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From the Zone with love	By : deepsearuin Category: +S through Z > S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadows of Chernobyl Views: 943 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own S.T.A.L.K.E.R., nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 12
- 13
- 14
Fucking Dutier and his holier-than-thou attitude. Good riddance to him and his chronic sourness, and to the endless accusations that were driving Lukash mad.
He continued messing with the damaged computer, illuminated only by the glare of the screen. He hummed as he worked. Despite the appearances, it wasn't a happy or contented hum. He was doing it for the same reason he started talking before: noise helped mask the buzzing in his head. It was really annoying, like having a mosquito following you all the time. So he hummed and talked to himself, hoping it soon would go away.
"Dancing on the ashes of the world, I behold the stars... c'mon you piece of shit... Heavy gale is blowing to my face... dammit!"
Maybe it was time to accept his hacking skills weren't up to the task. Or that the hard drive was corrupt beyond salvation.
Accepting defeat, he turned the computer off. The screen's light faded out of existence and the room was left in almost total darkness. There was one of the ever present emergency lights out on the corridor, but only a weak glow arrived inside the abandoned lab room. Blind in the shadows, Lukash stubbed his toe against the table's leg. Shit!
"Damn battery consuming anomaly," Lukash grunted while blindly rummaging his backpack, thinking on what he could use as a source of light. "Ah, right!"
The lighter, of course. Its flame was a poor substitute for the torchlight, but it was better than nothing. A loud noise followed by muffled shots came from somewhere far away. Looked like Voronin found a welcome party. Awesome, that meant less mutants Lukash would have to deal with.
He went to the dimly lit entrance of the room and into another corridor, which was blocked by an erratic electro. Thank goodness this could be bypassed simply throwing a bolt.
But his headache was killing him, the buzz getting louder and louder, like static in his mind, and he botched the timing between throwing the bolt and crossing. To avoid getting shocked he threw himself against the wall. To his luck, he fell against a door that burst opened under the sudden impact. The lighter’s flame was snuffed and his shoulder would develop a bruise the size of a mountain, but he was fine. Lukash re-lit the small flame of the lighter and decided to explore the place.
Getting lost in the small maze of interconnecting rooms was surprisingly easy, especially because all those rooms looked basically the same. But in the end he made it back to the corridor. The electro was behind him now, for which he was grateful. And further ahead the long corridor he glimpsed a hunched figure standing still in the semi darkness.
"Voronin?"
Had the Dutier lost his mind, stopping in the middle of the corridor in the dark like that? His eyes hurt from straining his vision in these conditions, and he saw everything blurry and greyed. His headache worsened considerably too. And the more he approached Voronin the more he felt something wasn't right.
The figure finally turned around, slowly. It most definitely wasn't Voronin. It wasn't even human anymore. A deformed face flashed in front of him, despite the fact neither of them had moved an inch. Reality spun wildly like a rollercoaster and Lukash nearly fell to his knees overwhelmed. Thinking was difficult, and reaching the GP-37 slung on his back proved to be a titanic effort since he barely knew what was up or down anymore. But he screwed his shut and focused on getting the weapon in his hands.
He succeeded, all the while the mutant's hideous mug flashed behind his closed eyes. Hoping he was gripping the rifle correctly -and not about to shoot himself- he opened fire. The accuracy left something to be desired, but at least he hit the mutant. The Controller either didn't realise it had been shot or didn't care, since it kept doing its weird mental voodoo.
Lukash wasted the whole clip on the Controller and when the ammo ran out, instead of reloading, he just took out his pistol and finished the job. He knew when the Controller died because he stopped feeling like someone put his brain on a blender. The pain stopped but his ears were still ringing and his vision was blurred. Oh God, this was way worse than the evilest of hangovers, everything kept spinning. Lukash sat on the floor while the world around him righted itself.
Slowly but surely he was getting better. Except for his vision, which had gone from blurry to unbearably bright. Fuck, it was like staring at a light bulb.
"Can you hear me?"
So he was actually staring at a light bulb. Sort of. "Get that damn thing out of my face!"
