by David Lucin
At the time, she was only fifteen, but the memory of Jason and Andrew returning from the enlistment office, papers in hand and feeling invincible, was vivid, like someone had torn open her skull and tattooed it straight onto her brain. No matter how hard she tried to forget, she couldn’t. “Yeah, I do.”
“I wanted to do it. No joke, I did. But I was . . .” He rubbed his temple and grimaced. “I was a coward.”
Her first thought was, Yes, you are, but she hadn’t enlisted, either. She didn’t consider herself a coward then or anytime afterward, not even at her lowest point after Yankees Hat, so she couldn’t very well call Freddie one, could she? “Don’t say that. You’re not a coward.”
“It didn’t matter when the war got bad and enlistment dropped off a cliff,” he continued. “My mom never treated me the same. Dad neither. A week after my twenty-second birthday, they kicked me out, so I moved to LA to give the acting gig a shot. I only came home last Christmas.”
“Why did they care so much?” Jenn asked. Her mother and father were proud of Jason and Andrew, but after losing two sons, they did everything in their power to avoid losing their daughter as well. Rumors claimed college students were less likely to be conscripted, and Jenn had always suspected they spent their retirement savings to pay her tuition fees for exactly that reason. The more she thought about Freddie’s parents turning their backs on him, the more her anger and frustration abated. “They should’ve been happy you were alive and they have you now. If you were deployed when the bombs fell, they’d never see you again.”
Freddie’s hands returned to his pockets. “All they told me is that I needed to do my duty. I remember my dad saying, ‘The life you have doesn’t come free.’” He pushed out a sardonic chuckle. “Some life. When I was in LA, I cleaned toilets three times a week at an office for less than minimum wage, lived with six roommates in a two-bedroom place. When I lost that job, I begged my parents to take me in. The only other option was modular.”
“So how does your uncle fit into all this? You said he didn’t force you to join the Militia. Why join at all, then? Why agree to take a fire team?”
“The fire team was my mom’s idea. At least I assume it was. Volunteering was mine, believe it or not. I wanted to patch things up with my mom and dad for good, prove to them I wasn’t a coward. Or prove to myself. I figured the Militia would be easy enough, you know? Watch the roadblocks, do some training. Nothing like getting shot at by Chinese snipers or blown up by Brazilian IEDs. So I tell my uncle what I’m thinking, to feel him out, and he gets all excited and spills it to my mom. Then bam, I’m in charge of a fire team. I tried telling them no, but the look on my mom’s face . . . I couldn’t. She’s never been so proud of me.”
The cut on Jenn’s arm throbbed. Her first instinct was to berate Freddie for downplaying the importance of the Militia and its mission, but she heard Sam say, Don’t be a Jennifer, so she let him continue.
“I want to be here,” he said firmly. Surprisingly, Jenn found herself believing him. “I want to lead a team, be there for my grunts.” My grunts. The phrasing reminded her of the way Quinn had said my people. “I know I can do it. I just never thought I’d end up doing this”—he motioned in the general direction of the roadblock—“so soon. I assumed I’d have the winter to figure it out. I went from joking around about my script in Flag to watching you get jumped by a guy with a knife in like two weeks. I wasn’t ready.” He looked straight at Jenn as he added, “I understand if you want to kick me out. If I were you, I’d do it. No hard feelings. I’ll smooth it over with my uncle so there won’t be any blowback. Promise.”
He’d given her the perfect out. Sending him home would be as easy as simply saying yes. One syllable and her problem would disappear. But she heard herself say, “I’m not going to kick you out.” She hadn’t realized she’d come to a decision, but it felt like the right call. “I’ve been in your shoes, so I get it.”
“You have? At the farm?”
“No, during the first expedition to Phoenix.” She told him about Camp Verde, finishing with, “I shut down, couldn’t move, even though I knew I was dead if I didn’t. Dylan just reminded me how he had to drag me out of there.”
