When the birds stopped chirping

37. A Story About Crushed Ideals

As predicted, this wicked war's sham opposing us turned into real battle.

Douglas' laid-back attitude was the last straw, but I had not the will, nor the strength, to sermonise him. This time, Vladimir and his Mockingbirds got us good, cornered. His men searched the house for backers, thirsty for blood, while Vladimir barged in conqueror.

He looked down his nose at us and unsheathed his service gun, the same one that tore my hand apart. Hovering over each of us, his eyes set target on Douglas. Contemptuous, he gauged Douglas with the same madman eyes he laid on Kim tortured, like a disposable convict. With scorn, he looked dirty at him, teeth clenched. If discipline wasn't forbidding him to disobey his higher-ups, he would not have hesitated much longer to overstep the boundaries of his Commander status and order his men to shoot on sight.

His pupils burned with cold anger, waiting for Douglas to make an irredeemable misstep in order to arrest him. Chin held high, Douglas stared back at him, standing proudly in Vladimir's target line. Since Vladimir had all eyes for him, his behaviour had changed. With an attitude of protection, he shielded us from the Mockingbirds with his body. Petrified, stupefied, the three of us did not bulge a muscle.

Be it as fast as correcting their servers' security, the Black Police should not have been able to locate him so easily. Their blitz attack, set up to make an example, was surely premeditated. Wary of Vladimir's tantrums, Liam pushed Skye behind his back, asking me silently to battle in retreat too. As for me, reliving, horrified, the circumstances of Kim's interrogation, I interposed myself between Douglas and the Mockingbirds without thinking, wanting to prevent Douglas from enduring the same treatment.

Shooting daggers at me, Vladimir shrugged, irritated,

"Seems you ninny haven't learnt your lesson hard enough, have you?" he spat, laying his gun's barrel on my forehead. "Once wasn't enough to deter you from resisting me, was it?" he asked mockingly, looking at my right hand deeply scarred for life.

"A demonstration of violence's unnecessary," I pleaded without easing off.

"Stop trying to stall time! Such empty words won't save you twice from prison!" Vladimir yelled, clutching my neck, his stone-grey pupils drilled on me.

Simultaneously, as he raised his free fist to punch me, Liam leapt forward to intercept him and arm-lock him, "You'll regret laying your bloody fingers on her!" he screamed.

Yet unguarded, Vladimir stunned and cuffed him with off-putting easiness, and swung his head around, shoving his weapon onto Liam's throat, laying his index finger on the trigger, chuckling,

"If you haven't already suffered hard enough, I'll kill your knight-in-shining armour this instant! If you keep playing with my nerves!"

Given he seemed ready to tear apart Liam's throat, spiritless, I let my arms fall to my sides weakly. I took a step forward and almost sank to my knees, staring imploringly into the darkness of his soul, "Please, don't! Don't harm him! I am begging you!" I beseeched.

"What would you give in exchange for my leniency? If you want me so bad to set him free, I'll spare his life with compensation. Otherwise, I take it that you consider him worthless, that he isn't valuable to you! Am I right?"

"Asshole! Don't put her through that mental torture! To avoid another tragedy, you force me to hand myself in to you," Douglas declared, hands up.

"Are you blatantly asking to be killed?" Vladimir blurted.

Taking in Douglas' underlying statement, I gasped, speechless. "Sacrificing himself for the future of Thorn?" I wondered if Thorn's future was really worth sacrificing for; simply, we were the gears of a bigger entity entitled as the resistance against Pipelin Pantonium's regime. As long as the true figureheads of the Rebellion lived on, so would the Party's opposition's fighting will.