The torchlight's beam was redirected away from his eyes and Voronin even offered him a hand to get up. It was suspiciously nice of him.
"Oh, did you miss me? That's why you came back?" He swatted the hand away and got up on his own after picking up his rifle.
Voronin's answer was a sound of disgust mixed with annoyance. And yet he refrained from starting another of their vicious arguments.
"While you played with the computer I found more Burers. Killed one but the other smashed a barrel against me and escaped." Coming from Voronin that was as good as admitting he felt guilty, maybe even worried, by having left him behind to fend for himself.
But Lukash wanted an apology, damn it, so he pushed him further. "And you stumbled into me by coincidence, I'm sure."
The Dutier clenched his jaw and made a face like he swallowed a lemon. And then he surprised Lukash.
"Abandoning you in the dark was a bit extreme, I suppose I shouldn’t have lost my patience like that. I just couldn't think straight in that moment."
"I think this once it's understandable," Lukash kicked the Controller, making sure it was dead for good. "Man I hate Controllers and their ability to mess with people’s minds."
Voronin's answer was a stiff nod and an awkward silence fell upon them, neither sure of what to do after their little show of civility. Of course, Lukash broke it first, and with a rather unfortunate joke.
"Now we just have to agree about who ambushed who and we're as good as friends."
Talk about putting your feet on your mouth. Voronin gave him a hard look, clearly conveying the idea he thought him an idiot, and walked away, although at a slow enough pace that gave Lukash ample opportunity to catch up with him.
They walked in silence for a while, the torchlight's beam weakly illuminating the way. Lukash wondered if Voronin had an idea of where were they going, or if he simply went down the corridor because it was the easiest path.
"I think I may have an inkling about whose fault the ambush was," the Dutier said out of the blue when they reached a fork in their path. To the left there was a dead Burer slumped in the middle of the way. Vorornin went to the right. "And if I'm right I'll skin the son of a bitch alive"
"Ha, so he was one of yours!" Being proven right was amazing, more so when the admission came from the dour Duty General.
"He hasn't been one of mine for quite some time now," Voronin replied bitterly.
A deserter then. Probably someone with a grudge against his ex-faction, Lukash guessed.
They arrived to another big room full of old junk. Another lab presumably, like the one where they had their spat before going separate ways. A dark heap lay on the middle of the room.
They approached cautiously, until they were close enough to see it was a dead Burer. Must be the one that escaped from Voronin. Maybe he wounded it before it got away? Except, Lukash noticed with alarm, this one had the throat ripped open. Bullets didn't do that.
There was a single warning growl and fear doused him like an iced bucket of water. Then he saw a pair of malevolent yellow eyes too close to his face and pain bloomed on his chest. The bloodsucker clawed him from clavicle to hip and Lukash stumbled back. Voronin shot the mutant as soon as it became visible, drawing its attention away from Lukash. The bloodsucker turned around and jumped at the Dutier, attaching its tentacled maw on his neck with frightening efficiency. Lukash watched in sick fascination as the bullet wounds on its back slowly healed as the mutant drank blood, the flesh knitting back together in a scarred lump.
His rifle did nothing when he tried to shoot the mutant off of Voronin. Shit, he hadn't reloaded it since his encounter with the Controller! Mentally kicking himself for such a rookie mistake, he ditched the GP-37 in favour of the pistol, which he hoped still had some bullets in the clip. Unnatural regeneration ability or not, surviving a point blank range headshot was really difficult. Just to be sure, Lukash shot again. The creature went flaccid like a ragdoll and its mouth tentacles released its hold over Voronin's throat. The Dutier wasted no time in pushing the body away from him.
Even in the half-light of the room Lukash could see the wound on Voronin's throat with more detail he ever wanted. They needed to stop the bleeding right now. He started to frantically search in his bag. Fuck, and double fuck! Where were the bandages?! Or the Vinca, or... His hand closed around a soft bundle and he sighed in relief. Lukash shoved almost the entire roll of bandages in the wound and pressed hard, while still searching for the Vinca pills with his other hand. He would also need more bandages.
