The Ex Files: Get You Back

Belonging

The morning light was beginning to bleed over the horizon, making the sky a mixture of a soft orange and an ethereal pink.

Yelena lay in her bed, a deep sense of disorientation settling over her. For as long as she could remember, a bed was a temporary thing. It’s in the form of a poorly-woven sleeping bag, a cot, a pile of rags in some forgotten corner. It was a place for a few hours of rest before the chase began again in the dark alleys.

But this bed was her own. The blankets were heavy and clean and warm. Plus, the sheets are nice and smooth. She could feel the soft give of the mattress beneath her back. It was surreal. A small desk stood in the corner, a single chair tucked neatly beneath it. Her duffel bag was in the closet. Everything was hers, and everything was where it was supposed to be. It was a kind of freedom she had never known, and it made her deeply uncomfortable.

Ironic, isn’t it? That discomfort stems from the fact that she’s feeling so much comfort.

Yelena stared at the ceiling as a surge of unfamiliar guilt and relief washed over her. She felt a strange pang that told her she didn't deserve this. That this wasn’t right. But she tucked it all away to the sides of her brain as she got ready for the day.

The instructions were to head for breakfast, and the thought excited her so immensely.

The cafeteria was already a cacophony of voices and the clatter of trays when she arrived. Yelena took a deep breath, steeling herself. She moved to the food lines, her eyes scanning the faces, her mind instinctively at work.

She followed the path of the steel counter, the air thick with the competing aromas of roasting meat and fresh-brewed coffee that wasn’t a powdered substitute worth two coins.

In the rehabilation facility, the food was (no offense to the chef) same bland gruel day after day. Here, the options were overwhelming.

She paused, her gaze sweeping over the gleaming, steaming trays of food. There was a station for hot breakfast, where a server asked her what she wanted and then piled her plate with crispy bacon and perfectly scrambled eggs. Next to it, bowls of vibrant greens, fresh fruit, and an array of yogurt and cereals she had only ever seen on smuggled magazine covers. The abundance of it, heck, even the simple jurisdiction over her own plate, was weird. It really was a new kind of freedom.

Behind the counter, a line of civilian staff moved with a practiced rhythm. Their faces were neutral, like cogs in a perfectly functioning machine. One woman, with a kind but tired face, smiled faintly as she scooped a mound of eggs onto Yelena’s plate. Yelena met her gaze for a half-second before looking away.

She filled her plate and walked around to find an isolated table. She had barely taken a bite when a voice chirped, “Mind if we join you?”

She perked up. These are the same people in the gun range that got her to try the gun. She had been observing them yesterday. Yelena’s trained eye quickly registered the surnames on their dog tags: Diaz, Jenkins, Willows, and Tan. Her mind immediately cataloged the information, filing it away for future use.

Can you blame her? She had to know who everyone was; in a place where everyone was a stranger, everyone was a potential threat.

The girl slid onto the bench beside her. Behind her were three other recruits. Yelena was weirded out by it all. She had spent a lifetime avoiding people, and now these people her age were seeking her out.

“I’m Luisa,” the girl said, gesturing to her friends. “These are Mae, Cristin, and Grayson.”

Yelena gave them a single, flat look before returning to her food. "Hi.”

The group stared for a moment, then burst into laughter. “Of course,” Luisa said, shaking her head in amusement. “You’re a real piece of work, March.” The shared, good-natured sound made Yelena’s face tighten.

“How was your night?” Mae asked, already digging into her eggs. “Hope you weren’t scrubbing that hangar until dawn.”

“It was… fine,” she said, her voice flat. She didn’t want to share her misery, didn’t want them to think they could understand.

“Bet you and Riley had a ball,” Grayson snickered, earning a shove from Cristin. “You two have a… chemistry.”

Yelena’s anger flared, hot and immediate. Chemistry?! She was isolated from the normal world but she isn’t dumb!

“We have nothing of the sort,” she snapped, setting her fork down with a loud clink. “He’s insufferable.”

The group leaned in, captivated. “Oh, tell us,” Luisa urged, her eyes sparkling with amusement.

Yelena glared at them, her frustration boiling over. “What’s so special about the dude, anyway?”

Cristin laughs at her annoyance.

