Chapter 4

The lab light pulsed behind his eyelids, the sharp scent of antiseptic souring into the smell of floor polish and old paper. The cold steel of the operating table shifted, became the dented metal of a locker door at his back. High school. The needle was gone, but the ache in his bones remained, joined by a familiar dread that coiled low in his stomach.

He pressed his forehead against the locker, the dented metal cool against his skin. Two more weeks. Then exams. Then-what? College was a mountain he couldn't imagine scaling, even if his grades had been better than the rumors claimed.

"Hey! What's up?"

Jake's voice. He didn't turn. He knew that tone-the playful lilt that always preceded something sharp.

"Whatcha got for lunch today?" Jake asked, slipping an arm around his neck, pulling him into a headlock that felt less playful than it looked.

"Granola bar," he muttered, holding it up.

Jake's friend Alex smirked. "A meal fit for a king."

Jake released him and walked toward the cafeteria, muttering something under his breath. The snicker that followed was clear enough. Alex lingered, wrinkling his nose. "Smells like his mom still does his laundry in swamp water."

He watched them go, the laughter ringing in his ears. He looked down at his worn shoes, a stark contrast to the polished floors, and a familiar weight settled in his chest.

Just as he was about to shuffle toward the cafeteria, his gaze landed on an army recruitment poster. Three soldiers in sharp uniforms, arms wrapped around each other, broad smiles on their faces. "Building friendship for a better tomorrow," the tagline read.

"Friendship, huh?" he muttered.

He turned from the poster. He would find his tribe somewhere else, somewhere outside these walls.

After a tiresome school day, he finally made it home. As he turned the key, the entire doorknob assembly came loose in his hand. He sighed, placing the broken piece on the table inside. Another thing they couldn't afford to fix.

He turned the knob on the stove. The hiss of gas and the sudden bloom of blue-orange flame sent a jolt through him. For a second, it wasn't the stove but the fireplace, and his mother was kneeling before it, feeding his father's papers into the fire. Her face stark, her hands shaking. That was the night the men had come, the night everything broke. He still didn't know what his father had done, only that his mother's eyes never lost the lines the fire carved there.

The hours slipped away. It was past midnight when he finally gave in to exhaustion.

The thin morning light cut through his curtains far too soon. Groggily, he prepared for school. As he was about to leave, he noticed his mother passed out on their worn-out couch, her work uniform still on. She looked so fragile. Quietly, he draped a blanket over her and kissed her forehead.

He made a silent promise. No matter how hard it got, he would strive for a better life, not just for himself but for both of them.

A loud knock echoed through the walls, jolting him out of his thoughts that evening. He whirled around, heart hammering.

"Hello? Is there anyone inside?"

"Who is it?"

"I'm Officer Vega. This is Officer Smith. We need to talk to you about an incident."

He cautiously opened the door to find two stern-looking officers.

"Is your father home?"

"No, he's away on a business trip." The lie was automatic. He hadn't seen his father in eight years.

"There was a car accident tonight." The officer's mouth kept moving, but the words dissolved into a low hum.

He watched a raindrop slide down the patrol car's windshield, tracing the same path twice before the wipers swept it away. Didn't survive. Mother. The words reached him from far off. He nodded, and somewhere in the hollow space where his chest used to be, he wondered why the porch light had started buzzing so loud.

"Okay," he choked out.

"Do you have someone you can call?"

"Yeah... My Aunt." He wouldn't make that call. He couldn't.

The officers left. He closed the door and leaned against it, finally letting tears fall, the reality of his mother's absence threatening to crush him.

The silence in the house was a physical weight. For three days he didn't move the dirty pasta pot from the stove. On the fourth day, he showered in water that ran cold before he noticed. He put on his uniform and walked to school. The silence had started to sound like her, and he couldn't stay to listen.

His stomach twisted with hunger he'd ignored all weekend.

As he reached his locker, he caught a glimpse of Jake talking to Alisha. Just as he grabbed his textbooks, Jake noticed him.

"Hey, come here!"

Jake had never used his name. It was always 'hey,' or 'this guy.' A familiar, hot shame began to rise, but something new and cold met it. The silence in his house echoed in his ears. What more could they take from him? The fear that usually coiled in his gut was gone, replaced by a hollow calm as he walked toward them.

"I was just telling Alisha about the awesome weekend we had together," Jake said. "This guy doesn't get out much, so he was really grateful we showed him a good time."

"You had a great time."