"Press here." He dragged Voronin's hand over the improvised patch and pressed it down hard until the Dutier winced in pain.
Lukash grabbed the fallen torchlight, because his blind search wasn't going that well, and for the first time saw the blood stain over his chest. At least he didn't feel much pain now, although that could be an effect of the adrenalin surge. He popped a Vinca pill and hoped it would be enough; he had a far more urgent wound to deal with.
#
He felt like something had tried to chew a piece of his neck off. His hand was still pressing down what felt like a mountain of bandages, and God it hurt. Being bitten by a bloodsucker usually was at the bottom of the list of survivable mutant attacks, usually because the bastards gorged themselves on their victims without restraint, and for the first time Voronin was really fucking glad for Lukash's presence. He tried to get up and the effort sent his head spinning, so he quickly sat down again.
"Ugh, water." Voronin wasn't sure if he said that aloud or not. But he must have, since Lukash materialised at his side with a canteen.
"How are you feeling?"
He grunted and drank more water. Was it really necessary to ask such stupid question? Lukash kept talking, seemingly unable to keep quiet for long.
"I think we managed to stop the bleeding, but if I were you I’d keep pressing down a little longer." Lukash tried to appear unconcerned, but he failed miserably.
Returning the canteen, Voronin looked at him and frowned at the dark stain covering his chest. "What happened to you?"
"Oh, just a scratch from our bloodsucking friend," Lukash waved his hand in a clearly dismissive gesture.
"If that's just a scratch then my neck wound is just a love bite," Voronin couldn’t keep the disapproval out of his voice. His wound was probably massive too, and he looked tired and drawn. Not like Voronin himself didn’t look any better, though, sitting on the floor and slumped against the wall to keep upright.
Ignoring his own injury, Lukash sat next to him and dragged his bag closer. He took a medkit out of the backpack and told Voronin he was going to take out the bloodied gauze and fix a proper dressing for the wound. Thankfully there was no more bleeding when he removed the ball of bandages.
"Seems like the bloodsucker didn't nick anything important when it gave you this hickey," even so, Lukash grimaced when the wound was uncovered. The resulting scar would be huge. "You're one lucky bastard."
The process of applying the butterfly stitches was unpleasant, the edges of the bite wound were pretty sensitive to being pinched together like that. Voronin schooled his face in a blank mask. The sooner Lukash was done with this the better.
The final dressing covering his neck was a bit shoddy and had a bit too much gauze, but Voronin didn't mind. After all, it's not like he would have done it better. He slowly got up. "Good. Now strip."
He didn't expect Lukash's startled laugh, though perhaps his choice of words hadn't been the most appropriate. "What? Isn't that a bit forward from your part?"
After mentally counting to ten, and fixing him with an unamused stare, he answered. "You know what I mean. Have you taken care of your own wound?"
"I took a Vinca pill? It didn't look as bad as your neck, you know?"
Okay, point taken. And yet that was no excuse. As they soon discovered, the dried blood made the clothing stick to the wound and water was necessary to peel it off without making the 'scratch' bleed again. He'd also been lucky, Voronin noticed. The slash went from his clavicle to mid chest, where it curled around his ribs and went down almost to the hip. With a little more force and with only a slightly different trajectory the bloodsucker could have easily gutted him.
"Hmm, I don't think you'll need stitches," was Voronin's verdict.
"Dude, you probably do. Proper stitches I mean, not the flimsy paper ones I used," Lukash admitted a touch worriedly. "But I'm afraid I'd make a butchery out of it."
"Yes, no offense but I don't think I'd let you try."
"Fair enough." Lukash seemed in an awful good mood. "Look at us, being nice to each other. Someone could even think we're friends!"
"I wouldn't take it that far." He slumped back again, searching the support of the wall. Damn, he tired so easily now. But they couldn’t afford to sit on their asses for long.
