They knocked him out with a blow to the skull and dragged him into a dark room. His wrists were bound with wire that dug into his skin. A paltry meal of dry bread and water was forced through a slot. When day broke, they dragged him into a chair and dumped a bucket of water on him.

“Ready to talk?” The former War Maidens, now members of West Junction, asked.

The bandit spat at them and refused to give his name. He received a blinding flash of light that burned his eyesockets, courtesy of Brigid.

“The faster you talk, the better your treatment will be.” Brigid said, “What’s it going to be, young man?”

Again, he refused. The girls—no, women in the room, stood firm and strong, unlike the subdued ones back at his home camp. It pissed him off.

“Fuck you!”

“Vulgar. As expected.” One of the girls said.

He should be the one giving orders, not him. If only he could snap these chains, he’d grab them by the necks and make sure they’d learn their place. It must have showed on his face, because Brigid sighed at that.

“The gentle approach is gone, then. Girls, do what you must.” She said. “Contact me if there’s any news.”

The older woman left the room. The other girls picked up metallic implements from a tray and advanced on him. He kept his gaze steady at their sneers and smirks. He was brave, trusted member of Raz’s army. These women were nothing. He wouldn’t say a word.

Then they shoved a wet cloth into a mouth and let the liquid inside it seep through. His vision swam with glittering stars. Hands extended from the skies and tore out his fingers, bled out his flesh and poured acid down his throat.

Then the fervor wore off and he found himself unharmed.

“That was nothing.” He sneered, though his heart was pounding like a drum.

“Mm, that’s what they all say. Ready for round two?” His torturer said.

They also ripped off his fingernails. He discovered that he could scream. Very loudly at that.

“Thought you girls were all about mercy!” He gasped out after the fourth round, as they dropped the last of his right hand’s nails onto a tray. “Sure ain’t look like it!”

“Yes, as our Goddess wills it. Her mercy is divine, radiant and compassionate. She understands the faults in man and shares our burden.” One of the war maidens said. “But even, She has her limits.”

“Specifically, She does not accept scum that dares prey on underaged children!” Kerry, the bait girl, snarled.

“I’ve never—”

“Don’t lie. We’ve seen the documents recovered. We know what you’ve done to the women you capture!” Kerry hissed. “For them, Bethany and the rest of your victims, we shall continue this punishment until you spill!”

The war maidens blocked out the little light in his cell, so that he could not discern the time. They deprived him of red, to remove his dignity. They barraged him with a cacophony of screeches and howls at odd parts of the day, to disrupt his concentration.

It worked. He talked more on the second day. He didn’t even realise he was doing it.

“What do you know of this girl?” Kerry asked, dangling a picture in front of him.

“Nothing!”

“You sure? Hey, Vicky, let’s crush one of his testicles.”

“I mean, I don’t know where she’s from! Raz brought her in one day and said she was our healer slave!”

“Healer slave, huh?” Kerry repeated. A dangerous look appeared in her eyes. “Knowing the treatment of other women in your lot, I’m becoming quite concerned. What have you done to her?”

“Nothing! She just heals us! No-one touches her, Raz beat the shit out of the last guy who tried. Says she’s too valuable of a slave…”

Kerry and Vicky exchanged a glance. “Saria will be happy to hear that.”

The girls weren’t done yet.

“You know, we don’t really want to do this. We rather be up topside, hanging out with our friends in the sunshine. Win-win for both of us if you talk.”

“Think about it. Raz isn’t going to spare the effort to come and save you. We’re so far away. Is he really someone you want to follow? Surely, you have must realised his crimes.”

“One of your friends gave up. We found out he was new to your lot, so we only scared him a bit and then we accepted him as one of our own. Forgiveness is nice, yes? We can do the same for you.”

“Look at your other friend. He was very stubborn, so we had to bleed him out. He didn’t last long.”

Bit by bit, they wore him down.

“You’re devils. Not maidens!” He ended up sobbing.