“You?” Freddie asked. “I find this all kind of hard to believe.”
“Why do you say that?”
He appeared looser now, more like himself. His normal self. “Because you’re Jenn Jansen, hero of the Battle of the Farm.”
She groaned and rolled her eyes. “God, I hate when people call it a battle. And I’m no hero. I just did what I had to do, but I wasn’t always that girl. At the start, I was a lot like you. Scared, overwhelmed, in so far over my head I didn’t know if I could ever climb out.”
“I guess that makes sense.” He dried his palms on his pants. “Hey, so I’d appreciate if you kept all this stuff between us for now. I’d rather tell everyone on my own instead of it making its way through the grapevine.”
“Sure, no problem.” With her good arm, she reached out and touched his wrist. “I’m glad you want to be here, but I need you to understand something: in this world, you don’t get many freebies. We’re lucky to get any at all. It’s adapt or die, and mistakes get people killed.” She held the cross around her neck, wishing Val were here to confirm she’d made the right choice. “So this is your last chance. My only priority is getting the job done and not losing anyone. If for any reason I think you’re a danger to me, this squad, or yourself, you’re gone. You got it?”
He nodded once and shook her hand with a firm, confident grip. “I got it.”
11
Faint sunlight shone through the large windows at the front of the old Buck or Two store, illuminating dozens of cots, mattresses, and sleeping bags arranged in neat rows. The chatter of forty other troopers going through their morning routines echoed off the high ceiling and walls. This place had been gutted long before the bombs, shelves and all, and Jenn was glad her platoon was staying here, not at the truck stop or the McDonald’s.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she put together the last few pieces of Espinosa. She tried to clean her weapon every day, but Dylan had started running the unit through an hour of training after duty shift, so she didn’t always have the opportunity.
“How’s your arm?” Sam asked hoarsely from the blow-up mattress behind her. Tucked snuggly inside a sleeping bag, he still wore a sweater and a beanie. They shared a bed, of course, which added a very welcome element of normalcy to her life. Too bad they were hot bunking with a guy from the Second Flagstaff Platoon.
She touched her tricep. In the five days since the incident at the roadblock, the wound had healed well, but it would certainly leave a scar once the stitches came out. “It’s fine. Doesn’t really hurt that much anymore.”
“Have you seen the medic again to get it checked out?”
“I did yesterday, remember?” She reaffixed the bolt to her Gunsite Scout and worked it a few times to test the action. “All this worrying about me was cute at first, but it’s starting to get annoying.”
As she set her weapon down, arms wrapped around her stomach and pulled her onto the mattress. She yelped in surprise and squealed, drawing a few curious glances from the troopers nearby. Months ago, the attention might have embarrassed her, but now, whenever she was with Sam, the rest of the world became invisible.
She kicked and tried to break free of his grasp. Well, pretended to. If she had her way, she’d spend the day in his arms, nuzzled up with him in their sleeping bag.
Eventually, she settled and lay beside him, her pulse racing with excitement. She gave it a moment to settle, then asked him, “Are you doing another water run into Prescott today?”
“Twice, probably. You guys go through a lot at the barricade.”
“Well, it’s a long walk from New River. I’d be thirsty, too.” She shouldn’t make light of the refugees’ situation, but despite so many attempts to remind herself they had families, lives, and dreams, she struggled to rega
rd them as anything other than a nuisance, especially after Leather Jacket cut her with his knife. Quinn had wanted this to be hard, for it to keep her up at night. Jenn had as well, yet she found herself sleeping just fine.
Sam didn’t seem bothered by her callousness. “Did you know Prescott pumps their water from underground?”
“Um, no. Why would I know that?”
“I’m not sure. I guess you wouldn’t. Anyway, Ed says it tastes better than Flagstaff water, but I can’t really tell the difference.”
“It’s water,” Jenn said. “It doesn’t have a taste.”
“Not true. You remember the tap water in the city? It was bitter. Salty, almost.”