At Voronin's insistence, they soon retook the exploration of this place, but at a slower pace than usual. The rest of the rooms were pretty uninteresting: another lab, an empty room, a dormitory without a single mattress in the bunks. It was on this last one they found a dusty protective suit with an unknown badge sewn on it. It looked old and worn, but Lukash seized the opportunity to change his slashed suit for this one. Meanwhile he searched the rest of the lockers.
"How does it look?" The Freedomer asked, waving at his new ensemble. "Do I pass for an ecologist?"
"More like a merc. I don't think I've ever seen an ecologist in a blue suit." The suit had a greyish faded hue actually, but it could be guessed which colour it had originally been. "C'mon there's nothing else here."
Such affirmation could be broadly applied, as they soon learnt. The corridor led them to another infinite loop, like the one they found right after arriving. And the only other unexplored room turned out to be empty except for a badly rusted ladder going up to a hatch. With much regret, Voronin had to admit he didn't feel up to the task of climbing up the ladder; this slow crawl through the rooms had been taxing enough. And Lukash readily agreed when he proposed to rest for a bit before investigating where did the ladder lead.
Finding no suitable place but the floor, Voronin sat down and sighed heavily as he turned off the torchlight. No need to waste their only battery when the room was lit by faint glow coming from the corridor. Although that made searching what he wanted a tad more difficult.
"Anything you want in exchange for one of those?" Lukash looked at the painkillers in his hand with hopeful eyes. His ‘simple scratch’ must hurt worse than he admitted.
He traded it for a can of energy drink. Perhaps not the best trade, but he was going to need a little pick me up to keep the pace, he felt drained and sluggish. They took their painkillers and enjoyed a bit of rest while he drank the energy drink, and then got moving.
The ladder wobbled under their weight and creaked ominously, but it endured. The nasty surprise came when they reached the end of the ladder. No matter how much force it was applied, the hatch’s door wouldn't budge. Both of them tried opening it, all to no avail.
Ten minutes later they had to face the truth: they were back like they started, with no way out of the bunker. A desperate need to have a glimmer of hope ensued, and they started to list all the places explored, in the hopes of noticing something they could have overlooked. Lukash carried a notebook and a pencil in his backpack, so they started drawing a map of the whole place cobbled from their memories.
About an hour later they had a very nice map and no idea of what to do next.
"Maybe we should sleep, take on this tomorrow with a fresh perspective." It was sound advice and Voronin had no choice but to agree.
So, deciding this room was as good as any other place, Voronin took out the sleeping bag and went to sleep in sullen silence. Neither of them thought about setting up a watch. According to their map they had explored every place that was accessible, and killed every mutant in their way.
#
Quiet sobs woke him in the dead of the night. Well, Lukash supposed it was night, but he had no idea what time it truly was.
Voronin was snoring loudly, so he wasn't the one making those sobs. Not like crying seemed to be his style. Was he imagining things? The crying got louder and Lukash was pretty sure it wasn't a hallucination. Then it hit him like a revelation: it must be the damn poltergeist! As far as he knew they hadn't been able to kill it yet, the sneaky bastard just floated away and they forgot about it. Well, this ended now.
He grabbed his pistol, made sure it was loaded, and set off in search of the damn mutant. Following the sound of crying he arrived to the dormitory room where he found his new suit. A thin figure stood hunched in the shadows behind one of the bunks. Whatever it was, it seemed to have its back towards him. Nevertheless, remembering the encounter with the Controller, he preferred to be cautious. Aiming to its head with the pistol, he used his other hand to throw a bolt at it. Nothing. Slowly, he got closer to see what it was. Could poltergeist adopt a form that wasn't a floating ball of energy?
The mysterious figure turned out to be a skeleton dressed in a ragged lab coat. And it was hovering a few inches above the floor. The floating skeleton suddenly lurched forward and Lukash shot it by pure instinct. The bones fell on him, gracelessly scattering upon the impact. And a second later the emergency light shattered in a thousand pieces, leaving Lukash in total darkness.
