.

The lead vehicle stopped. A side door opened, and a figure in tactical gear jumped out. A woman. Mya Sharp, deputy to the CEO of the Eastern Syndicate. She knelt, examining one of the bodies Etta had taken down.

Mya's voice crackled over a hidden speaker, audible even through the storm. "Clean kills. Close-quarters knife work on the others. Precise. Professional."

Another voice, male and laced with dark humor, replied from inside the truck. "Sounds like an old friend of ours, doesn't it? The kind of work that gives NorthCom its charming reputation."

The tinted rear window of the lead armored SUV lowered by a fraction of an inch. A plume of smoke drifted out, dissipating instantly in the wind.

A low, calm voice followed the smoke. "Stop the convoy."

The command was absolute.

Through the driving snow, a pair of eyes, cold and sharp, found her. They locked onto her small, broken form huddled at the base of the pine tree.

Kraig Crawford had arrived. The CEO of the Eastern Syndicate seemed as cold as an ice sculpture.