He laughed briefly. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Our weekend never happened." He let the cuff of his sleeve slide back, revealing the dark, mottled bruise on his forearm. "This, however, did."

Alisha gasped. Jake's face paled.

Before they could respond, the school bell blared.

"We're going to be late," he said, walking toward class.

As they walked, Jake slung an arm around his shoulders, a perfect picture of friendship. He leaned in, voice a low hiss. "Your mom's shift ends at four-thirty, doesn't it?" His fingers dug into the muscle of his shoulder. "Be a shame if someone was waiting in that parking lot."

The end of another school day. He walked home, Jake's threat replaying in his ears. Voices behind the school's wall.

"Is he here yet?"

Someone peeking around the corner. A member of Jake's group.

Not today. He turned and walked the other way.

"Hey, Jake, he's running away!"

Footsteps pounded behind him. They caught up fast.

"Where do you think you're going?" Jake yelled. "Come over here."

He stopped, hands clenching into fists. He turned slowly, meeting Jake's gaze without flinching.

"Look at you," Jake said, his voice dropping to a pitying whisper. "Still trying to look pathetic enough for people to feel sorry for you. Your dad bailed, your mom's gone... and you still think any of that makes you worth something?" He smiled. "Nobody's left to care."

"I'm not playing your games anymore, Jake. Find someone else."

Jake's eyes widened. He stepped closer. "You embarrassed me in front of Alisha. That was a mistake."

His fist connected with his stomach. Two others grabbed him, dragged him behind the wall. Jake pummeled him until he fell. As Jake went in for a kick, he grabbed his leg and held on.

"Get off!" Jake roared, voice cracking. He shoved his friend. "Give it to me."

The friend hesitated, then fumbled a small utility knife from his pocket. Jake snatched it and lunged, all control lost in sloppy, frantic swings.

After what felt like hours, Jake finally stood, satisfied. He spat on the bloodied, tear-stained face below him.

"Don't ever come back to school."

He walked away. The others followed.

He lay in the dirt, alone.

The adrenaline faded, leaving him hollow and trembling. He pulled himself up, every movement sparking fresh pain. The cuts were shallow-Jake had been sloppy, more interested in humiliation than murder-but they bled freely, soaking his shirt. He couldn't go to the hospital. They'd ask questions, call his parents, maybe the police. And Jake's family had money, connections.

He hobbled home through backstreets, keeping his head down. Once inside, he locked the door and stripped in the bathroom. The mirror showed a stranger: pale, shaking, eyes too wide. He cleaned the wounds with trembling hands, biting back whimpers, then bandaged them with supplies from under the sink. Not perfect, but enough.

He collapsed onto his bed, their laughter replaying on a loop. Shame pressed down harder than the pain. For three days he didn't leave the room. The hunger became a dull, familiar ache, but by the third day, a low, hot anger began to burn in his chest-the only thing that felt real in the silence of the house.

He looked at his reflection as it cried out to him.

"Weak," it said. "Always letting them walk all over you."

His heart pounded. He pressed his hands to the sink, knuckles white. The air in the bathroom thickened. Sweat trickled down his face. The reflection's eyes didn't change color-they deepened, as if the pupil were expanding to fill the whole iris, and something pushed through from the other side.

The laughter deepened, warping into the roar of a bus engine pulling away from home. The bathroom faded. Years compressed: the stiff fabric of a new uniform, the bark of a drill sergeant, the cordite smell of a muzzle flash, the weight of a friend dying in his arms. The memories dissolved into the searing pain of a needle. Then, only darkness.

"Good, you're awake," a gentle voice said.

Stiffly, he attempted to sit upright. A wave of dizziness engulfed him, and a gentle hand pressed him back down.

"Easy now, your body is still very weak," the stranger said.

He squinted, trying to discern the face attached to the voice. As his vision cleared, he saw a woman approaching. The stethoscope draped around her shoulders hinted at her profession.

"Where am I?" His voice was a frail whisper.

"You're in an army medical tent," she said, her voice low and steady. "A patrol found you unconscious in the field. How are you feeling?"

The question hit like a blow. His hand went to his side, fingers tracing the ridged scar tissue beneath his shirt-the mark that had sealed his squad's fate. Flashes came in fragments: muzzle flashes, a scream he couldn't place, the weight of someone dragging him. He let his hand fall, but the phantom ache of captivity stayed.

