Page 1 of Phoenix Fated (The Phoenix Guardians #4)

JACKSON

I 'm in that little spot my mind goes to when I'm tired as shit, but my consciousness refuses to give up to the black abyss of sleep falling over me like a heavy blanket.

It's like being in two worlds at once, and I'm watching the coming dream on a feed inside my head as I hold on tight to whatever shred of wakefulness I have left.

I never fully go dark. I haven't in a long time.

It's one of the first habits we all pick up in an active warzone.

Sleeping with one eye open can often mean the difference between life and death.

And sometimes, even when the fight is finished, the things you've seen and done refuse to leave your head. They don't care if it's bed time.

Clarke and McScott...

Shit... How long ago was it before this crazy reality took hold of me?

I can't remember. Feels like forever, almost like my life on Earth—before phoenixes, magic powers, and getting goddamn man-preggers—is just a fading dream.

Nah, my whole life is just a series of faded segments, one shitty ending after another.

Pop . Speak of the devil. That little dream monitor in my head is on. I can still feel the low drumbeat thrum of the aircraft prison around me, can still smell the tar and musty timbers, like the hull of some old pirate ship. I'm not asleep. I'm watching the dream.

Clarke and McScott...

A gray naked forest under a crisp blue sky with a falling sun.

My breath comes out in thick clouds, and the air smells like moss and birch bark.

My right hand tightens around the familiar shape of my DDM4 carbine's textured grip while my left rests across the rifle's lower receiver, keeping it steady against my chest as I walk.

McScott...

Ah—this isn't one of those "I can fly" dreams. I'm reliving a memory. I'm back in Zhovnipol, in the International Vanguard.

"Bird. Bird! You fuckin' dreaming?"

I turn around and see Roy Clarke and Jim McScott walking up to me from the abandoned school we've taken as a base of operations. Clarke is grinning at me. I pull the headphones off my head. The tinny sound of Linkin Park drifts from the black foam earpads before I hit the pause button.

"He sleeps with his eyes open," he tells McScott. "I've seen him do it before."

"Bloody 'ell," McScott groans. "Last thing we need is this bastard on the gate."

The two join me, with Clarke coming up on my left and McScott on my right. McScott pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket and plugs the end of a bent stick into his mouth. He doesn't light it.

McScott is from London, England, and Clarke from Las Vegas, Nevada.

We'd all arrived on the same commuter flight and quickly picked each other out as soldiers, and it hadn't taken long before we were all getting drunk at a shitty little bar and swapping war stories.

And in just two weeks, enough bullets had flown in our direction for us to become as close as brothers.

"Music," I tell them. "And I was thinking . I know it's a foreign concept for you."

"You still lugging around that ancient hunk of plastic?" McScott says. I pull the portable Sony CD player out from a pouch on my MOLE vest and hold it up proudly. "Fuck me," he mutters under his breath. "Swear to God, it's been ages since I've seen one of those."

Clarke reaches over and tugs on one side of the headphones around my neck, and it snaps back and smacks me in the Adam's apple.

"Hey, dammit, careful," I say. "They don't make these anymore."

"Yeah, no shit," he replies. "They make AirPods now. I know your ass owns an iPhone."

I tuck the CD player and the headphones away into my vest.

Clarke bumps his shoulder against mine. "We found this left in a desk drawer. Score."

He pulls a bottle of vodka from his pocket and shakes it in front of my face.

When he smiles, the scar on his cheekbone arches up, and the two little freckles above it make it look like a little frowny face.

It's something I noticed a while ago, and the way it makes me feel pisses me off every time.

I shouldn't be picking out details like that about another man's face.

I quickly push the bottle away. "Hell nah. I know how you like to drink."

"Bro, this is our last chance. Tomorrow we're going to get new orders, and I'm pretty sure we're gonna be getting into the shit."

McScott finally lights his cigarette. "Reckon we're heading down to back up the boys in Malyi Sorych. Need to shore up the defenses there."

"Fuck," I say. "About damn time we get something interesting."

"That's what I said," Clarke agrees. "So. We finishing this, or what?" He unscrews the cap.

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.

" Fuck me," 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. There is a 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.

"Jackson. Jackson!"

"What?" I say, snapping to attention.

Rachyl, sitting beside me on the concrete step, scowls and rolls her eyes at me. "I knew you weren't watching."

She flips her favorite pair of retro headphones over her ears and turns back to whatever she's doing.

Wait. Rachyl, the quad at lunch, Lincoln High School...

Great, another dream. How many fucking years ago is this memory from?

I reach over and pull the headphones off her.

"Hey!"

"I am watching," I say apologetically, and lean over to look. "What's that?"

She has two lengths of paracord and is carefully winding them around each other, like a braid.

"It's called an eternal knot." Her voice has gone unusually soft; I almost can't hear her over the noise of everything else.

"Internal snot?" I ask, grinning.

"Eternal knot , dumbass!" she replies, and punches me hard on the shoulder.

"Ow, fuck."

"I went down a whole YouTube rabbit hole," she says as she works. "Ancient people used to believe these knots have power."

It's pretty incredible, the way she weaves the cords together. Mesmerizing, really. Out, around, make a loop, slide the end through, tighten it, repeat. She's obviously practiced this a lot. She's always been into arts and crafts.

"Damn, you're really good at that," I comment, pressing my face closer so I can see her process.