“Nah, we’re just the more psychotic of the war maidens.” Vicky admitted. “Lucy, Saria, Madeline…they’re good girls. Not us. We get jobs like these.”

“It’s not a huge change from what we did back home.” Kerry said, “Except instead of blasphemers, it’s rapists and murderers.”

“What are you going to do with me, if I agree to tell you everything?” He asked.

Vicky shrugged. “Make it quick? It’s up to Brigid.”

He ended up telling them everything. Routes, map, intel about Raz’s gang, everything he knew. Anything was better than this.

One of the maidens came in with a strange fluid and a swinging pendulum. She made it quick. And that was the end of that.

Word trickled down from the higherups. It seeped into the worker fields and the dormitories, filling them with all sorts of rumors. Brigid, Matt and the rest didn’t bother to cover it up. People would have found out eventually.

Three days had passed since the mission to capture Raz’s bandits. The first had been spent resting, then it was back to his usual routine Adam sat in a table in the canteen, nursing a lunch of beans and bread. He collected a spoonful of the beans, tomato-red with sauce, then placed it down with a sigh. Despite the earlier training session with Saria, there wasn’t much of an appetite in him right now.

The chatter in the canteen wasn’t helping.

“Heard Madeline is still alive, thank the stars. Hope she’s doing ok…”

“Why is Brigid stalling? We need to take out Raz now!”

“There was some screaming last night…someone must’ve had a huge nightmare…”

He could feel the stares on their back. He emerged from mission bloody and pale, only giving a half-hearted briefing to Brigid at the end. Given how everyone now knew he was a Pactbearer, his efforts were ripe for discussion. Similar things had happened amongst the delinquents back in Steeldale. Normally he’d brush him off, but today the whispers and stares stung, somehow.

Lucy and Saria were at the table with him, as usual. They weren’t much for conversation, though. Saria chewed through her lunch as if her life depended on it. Lucy was caught between eating her own meal and awkwardly glancing over between Saria and Adam.

The blonde girl had gone quiet ever since she discovered her sister was still alive. She had worn a haunted, conflicted look throughout recuperation, until she learned that Madeline was relatively untouched in Raz’s clutches. Then, that look had morphed into a mask of sheer determination. She ceased complaining during work and attacked training dummies with the same ferocity she had shown on the mission, reducing them to scrap by the end.

Adam could almost see the ticking countdown timer etched on Saria’s body. Those bandits were doomed.

“Adam.” Saria suddenly said. She poked at his tray. “You need to eat.”

He forced himself to pick up the spoonful and eat. It got easier after third mouthful. This wasn’t the first time he made himself full and it wouldn’t be the last.

“After this, we’re gonna train.” Saria said. A statement, not the offer she used to give, “Let’s work on our coordination in the fields.”

“Sure.” Adam replied. A promise was a promise.

“Thanks, Adam.”

“You guys…” Lucy said, “Don’t overdo it, okay?”

“We won’t.” They chorused. Lucy was powerless to stop them and she knew it. They weren’t idiots to overdo themselves before the mission, either.

That didn’t meant they couldn’t push their bodies to the limits. Time flew by in a haze of warmups, exercises and sparring. Lucy joined them in at some point, but he couldn’t pinpoint when she called it quits. By the time the sun was dimming, their bodies were coated in grime-sweat and their nerves ached with red exhaustion.

Stumble into the showers, eat a chunk of bread and go to sleep. He collapsed face-down onto his pillow, his limbs feeling like lead bars. He was exhausted. That was good. It meant he didn’t have energy to think about things. That was also good. Just go to sleep, he told himself. Don’t live in the past. Live in the future.

His eyes closed. He descended into unconsciousness. Then, he was suddenly aware of himself, a web of golden threads wrapping around him as he floated in dream ether.

Damn it. He groaned internally. Why now, of all times?

The golden threads tugged and he let himself follow deeper into the Pactbearer’s shared memories. He landed in a grassy field, beneath the stary skies of Astraea. Joyful, shrill laughter filled the air. Adam saw two young girls, both blonde, chasing each other amongst the fresh grass and colorful flowers.