She glanced up, scanning the cafeteria for a distraction, and her eyes landed on Callum’s table. He was sitting with his own group of friends. For someone like him to have friends… probably a bunch of simple-minded goody two shoes as well. Her gaze drifted to the man with the close-cropped buzz cut and a pilot’s lean build across Callum. Next to him was a leaner, dark-haired man with a quiet confidence in his posture. Beside Callum, a girl with tight braids and an athletic frame listened intently.

And my oh my, was she seeing this right?

Callum’s shoulders were relaxed, and a faint smile touched the corners of his mouth. It was a private moment, a glimpse into a side of him she didn’t know existed, and she found it just as infuriating as his rigid discipline. The jerk knew how to smile, after all.

She looked away, her irritation deepening. “I don’t know what’s so special about him,” she said, her voice dripping with contempt. “He’s just a walking, talking rulebook.”

They all laughed again. “He’s like that for a reason, Yelena,” Cristin said, the amusement gone from her voice, replaced with genuine admiration. “He’s our top soldier in the rankings. He’s amazing. We were all shocked you had the audacity to act like that.”

Top soldier? Yelena wanted to roll her eyes. Ever since she got here, it seems like that’s all she ever wants to do.

“Where are you from, anyway?” Mae asked, her tone innocent but her eyes filled with curiosity.

Yelena stiffened. Her past was a locked box with tapes labelled “no entry!” surrounding it.

“Nowhere you’d know,” she said, the familiar defenses slamming back into place.

Luisa shrugged, the gesture completely devoid of pity. “Oh, well,” she said, her voice matter-of-fact. “A lot of us didn’t have pleasant pasts before being recruited. We get it.”

Yelena glanced down, poking her food with her fork, but her head perked up instantly. She had expected to be pressed, to be pitied, but not this.

Grayson let out a small, bitter snicker. “She means what she says. My first job was picking pockets in the streets. You learn to be fast when you’re a fifteen-year-old orphan trying to get dinner.”

Mae nodded, her expression serious. “I was a hacker. Blacklisted by every government on the planet before I was seventeen. My place was either this, or a decade in a federal prison.”

Cristin, the most serious of the group, looked directly at Yelena. “And I lived in a military training camp, a facility for child soldiers. Nothing but combat and survival since I was old enough to walk.”

Luisa finally spoke, her voice light and without a hint of drama. “My parents were soldiers. They just… put me here.”

Yelena stared at them, the truth of their words hitting her. The stories were short…and brutal. Most notably, the stories were told with a casualness that spoke of a shared understanding. And not to collect looks of pity.

A single, soft breath escaped her lips, almost a sigh of disbelief.

Her gaze moved deliberately from Grayson to Mae, and then to Cristin. Her eyes held a flicker of something raw and unreadable. She took in their matter-of-fact expressions, their easy acceptance of their brutal pasts.

Her body, trained for a lifetime of control, seemed to soften for a brief second. The tension in her shoulders loosened. But just as quickly, the mask of indifference slid back into place. She gave a small, almost imperceptible nod and returned her attention to the food on her plate, poking at it with her fork as if nothing had happened. She had heard them. She was processing it. But she wouldn't—couldn’t—say a word.

It was fresh and there was no pity, no judgment, just a quiet acceptance. It was like that day when Thorne offered her a new life. They simply went back to eating their breakfast. Yelena hated how much she liked this.

After a long moment, Yelena’s jaw tightened. She bit her lip. Well, what to say? The moment she had deflected, she had lost control of the conversation. She had to regain it.

She slowly looked up from her plate, her gaze meeting Luisa's. "Uhm..." she began, her voice low and hesitant, before a sudden, sharp clarity took over. "About Thorne…"

The question hung in the air, a stark shift from their personal stories. Luisa immediately set her fork down. "The Captain?" she asked, her voice hushed. “What about him?”

"He's the coolest," Mae said, her shoulders tightening. “He managed the Blackout in Brussels. Crippled an entire terrorist network without firing a single shot.”

“And the Sarajevo Extraction,” Grayson added in a proud tone. “The task was deemed impossible. He got the diplomat out in broad daylight, right under the enemy’s nose.”

Yelena thought—her professional admiration overriding her frustration—is not something you do without a small army and a lot of blood. To pull it off alone… Her mind raced with the logistical nightmare of it all. The timing, the escape routes, the sheer nerve it would require. So Thorne was good, that much she expected.

Cristin nodded. "There’s a reason he runs this place. He's scary smart. You just know he sees every single angle of everything, all the time."