Why did these kind of things happen to him, and where the fuck was his lighter? He patted all his pockets in search of it, praying he hadn't stuffed it into the backpack. Just as he found it and grabbed it, something cold breathed down his neck, leaving a trail of goose bumps in its wake.
A deep seated surge of paranoia welled up in him and Lukash turned around quick like lightning, the flame of the lighter trembling at the sudden movement. He saw the glowing bastard between the bunks and shot it. The poltergeist retaliated by pushing one of the bunks against him. The impact made him stagger, the metallic frame hitting him right on the wound crossing his chest. The pain momentarily stole his breath away.
Nonetheless, he shot at the mutant again as soon as he was able to do so, then another shot rang in the air. The poltergeist died with what looked like a small implosion of energy, revealing its true appearance. Ugh, he preferred their energy ball form.
"You know, it's the second time I find you hunting mutants in the dark." Voronin pointed the torchlight at him, looking between irritated and slightly amused.
Lukash got closer to him and smirked teasingly. "And both times you came to my rescue, even if I had the situation under control. If I didn't know better I'd say –"
"Yes, yes, thank God you know better," Voronin hurriedly cut him with a put upon grunt.
Since they were both up and about, they decided to retrace their steps from yesterday, in the hopes they missed something, anything. The map they had made was flawless, though. Everything was reflected on the piece of paper, nothing had escaped their notice. And they were still irremediably trapped down here. Eventually they reached the room with the collapsed floor, the time warping anomaly sitting right under it. Had it deflated a bit or did he blow it out of proportion in his memory?
"The smart thing would be to not get into it again," Lukash said, scuffing his boot on the floor and sending a rain of tiny pebbles down into the anomaly.
"I never liked the idea of getting inside it," Voronin looked with distaste at the purplish bubble.
Last time they lost three days and all their energy in there. And yet Lukash both stood at the edge of the hole, looking down with fascination as the pebbles he pushed down seemed to float once they went inside the anomaly. It would take quite some time until they reached the floor.
"Any other ideas?" Voronin didn't sound very hopeful.
Equally desperate to avoid or stall going down there, Lukas wracked his brain for a single idea. There was nothing left unexplored on this floor; what could they try that they hadn't before? The hatch wouldn't budge; it probably was controlled remotely...
"Would you flip your shit if I, what word did you use, play with the computer?" The word again hung in the air between them, unsaid but tangible.
With one last look down to the time anomaly, Voronin turned to him. "I guess it can't hurt to try."
#
Waiting while Lukash worked on the computer was boring. First he patrolled around the room and investigated every corner of it, just to do something. Then Lukash complained he couldn't concentrate with him wandering about, so Voronin picked up one of the rickety stools from the floor and sat on it.
Watching the Freedomer work was interesting, at least for a short while. He was so focused on it, clearly showing his frustration every time he found a setback. It was almost endearing. Ultimately it didn’t offer that much entertainment, though. Mostly because everything in the screen looked like gibberish to him.
Voronin took out his PDA. According to its clock, and not counting the three days apparently spent crossing the time anomaly, they'd been here for about forty-eight hours. Sometimes it seemed like a lifetime. The communications channel was still dead and he even doubted his last message was properly sent. Voronin decided to confirm his theory by sending another message, a simple S.O.S this time. It worked like the last time, with an error telling him the messaging system was out of line even if the message was sent. He hoped Lukash was having better luck with the computer.
"I can't make this fucking piece of junk work!" Lukash violently pushed the keyboard away. "I'm out of ideas."
They both knew this had been a desperate attempt that would most probably fail. And yet neither of them liked the idea to go with their other plan. However, they were out of options.
"We have no other choice, do we?" Lukash sighed, swivelling lightly from side to side on the stool he was perched on.
Indeed they didn't. So they went back to the office with the collapsed floor, bypassing the electro in the middle of the corridor like they did before.
The time anomaly hadn't miraculously disappeared, but it certainly looked smaller than the last time. Curious how it expanded and contracted. However, while other person might marvel at it and wonder what induced those changes, Voronin only cared that it meant they would spend less time inside it. Perhaps then it would sap less energy out of them, he felt tired enough right now, he’d keel over if he spent too much time in the anomaly.
