Nikita

[NIKITA]

"Hey Rael, it's past midnight, you know the policy on late night video cal—" Nikita said when he picked Rael's video call, but he didn't get to finish his sentence because what the fuċk was he supposed to say to what he was seeing?

Maybe this was a mistake.

Maybe this was a prank, but it wasn't funny. He didn't like the joke whatsoever, and Rael needed to stop it.

It was three o'clock in the morning, and everyone had already gone to bed. They had all slept at the Pavlenko estate, and given that accommodations wanted an issue, they had all settled in. Nikita, however, had not been able to sleep.

He had been thinking of Yuri and the ways to get to know whether his brother was alive or not. However, what he was seeing on that screen in his bedroom, was something else. Rael looked like she had been bulldozed and had bȧrėly survived the destruction.

Her background itself looked like shit. Nikita could see it was the chamber room he had used to train them to get answers from their prisoners. That was the safest yet deadliest place in the facility, and yet somehow, the woman he had put in charge of it was looking like she had been trampolined.

With the bruises and cuts on her face, the disheveled hair that she seemed to leave because of the possibility that there were some wounds to it, the broken nose, and busted lips, Rael looked like shit.

Nikita couldn't believe what he was seeing, and as usual, his first instinct was to go out there and help her, but then he would be useless if he didn't know what had happened or even who he was about to go after.

He had to exercise patience, something that would take him a while to learn, but hey, if he was a doctor, indeed, there had to be some degree of tolerance in him.

"Rael? Who hurt you" Nikita asked carefully. He had personally trained Rael, and he was one of his best soldiers, so this just didn't make any sense. Besides, what was to be signed from hurting his soldier like this?

There had to be more to the story, and right now, she had his attention. Rael was a fighter, the kid that never went down quickly, and that's a part of why Nikita had chosen her for the combat missions and Kyle for the intelligence missions. 

"Boss, I—I'm sorry," Rael managed out like she was having a broken trachea or something. The damage done to this woman was extensive, and Nikita's heart broke for her. He wanted to be there for her, comfort her, and tell her that she wants alone, but he was also curious.

The last he had heard from Rael and Morgana was when he had approved their mission to interrogate Samantha. Given that she still clearly was at the facility despite her disfigured state, this had to have something to do with Samantha.

Either she had found people to free her there, or she had beaten up Rael, but then again, that was impossible. It just didn't make sense to him or to anyone who had seen the woman.

Nikita looked again at his soldier, so many questions running through his mind. Whatever had happened there needed to be voiced out, and otherwise, there was a chance that they all were in danger.

"What the fuċk happened, and why do you look like shit?" Nikita asked, finally realizing that he didn't have the time to beat around the bush. He needed to be aware of an attack, and then he had to be ready on all fronts.

Rael bowed her head like she was ashamed of what she was about to say. The fire in her eyes had dimmed, and there was no fight in her anymore. In place of the crazy woman was a beaten and bruised woman who couldn't even see right.

Fuck, this shit was driving Nikita crazy. This was not how he had planned to let his team live out their lives. Sure they were his soldiers, but he hasn't got them off the streets to drive them to their deaths. This wasn't how everything needed to happen. 

"Arya—" Rael said before she went into a fit of coughs. On the other hand, Nikita had gotten off the bed and was dressing up.

He needed to be out of here.

He needed to get to her and find a safety plan for Rael.

She still had a long life ahead of her.

"Samantha, she—" Rael said, making Nikita wonder who Arya was. Maybe it was another alias, but whose alias?

"Samantha, what? Don't tell me that she beat you, blue," Nikita said as he sat back on the bed. This was unbelievable. The woman who looked like she wouldn't even hurt a fuċkɨnġ fly? Sure, she was blessed with a running mouth, but violent? That didn't sound like Samantha.

He had seen the woman and her antics.

He had been there at the hospital when she was determined to ruin his reputation. She was a thorn in his side, one that he would eliminate once he found out what she wanted and why she had invested so much in ensuring everyone was against the doctor.

He would find out what she was doing there and her intent, but even then, Nikita was convinced that Arya was a good person. He was crazy for that, really.

Who even defended the one person that made his life harder?

Who defended the woman who would possibly be the reason he would never get his medical license active again? She was a ticking time bomb, but she was a bomb that Nikita Rostova was beginning to get fascinated with.

And that should have worried him, that should have made him question everything, but even he didn't know why he was subconsciously defending the woman who steered his ruin.

He wasn't sure why he was defending the girl who was probably playing them all, and the worst part of it was that he wasn't sure why he was defending her even though the apparent woman had kicked Rael's ȧss.

Rael was his best soldier, and the woman had beaten her blue, and that should have worried Nikita. That should have made him skeptical, but on the other side of the screen, at the back of his mind, he wanted to know her more.

He wanted to understand who she was and why she ever did anything. He wanted to be her hero, even though the woman needed no hero.

Nikita Rostova was a goner for the rebel, and maybe, just maybe, this was the first touch of fate in binding the two mates, but then again, would fate succeed?

They were opposites, time bombs in their ways. They were vicious in everything they did. One was broken, and one was a downright rebel.

Maybe this was fate's mistake, but was it?