"Ambushed..." he began, his voice a dry rasp. "They took us... the locals, too." His breath hitched as memory flashed behind his eyes. He forced himself to meet her gaze. "My team... did anyone...?" The question hung in the air, unfinished.

Her expression softened with a practiced pity. "The patrol swept the area. They found signs of a firefight." She paused. "You were the only one they brought back."

A sickening knot coiled in his chest. He saw Brooks laughing, saw Sarah check her ammo. Another family lost. He had joined the army to find a place to belong, and he had. Now they were gone, too. His fists clenched, the nails digging into his palms. "I see," he managed to say, the two words a dam holding back a flood of grief.

She seemed to hesitate. "You should rest. You've been through a lot. You're stable, but you're dehydrated and need food."

A hot, unfamiliar anger seized him, a physical jolt that felt like another man's impulse. "No," he growled, the sound foreign in his own ears. He tried to push himself up, but his muscles refused to obey, and he collapsed back onto the cot. The weakness was his, but the rage was a venomous energy buzzing just beneath his skin, searching for a way out.

She pressed a gentle hand to his shoulder. "The Major's been waiting, but even he can wait another day or two. You need the rest."

"Fine."

As she was about to leave, his voice was quiet. "Thank you... for taking care of me."

A soft smile touched her lips. "Rest now. The Major wants to see you as soon as you're able." She turned to leave, then stopped. "He wanted you restrained. I told him he was wrong." Her gaze drifted from his eyes down to the jagged scar on his jaw. "I hope I was right."

Outside, through the plastic window, he saw a world that moved on-soldiers marching in formation, the wind tugging at the tent's edges, voices drifting on the air from somewhere he couldn't see.

Days bled together, marked only by the changing shifts of nurses. One afternoon, while picking at his food, he overheard talk of a raid near the border. His gaze drifted to two soldiers at the far end of the tent, their laughter sharp and loud. He recognized the practiced way they held their shoulders, the cadence of their speech, but the names on their uniforms were foreign, and they told their jokes in a language he no longer shared.

Some nights, he surfaced from sleep already sitting upright, one hand braced against the cold wall, the other reaching for a door handle that had been removed years ago. In the morning, he'd sit on the edge of his cot, letting the sun warm his face for a moment before another round of questions, another reminder of the war he'd survived.

A couple of days later, Major Harrison's imposing figure filled the tent's opening. "You're awake. Good. We need to talk, Private."

"Sir," he said, trying to sit up straighter.

The Major's face was a mask of professional calm, but his eyes were sharp, assessing. He didn't waste time with pleasantries. "We've been watching that facility for months. An I.S.A. black site. You're the first person we've ever seen come out. I need to know what you saw in there. Everything."

"The locals," he said, his voice flat. "They took them first. Down a hallway... all sterile tile. For 'experiments.'" He paused, his gaze unfocused. "We just heard the screaming. And then it would stop. They had clipboards and tablets... the light from the screens lit up their faces as they wrote things down."

The Major's eyes darkened with every revelation. "God help them. Give me a full report when you're able."

"Understood, sir."

As the Major left, the tent flap fell shut, plunging the space back into quiet. He closed his eyes, and the sterile white hallway returned. A scream echoed off the tiles, a sound he'd heard a dozen times in his nightmares. But this time, he felt the vibration in his own throat, the phantom sting of a needle at the base of his skull. The medics had it wrong. The worst part of the firefight hadn't happened in the desert.

The Major visited again, his expression unreadable. "I'm sending you home," he said, the words less an offer than an order. A wave of relief washed over him, so sharp it felt like pain. But then he saw the white hallway, felt the phantom sting in his skull. The relief soured into terror. What would happen to him out there, alone with this? "Sir," he said, his voice cracking. "Please. Don't send me away. I can still be useful here."

The Major's gaze softened, but his tone remained firm. "Physically, you're cleared. But I read the reports. No one comes back from what you describe without help."

His hands clenched the thin blanket. "What reports? Sir, I don't understand."

The Major sighed. "This isn't a punishment, son. You'll go home, get the support you need, and then we'll see about getting you back in the fight."

Resigned, he gave a sharp salute. "Understood, sir."

On his last morning at the hospital, he paused on the steps and looked out at the horizon-golden sun spilling over the barracks, the scent of dew on the grass. For the first time in months, he let himself imagine something more: a future, a fresh start, maybe even forgiveness.

A vow formed within him, silent but resolute.

Not just to survive, but to become something more. He would make every loss count, and he would never let the world break him again.