"Okay, here we go. On the count of three: one, two..." Lukash jumped down before arriving to three.
During the seconds it took Voronin to jump down as well the Freedomer seemed to float mid-air, suspended in time. The illusion was quickly shattered when he went inside the anomaly too.
Despite the energy draining effect, since it was smaller in diameter than the last time and they needn’t climb anywhere now, it didn't take them more than a minute to get out. This translated into actually losing about three hours, according to their PDAs.
Retracing their steps was even easier in this floor, just checking the map to make sure it was accurate. And just as before there was nothing they had missed. Eventually they found themselves going to the upper floor and facing once more the big metal door separating them from their escape.
Neither said anything, but a cloud of gloom had settled over them. They were going to die down here. Sooner or later it would happen, unless they found a way out. Shit, when Voronin thought about leaving a legacy like General Tachenko's he never included mysteriously disappearing into the package.
He stood there, contemplating their bleak future in silence. For once Lukash didn’t start to fill the silence like he usually did. And when he eventually stormed off, because he got sick of staring at a slab of metal, something exploded on the other side of the door.
#
Startled by the detonation Lukash took a step or two backwards. The door was slightly bent out of its normal shape, what the fuck just happened? Voronin came back in time to see the door slowly swinging open.
Both Lukash and Voronin grabbed their weapons and pointed them towards the opening. The metal door was pushed to the side and revealed a single stalker, who looked completely floored to see them.
"Woah," the man raised his hands in a placating gesture when confronted with both of them aiming their rifles at him. "There's no need to shoot!"
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Voronin barked at the stalker with his command voice.
"I... I'm just a loner! I heard the road to Pripyat had been cleared recently and came to investigate."
That was enough explanation for Lukash, but not for his Dutier companion, who was a highly suspicious bastard.
"This isn't exactly the road to Pripyat, isn’t it?" Voronin squinted at the man with distrust.
"Just a small detour!" The man squeaked. "I've never been so close to the infamous Brain Scorcher before, which I'm very glad was turned off, by the way. I saw the outer door, with the number pad, and I thought I could find something of value inside."
Lukash lowered his weapon and nudged Voronin to lower his Val too. The stalker flashed him a nervous smile and lowered his hands as well.
"You said the outer door had a number pad, did you blow that one apart too?" He was honestly curious to know.
"Yes, with a modified grenade." Well, well, well, this guy was certainly interesting. And he had some great ideas. Perhaps they could have tried to force their way out sooner like that, had they had any explosives.
"There's nothing down there except anomalies," Voronin cautioned him.
The stalker nodded eagerly took out a detector from his belt. "That's fine, I'm an artifact hunter."
Voronin looked pityingly at him and went towards the exit. Lukash shared his eagerness to get the hell out from here and followed him. However, he turned around to face the stalker one last time. "Friendly advice: stay away from the purple anomaly!"
Leaving the flabbergasted loner behind, he stepped outside and went down the ladder. Being able to see the sky again was amazing. And best of all, he recognised where he was! This was the Red Forest, more precisely it was the road that went to the Brain Scorcher. And for once it wasn't crawling with Monolith soldiers.
"We're out!" Voronin answered to his enthusiasm with a noncommittal hum. That wouldn't do.
He grabbed the Dutier by the shoulders, watching him intently to see if he was capable of expressing some positive emotion. And, before he could think what he was doing, he planted a kiss on the surprised General. It lasted a few seconds until Voronin pushed him away and crushed him against the same ladder they had descended from.
Realising what he'd just done, Lukash kept his mouth shut instead of blurting "I like it when you take control like that" like he'd been about to do. Even if it would have been mostly a joke he had the feeling Voronin wouldn't appreciate it.
"What the Hell Lukash." Voronin’s voice was startlingly rough. Lukash had no answer to his question, so instead he just held his gaze until Voronin released him.
"The Barrier is in this direction," he said, walking ahead to get away from Voronin's judging eyes.
