Page 2

I snatch the bottle from his hand. It tastes like plastic-infused rubbing alcohol, and I can't stop myself from hacking up a lung. I drink hard liquor but I never enjoy it.

"There you go," Clarke says, shaking my shoulder. "There you go!"

We find a seat on a plastic bench across from a rusting swing set. McScott draws from his cigarette like he's taking his last breath, then swigs from the bottle. He hisses through his teeth. "Fuckin' hell."

Clarke takes a huge mouthful from the bottle, gargles it, then swallows. He grins and sticks out his tongue, showing me his open mouth.

I look away. "Nobody wants to see that."

"What? It reminds you of your girlfriend?" Clarke pouts and drops onto his knees in front of me. "Come for me, daddy," he says in a high-pitched porn voice. "Ohhh, come for meeee."

"Oi. Pass that here if you're just gonna fucking mess about with it," grunts McScott, reaching across me to grab the bottle off the bench. He smells like cigarettes and a hint of cologne.

"Shit, man, you could make a career doing that," I say, shoving Clarke in the chest with the heel of my boot. "Maybe we should start you an OnlyFans."

He falls onto his ass, laughing hard. "Was I on the money? C'mon, man. You've gotta tell us something about your life at some point."

"Don't need to say a thing," McScott grunts in my defense.

"My boy saved our asses twice. We would've been chunks if Bird hadn't taken that M72 to those tanks. Don't tell me you don't want to know more about our hero."

"Clarke, if I had someone back home you can be damn sure I wouldn't be volunteering here, fighting someone else's battles," I say. "I'm not a deadbeat like you; I actually stick by the person I love."

I immediately feel a pang of guilt.What a load of shit.I'm such a liar.

"Ooh, burn," Clarke says. He has three kids and a trail of disappointed women waiting for him back home.

"They're better off without me around, anyway."

"Face it, mate, you're hooked on the rush," McScott says. "Probably all of us, if we're honest."

"Speak for yourself," I say. "Give me a regular, boring, normal life. I'm here because I need to be. I was meant to be here."

The two of them burst into exaggerated "ooohs" and dramatic gasps.

"Fuckme," McScott says, a thin smile cracking on his normally serious face. "You are a real hero, aren't you, Bird?"

"Give me that." I snatch the bottle of vodka away and take a good, hard swallow.

I'm telling the truth. I volunteered for the International Vanguard because of a feeling I had, one that some people might call the direction of the universe, or a call from God, or destiny. Not to fight in someone else's war, but for something even greater, something I can't yet work out. Is there the possibility that my brain simply made up another perfect excuse to stay away from home? Yeah, definitely. After all, in a way, they're right. Thereisa girl behind all of this.

Her name's Rachyl, and she is the reason I'd first joined the army four years ago.

"You ran," McScott says suddenly, staring into my eyes. "You fuckin' ran."

"W-what?"

Everything goes dark, like lights on a stage dimming except for a single spotlight around McScott and me.

He leans in and grabs my wrist. "Yeah. Rachyl's no fool. She figured out your secret. And that's why you abandoned her. You abandoned your best friend, the one person who truly loved you, all because she realized who you really are. She realized you're ga?—"

"NO!"

I leap backward into the darkness.

I'm done with this dream.

The school quad is busy with students eating lunch. Over by the stairs, I see a group of girls doing dances in front of a phone set up on a stand. By the fence, some kids sneak a hit off a vape. Oops. The husky security guard who always rides around in a golf cart saw them. They all scatter as he zooms over.