R-E-V-E-N-G-E… I spelled out each letter in my head, feeling the anger take hold of me. My mind suddenly caught up with my heart telling me my chance had finally come. After years of killing and becoming the monster the guards had wanted me to be, I was going to get my revenge.

“Where are you going?” I asked 362.

“West,” he answered darkly. “My retribution lies in the west.”

362 had been the one to make me write Durov’s name on my cell wall, I didn’t remember him doing that, but he told me he had when I first arrived. He too had a name on his wall. Those inscriptions drove us. They gave us a past when there wasn’t one left in our heads. They gave us a reason to live.

We stood there, matching each other’s stares, when 362 pressed his hand onto my arm, gripping my bicep tightly.

“Go kill the one that condemned you, 818. You’re ready. You’ve been ready for this day for far too long.”

Mirroring his action, my hand hit his arm. “You too.”

362 dropped his hand but looked up to say, “Hopefully we’ll meet again, 818. If not, get back the life you lost and I’ll see you in the next.”

With a nod of his head, he turned on his heel and sprinted out of the large metal gate. Dropping down to the guard scum, I fisted his shirt, my anger flaring when I saw recognition flash across his face.

He need be scared. I was going to gut the fucker for keeping me in this hell, for hurting me when I was a kid, for doing things to me when I was a kid…

“Don’t… don’t hurt me!” he cried, and my lip curled in disgust.

Shaking his puny body until his teeth chattered, I demanded, “Which way to New York?”

The guard paled and my fists tightened, threatening to choke him. “Which direction?”

The guard’s mouth opened and closed, but he couldn’t breathe through my grip. I loosened my hold just enough to let the asshole speak.

“East. New York is east.”

The sound of trucks approaching in the distance prompted me to lean down and ask, “And where the fuck are we?”

The guard started to lose consciousness, and by the pool of blood on the floor, gushing from his stomach, I knew it was only a matter of seconds until he passed.

“Fucking answer me!” I snarled. “Where the hell are we?”

“Al-Alaska,” he replied.

I threw him to the ground, done with the bastard now that I’d gotten what I needed. The trucks neared the Gulag and I knew I had only a few minutes to leave before more guards arrived and locked this place down.

Alik Durov.

Brooklyn, New York.

Revenge.

Kill.

Reminded of my purpose, I rose to my feet when the guard laughed and my eyes shot straight to him.

“We… we made you who you are…” he whispered, blood now dripping from his mouth. “We made you strong… unrivaled… a champion…” He trailed off, coughing and spluttering, choking on his own blood.

I saw red.

Incensed at his words, I raised both fists, the sharpened spikes of my knuckledusters facing down, and with a rage-fueled roar, I pushed the spikes straight into his chest. The guard’s mouth dropped open as he released a silent scream, and pushing down all of my muscled weight into his chest, I snarled in his face and slowly twisted the spikes of my knuckledusters. Victory surged through my body as his eyes bulged and, fighting for breath, he gagged for the last time. I witnessed the life leave his eyes, nothing remaining but the unseeing stare of death.

Panting with the victory of the kill—what I was trained to do, all I was created to do, all they had trained me to do—I slowly rose to my feet, then set off at a sprint.

Within minutes, I broke through a line of trees into a dense forest, heading east.

And I wouldn’t stop until I reached my destination. I wouldn’t stop until I killed a certain…

Alik Durov.

Brooklyn, New York.

Revenge.

Kill.

Chapter Four

818

After a month of sneaking on fishing boats to the mainland, stealing food, and hitching a ride on cross-country freight trains, I arrived in New York City.

I wasn’t prepared for what awaited me: bright lights, a bustling city packed with ever-moving tides of people—completely the opposite of all I’d ever known. Yet strangely, it all felt familiar and comfortable—the stink of thick smog, the vapors of tobacco and liquor, and the sounds of fast cars with their horns blaring.

Stumbling into a back alleyway on the edge of Brooklyn, a searing pain shot through my head. I pressed down hard on both temples. Disjointed images were zapping through my head, a group of kids playing, a small group of older men kissing three boys on their heads, proudly smiling as they were introduced to a large gathering of people. My head felt like it was going to explode and that conditioned feeling of fire running through my veins engulfed me as memories tried to push through. For a month now I’d had no shots, no drugs the guards pumped me full of daily to keep me big, to keep me strong, to keep me angry, and more and more unfamiliar images were filling my head.

The visions dissolved as quickly as they came and I found myself huddled against a hard, damp wall with sweat drenching my skin. Then the numbness I’d felt my whole fighting life settled back into place.

I ran the name and address through my mind. Within seconds, I was jogging down unfamiliar streets, somehow knowing exactly where to go. My feet were carrying me forward to an area with large brownstones, expensive cars, and well-dressed people.