It had felt nice but unremarkable. No reason to keep thinking about it, or to imagine how it would have been if the Dutier kissed back. Yeah.
The zombies coming from between the trees were a welcomed distraction, and that’s something he never imagined he would say. Killing them helped clean the atmosphere of any lingering awkwardness. Nonetheless, it was depressing to see so many zombified stalkers wearing Freedom's suits. Such was life in the Zone, and such was the price paid to keep control of the Barrier. At least they were outnumbered by zombified stalkers from Monolith, serves those bastards right.
The zombies kept dropping by all the time; a lone one now, then a pair or three of them together, then a lone straggler. Cleanse and repeat. In the end they opted to run and leave them behind before wasting all their ammo.
And soon they reached the control point that marked the entrance the end of Red Forest. The Barrier was just a road’s bend away.
#
A group of stalkers rushed from behind the abandoned cars near the booth at the control point. They all were from Freedom, and they weren’t very friendly, aiming their weapons at them.
"Stop and identify yourselves!"
Well, Voronin was almost impressed they hadn't shot him on the spot just for the uniform he wore.
"Max, don't you recognise me you idiot?" Lukash laughed in disbelief.
"All I see from here is a Dutier and a merc trying to cross into our territory!" The Freedomer, Max, replied. One of his comrades said something they didn't catch but had Max quickly checking his PDA. "Lukash?! Where the Hell have you been? And what are you doing with that Duty pig?"
"Stop pointing that rifle at my head for fuck's sake!"
"Sure, but what do we do with him?" No need to be a genius to know who the Freedomer was referring to.
"We grant him passage and let him go. Just this once." Lukash's idea wasn't very well received by his faction.
The Freedomers complained loudly about it and one even blamed him for Lukash's disappearance. Not a completely unexpected reaction, if he was honest. If the situation was reversed his men would probably do the same. Although Lukash didn't seem amused by their defiance.
"I said we let him go and that's final."
Truth be told, Voronin was surprised by Lukash's firm defence of him. Perhaps it should be expected after all they went through. In that hypothetical reversed situation, Voronin wouldn't let his men kill him on the spot either. It would feel wrong.
Deciding to cut this tense encounter short, Voronin voiced his agreement to Lukash’s terms. “I go my way and you go yours. Just this once, yes?"
It was just for a moment, but he saw a flash of disappointment on Lukash’s face. What had he expected? He couldn't go to Freedom's base for a last shot of vodka and a goodbye, they weren’t old friends, they were the leaders of enemy factions.
"Yeah. It's been... interesting." Lukash offered him his outstretched hand.
"It's been a nightmare, you mean." Voronin accepted the handshake.
"Only most of it." Lukash smirked and finally let go of his hand.
He waited while Lukash wrangled with the rest of the Freedomers until he managed to impose his will. In the meantime, he sent a message to his men to let them know he was alive and well. This way they would be expecting his arrival, and if he knew Petrenko well enough, he would dispatch a squad immediately. They would meet halfway if everything went well. And if for some reason Lukash’s men decided to not play fair and followed him, it was good to know reinforcements were on their way.
Once the last of the disgruntled Freedomers disappeared down the road then he went on his way. During his lonely trek back to Rostok he reflected on everything that happened. It was too much for only fifty hours, more or less. It seemed like he spent a lifetime trapped in that hellish bunker. And things didn't exactly go back to normal once they got out. And of course it had been the Freedomer’s fault. When Lukash kissed him his brain had short-circuited. He couldn’t even begin to fathom his intention for doing so, so Voronin decided to erase the incident from his memory. It never happened.
However, for something that according to him never happened, he spent quite some time thinking about it. More precisely, he spent the rest of the way to Rostok thinking about how Lukash's lips had felt against his own. Utter foolishness, even if it happened –which it didn’t, thank you very much- it was something best forgotten.
It would be much better to think about how he would enjoy finding Skull and killing him. He usually preferred to avoid making a public spectacle out of executions, but for him he would make an exception.
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From the Zone with love