Badge of the Death Game

Chapter 036

Cody's early life had never been easy. The year he was born, his family had almost nothing — not enough money to keep the lights on, barely enough food to survive the week. His father, faced with a household he could no longer feed, made a decision that no parent should ever have to make.

He sold his daughter.

She was still a child when it happened. But luck, or something like it, gave her one small opening: the traffickers looked away for a moment, and she ran. She didn't come back home. There was nothing to come back to. She drifted from place to place, moving through circumstances Cody never fully learned the details of, until she eventually found her footing in Sunvale. She built a life there, quiet and self-contained, and she stayed.

But misfortune has a long memory.

After all those years, it had finally caught up with her.

"Stomach cancer," Cody said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Stage four."

He pressed both hands into his hair and gripped tight, like he was trying to hold himself together. "When my mother found out where she was, she was beside herself with joy. She couldn't wait — she begged me to take her to Sunvale so she could see her again." He let out a slow, unsteady breath. "But when we got there, we found out how bad it really was. She didn't have much time left. We refused to give up. We brought her to the best hospital in Grayhaven City and pushed for treatment, but our savings... everything our family had scraped together over the years... it wasn't going to last."

Soren had been listening quietly. Now the pieces clicked into place. "That's why you needed two hundred thousand dollars."

"Yes." Cody didn't look up. "She still blames me. Even now. She thinks that because I was born, our father decided she was the one he could afford to lose. And honestly..." He paused, jaw tight. "I think she's right. I owe her. I can't just stand by and watch her go like this."

Evan spoke up from the side, his tone carrying a bluntness that cut straight to it. "What about your father? He's the one who handed her over. She's dying — doesn't he want to see her?"

"He's dead." Cody's right hand moved to his jacket pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, fingers trembling slightly as he reached for one. Then his eyes caught the no-smoking sign mounted on the wall, and he slowly put the pack away. "He died the day before we left."

A brief silence settled over the corridor.

"Mind if we go up and see her?" Soren asked.

"Of course. Please, follow me."

They took the elevator to the seventh floor and made their way to the room. Through the narrow window set into the door, Soren could see a woman lying in the bed — thin, her head shaved, her face carrying the particular hollowness that illness carves into a person over time. Cody's mother sat beside her, peeling an apple with practiced hands, a gentle smile on her face, speaking softly in the Frontier dialect in a steady, unhurried stream.

The woman in the bed wasn't listening. She lay with her face turned toward the window, her expression flat, her eyes fixed on whatever patch of sky was visible beyond the glass.

Cody pushed the door open and stepped inside. Whatever grief he'd been wearing in the hallway, he folded it away. He crossed the room with a careful smile and said, "Did you sleep all right?"

No answer.

He didn't seem surprised. He let the smile stay and said nothing more.

Cody's mother noticed Soren and the others and rose quickly from her chair, greeting them in halting Mandarin. "Mr. Zhang, hello — good to see you again."

"Please, sit down," Soren said warmly, waving her back. "We were just passing through. We knew Cody was here, so we thought we'd stop by."

The woman in the bed had heard the movement. She turned her head slightly and looked them over — strangers, all of them — then let out a short, cutting laugh. "Cody," she said, "are these the traffickers you hired? Where are you planning to sell me this time? Or are you just waiting for me to get a little closer to the end so you can harvest my organs first?"

"That's enough." Cody's face went red. "Mr. Soren and his people are good people, they're not —"

"Good people." She said it like it tasted wrong. "That's exactly what that man told me, right before he handed me over."

Cody opened his mouth, then closed it again. He wanted to argue, but he didn't want to upset her. He stood there caught between the two impulses, unable to move in either direction.

Soren didn't push it. "Let's step out," he said quietly, and led the group back into the hallway.

Outside, Cody turned to them with an apologetic look. "I'm sorry about that. She's not trying to be cruel to you. She just... doesn't trust me. That's all it is."

"Don't worry about it," Soren said, and meant it. He glanced over at Howard.

Howard gave a small nod, then held out the black plastic bag he'd been carrying and passed it to Cody. "This is something from Soren. It's not a huge amount — a hundred thousand. Consider it an advance on your cut. If it's not enough, we'll figure something out."

Cody took the bag. He could feel the weight of it before he even looked inside, and something in his chest gave way. His throat tightened. When he spoke, his voice wasn't quite steady. "Mr. Soren... I don't even know what to say. I really... thank you. Thank you for trusting me."

He started to drop to his knees.

Soren caught him by the arm before he got there. "None of that. Just do good work for me. That's all I need."

Cody straightened up. His eyes were wet, but his expression had gone still and certain, like a man who had just made a decision he intended to keep. When he spoke, it came out like an oath. "I won't let you down. Whatever it takes — my life included — your trust in me is worth it."

"All right, all right." Soren felt the goosebumps crawl up his arm and cleared his throat. "Save the speeches. Go handle your business today. Tomorrow, come early — we have things to sort out."

"Yes, sir."

________________________________________

Once they were back on the ground floor and out of the building, Evan exhaled and shook his head. "That's a rough situation. Cody's family really got dealt a bad hand."

"Every family's got something," Howard said, and then went quiet for a moment, something private crossing his face before he let it go with a sigh.

Soren turned to Mark. "Does Palisade Security run any kind of combat training? And do you have access to a range or a facility?"

Mark tilted his head, thinking it over. "We do train, yeah — mostly VIP protection drills, and we get some range time in now and then. As for a facility, I don't have one on hand, but I can probably borrow one. Give me a few minutes."

"You can borrow a training facility?"

"In this line of work?" Mark was already pulling out his phone. "You'd be surprised what you can borrow when you've been around long enough."

He stepped a few feet away and made a series of calls, moving efficiently through them. It didn't take long. He came back looking satisfied. "Done. There's a site outside the city — we've got it for three days. After that, it'll cost us, but they're giving me a rate as a favor: five hundred a day. Not bad."

"Good." Soren nodded. "Starting tomorrow, everyone trains. That includes you, Howard, and you, Evan. Combat basics and physical conditioning. Duration..." He pulled up the HUD panel and checked the countdown timer for the third Career Instance.

【26 days, 13 hours, 21 minutes, 56 seconds.】

"Two weeks. Call it fifteen days."

Howard stared at him. "Me? I thought I was just the driver."

He glanced down at the soft middle he'd developed over the years and gave it an absent pat.

"You too," Soren said flatly. "This operation isn't a joke. One wrong move and someone ends up hurt — or worse. I need every one of you to have a baseline: how to handle yourself in a fight, how to move, how to hold up under pressure. That means everyone."

Howard let out a long-suffering laugh and gave up arguing. He'd just have to see whether these old bones of his were still good for anything.