Luisa watched her, a thoughtful expression on her face. "You know," she said, her voice quiet. "I don’t think he keeps people he doesn’t see something in. He put you in the same punishment as Callum, and that's not something he'd do if you were a lost cause. He could have just kicked you out."

Grayson leaned forward, her voice low. "Yeah. You must have real potential. He saw something in you that was worth keeping, even if... you're still a little rough."

Yelena's expression remained impassive, but she listened intently. The idea that she had been deemed "worthy" by the man who had just sentenced her to cleaning floors was baffling. But for the first time, she saw herself not just as a problem, but as a project. She was here for a reason. And Thorne was the one who decided she should stay.

The meal ended as quickly as it had begun. A sudden, blaring alarm signaled the end of the breakfast period, sending a wave of recruits scrambling to clear their trays. Yelena moved with the crowd, but her mind was a whirlwind of noise. The conversation had left a mark, a strange, swirling mix of disbelief, irritation, and a terrifying, unwanted sense of belonging. She was still a ghost, a solitary figure in a sea of people, but for the first time, she felt like her ghost-self was being seen. They even told her “See you here again!” to eat together next time. What an odd bunch. It’s not like they can get anything from her.

Yelena walked the long, polished corridors alone, the quiet hum of the base a stark contrast to the lively chaos of the cafeteria. Her footsteps were a steady rhythm against the pristine floor.

Child soldier. Hacker. Pickpocket. The words echoed in her mind. She had spent a lifetime believing she was uniquely broken, uniquely alone, but here, she was just another recruit with a past they all "got." The thought was both a relief and a new kind of burden. It meant she had to belong now, in some small way. Right?

And Thorne. The thought of the Captain sent a shiver down her spine that had nothing to do with fear. It was a sharp jolt of purpose. The stories about him…Yelena bristled. Her professional admiration for the man's work was a poison in her system, a part of her that respected his ruthless efficiency. She hadn't been picked for pity. She hadn't been kept for charity. She was a project. A raw material to be molded. And he was the one who decided she had potential. The thought filled her with determination. It felt good knowing she wasn’t a mistake.

She rounded a corner, the industrial bay doors of the hangar looming ahead. The smell of oil and rust filled her nose.

Callum was already there, his back to her, when she entered. He was kneeling on the concrete floor, a bucket of soapy water beside him, his movements just as methodical and precise as they had been yesterday.

He sensed her presence and stopped his work, slowly straightening to his full height. He turned, his face an impassive mask, his eyes meeting hers. Then quickly he returns to what he was doing.

That’s right! Just shut up!

Yelena's posture straightened. She no longer had the easy out of being a victim. She grabbed a bucket and a brush, her movements slow and deliberate, a silent promise. She had been sent here to be humbled. But in the words of her new, strange friends (if she can call them that), she saw a different path.

Still, damn this stupid punishment.

She stole a glance at Callum.

He really is tall, with broad shoulders. His uniform was stretched taut across his back He moved with a precise grace that came from years of training. Honestly, the man looked like he belonged on a recruitment poster, with his tousled but neat blonde hair and sculpted jawline. It infuriated her. He was too perfect, too controlled.

Yelena found herself wondering if he also had an ugly past like Luisa and her friends. A past that led him here. But! Eh, probably not. It seemed unlikely. This guy felt too perfect. His movements were too clean, his posture too straight.

There was no chaos in him, no brokenness she could recognize.

He must have felt her watching because Callum paused. He slowly straightened and turned to face her. His eyes met hers across the vast space.

"What?" he asked, his voice even and low, brow raised.

Yelena's hand froze, dripping soapy water onto the floor. "Nothing," she said, her voice flat.

"Just say it," he insisted, he says boredly.

She gave a small, cynical shrug. "Just wondering if you've done this before."

He didn't flinch. "It's part of the standard curriculum," he said simply. He held her gaze for a beat longer then turned and went back to his work.

Yelena glared at his retreating back. Standard curriculum? she thought, the words brewing bitterness. This is a punishment, you condescending ass! She mimicked his stiff, perfect movements, mocking his posture with an exaggerated roll of her eyes before she continued working.

She just had to get through this. After tomorrow, the humiliation would be over. She could train properly, without this ridiculous, demeaning chore. Her focus narrowed on the task, on the certainty that this was the last of it.

Unbeknownst to Yelena, her plans for the near future were about to shatter. She is not getting rid of Callum anytime soon.