“Gonna getcha, Maddy! Gonna getcha!” One of the girls laughed.

“Noooo!” The other younger girl shrieked, “I’m not gonna let you, Saria!”

The two girls collided into each other. They tumbled into the grass, giggling all the while. They basked in the sun, watching the stars twinkle high above. The little Madeline knit together a wreath of flowers, then placed it atop Saria’s head. The little Saria hugged her little sister tight, smiling so wide Adam thought her face was about to burst.

The scene then shifted. Saria was cheering at an acceptance letter in her hands, as Madeline celebrated alongside her sister. The two were older now, clad in the uniforms of the War Maidens, and practising their magic with their comrades on imprisoned corruptions. Madeline was awestruck at Lucy’s posh clothes, while Saria groused in embarrassment. The two siblings were holding hands, promising that they’d be together forever.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out why Adam was receiving these memories.

But why me?

Why was he forced to watch Saria’s happy times with her little sister, with the full knowledge that his was still gone?

It was so easy to imagine himself and Mary in their place. Yes, Mary had never made him a wreath of flowers, but she had scavenged toys out of the dumpster, cleaned them in the river and presented them to him on his fifth birthday. Mary had never gone to war, but she had passed her job interviews, and those had been times for celebration with candies and soft drinks.

Mary had hugged him on New Year’s Eve, promising that as long as she lived, she would support him to the full extent of her abilities, and then some.

He watched Saria and Madeline embrace before the mission that would send them to his red world. Ugly jealousy coiled like a serpent inside his gut. His fists clenched and he glanced away.

Go away. Piss off. Stop showing me this shit. He thought, Let me go back to sleep.

He didn’t want to remember what he lost, nor imagine what he could have had. He should be happy for Saria, he told himself. When Mary died, the police hadn't helped him, filing her murder away in the archives to gather dust for the rest of the time. But Saria, her little sister was alive. The love the two shared was clear as day. Their relationship had a second chance and no way was Adam gonna stand by and let it die out.

I'm no rat. I made a promise to her. Simple as, so just stop it, damn it!

He didn’t want to leak this side of him to Saria in the real world. This toxic, rancid bitterness that he forced himself to suppress every time he met Saria these days.

As if on command, the golden threads pulled him away. He was flung back into normal slumber. He almost breathed a sigh of relief.

Only for the dream to not fade. Instead, he was now in a place much worse. He was back in near the overgrown botanical gardens, fighting bandit leader again. His body flowed through the same motions as the bandit roared, his words staticky like a broken tape. Adam tried to resist, struggle his body to at least run away through this memory-dreamscape, but it was no use. There his fist went, sailing through the air towards the bandit neck.

There, it pierced the flesh.

A red splash. The scent of iron and death. The body of bandit crumpled before him.

He died, again. Mary’s corpse smiled up at him, again. Adam woke up, sweaty and clammy and, once again, resisting the urge to puke.

Get it together, you fucking idiot. How are you gonna help Saria find her sister like this?

Yet, no matter how many times he told himself that, it didn’t feel any better. He still saw the ghost of the bandit leader haunting him. The nightmares about Mary’s passing had crept back. He refused to tell any of this to Saria or Lucy. He could deal with his problems on his own. He was a goddamn adult now.

Still, he couldn’t sleep after those nightmares. He got up, headed outside. The air was cold. The sun was still dim. He paced around the training fields, hands in his pockets. He walked a couple of laps, before he got into stance and prepared to shadow-box.

Before he started, he heard a tune in the distance. Humming. Curious, he approached, only to find…

“Brigid?”

The former commander of the war maidens raised an eyebrow as he approached. A cigarette was in her hands. She puffed out a cloud of sparkling smoke from her lips before facing him.

“Hello, young man.” She said. “What brings you out this early?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Thought I might work out.”

“I see. How about you pay this old woman some company for a while? I could use it.”