They call me a traitor. That's true, but it ain't the whole story.
I joined same as the rest of you: a dumb, patriotic kid who thought he'd make a difference. I was gonna make momma proud. Buy her a nice place, get into college, do something with my life. They sell us on dreams of that apple pie, promise we'll be different. And then they throw us into the shit. All those recruiters leave out the parts about the blood and tears. They don't tell us we got to watch our friends bleed out and die in front of us or that we'll have to shoot kids who have bombs on their chests.
The fucked thing is, you get numb after a while. You know? It's like you get surrounded by so much death, what's one more? They turn us into killers and set us off the leash. They don't care about the cost. We're out here cold and starving on the streets, shit for insurance and piss for benefits.
You think you're different from me? Nah, you just ain't found your line yet. See, we all have these lines. Push a human being too hard, eventually they break. Everyone's line is different. Mine was this fucking city. They strapped silver bullets to my chest, pumped holy water into my veins, and told me I'd be killing monsters. People who deserved it for once, they said. Different from Iraq, Afghanistan, they said. They fucking lied. Always do.
Now I've done some real black ops shit. Shit they ain't even keep files for. Assassinations, sabotage. I've brought down entire governments with the pull of a trigger. See, the blood don't bother me. Didn't bother any of us. They - they being those shadowed motherfuckers you don't ever get to meet except for a black silhouette on a screen - they only wanted the cruelest, coldest sonuvabitches they could find. Slapped together a team from every branch. Hell, we even had a couple spooks with us. Their name was PALADIN - some really fucking long acronym that really meant somebody just wanted to spell out the word paladin, but we called ourselves the Suicide Squad. We knew the score. Knew half of us wouldn't walk out alive.
There were seven of us. Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and me. We never got real names, just some higher up's fucked up sense of humor.
They said they'd take care of our families if we didn't make it, so sure. From day one of basic, we know we're expendable. At least we'd do some good this time. Right? Vampires, they said. I'd seen weirder shit, so I didn't question it. What they didn't tell us was these vampires were people. Normal fucking people just going about their lives. Most of them were sipping on blood bags, too scared to actually kill. Couple of wannabe warlords sure, but they were happy enough to beat on each other and leave the rest of the world out of it.
And yeah, I didn't mind taking out the ones that were ballsy enough to kill. Felt a dull little ache when I had to pull the trigger against the ones that didn't, but I'd done worse. I was fine. Just fucking fine.
Until I saw
her. Fucking kid couldn't have been older than 18, but the funny thing is... I knew her. From before. I knew she had to be older now, but she must have been turned. She'd saved me before. I couldn't do it. Just one fucking time I said no, I hesitated for maybe a second and it cost me everything. My team opened fire on me and left me there to bleed out in some dark alleyway.
When I woke up, I was... This. Couldn't have been her, she was a kilo off and had no idea I was there. All I remember is this dark figure dragging me off the street and into a church. But I was stronger. Faster. A more efficient killer.
They're going to find out just how fucking efficient.