“Makes sense. It did come from the Salt River.”
He curled his lip at her.
“Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t resist. You’ve got to admit, that was pretty quick. Gary would’ve been proud.”
“The man appreciates a good pun.”
“He certainly does.” She fiddled with the zipper on his shirt, then pressed her hands against his chest. “We should try to get some private time tonight, after we’re done with our shifts. If you know what I mean.”
His hand drifted to her backside, and her pulse kicked up again. “Private time, you say. I could be talked into that. It has been a couple—”
A throat cleared behind them. Then Quinn said, “Sorry to interrupt, lovebirds, but we’ve got a big day of work ahead of us.”
Jenn checked her watch: 7:40 a.m. Where had the morning gone? When she was on shift, the hours crawled by, but when she was with Sam, they felt like minutes.
Sam told Quinn, “I’m headed down with Ed at 8:30, so I don’t have anywhere to be right now.”
“Good for you, Samuel, but I was talking to your girlfriend.”
“Then you shouldn’t have said ‘lovebirds’ with an S.”
“What are you, the grammar police? But in all seriousness, Jansen, we should get going. I don’t want to be late for a very exciting day of watching the interstate.”
While Jenn enjoyed getting away from the roadblock, especially after the ugly experience of having to clear out the campsite at the rest stop, she found lookout duty awfully boring. “It’s better than barricade duty. I’ve done two lookout shifts and didn’t get stabbed at either of them. I count that as a win.”
Sam stirred in the bed. “Not funny.”
“Oh, you’re fine.” She leaned in to kiss him, lingering with her lips against his until Quinn half sighed, half groaned. Reluctantly, Jenn rolled off the mattress. “Have fun with Ed today. See you tonight?”
He gave her a wink. “Definitely. I look forward to it.”
She grabbed her backpack and Gunsite Scout, then made her way to the door with Quinn, who said, “You’re looking spry this morning. You and Sam find somewhere private or what?” She nudged Jenn with her elbow. “You did, didn’t you? Atta girl.”
“Nope. That’s tonight’s goal.”
“Nice. If you need a good spot, I know one.”
It took a second for Jenn to understand what Quinn was implying. Playing dumb, she asked, “Yeah? And you know this how?”
“Come on.” Quinn led her into the parking lot, where a line of trucks, some with trailers, waited to take the platoon to Sunset Point. “Two hundred of us have been cooped up together for two weeks. It was inevitable.”
“Sure, but that doesn’t seem like a very Quinn-like thing to do.”
“No? Why not?”
“For starters, you hid out by yourself in Raymond Hall until refugees started coming in from Las Vegas. I figured you were shy. That and I didn’t expect you to be thinking about romance when we’re, well . . . doing this.”
“First,” Quinn said, heading toward the Toyota, “I’m introverted, not shy. There’s a difference. You should know, since you’re introverted, too. I can tell. Us introverts are like dogs—we can sniff each other out. Second, I’m over it now. Sending those first few groups away was hard, but they just kept coming and coming. Then you got attacked with a knife and . . .” She trailed off, and her pace slowed to a saunter. “We can’t help those people, and as much as I hate to admit it, they’re a threat to us. Imagine if we let them into Flagstaff, what they’d do.”
“I try not to.”
“Me neither. You were right all along. I have no regrets anymore.”
“I’m glad.” Jenn took in a long breath of chill morning air. “So who’s the lucky guy? Don’t tell me he’s in our squad. God, it’s not Freddie, is it?”
“No, it’s not Freddie.” Quinn shuddered. “He’s not my type. Far from it.”
“That’s a relief, because I’m not sure I want my team leaders hooking up.”
“If you must know, he’s a gentleman by the name of Corporal Jake Richelieu. From the National Guard.”
“Good for you. I’m happy you’re making the best of this.” From the passenger seat of the Toyota, Dylan acknowledged Jenn with an informal two-fingered salute. She answered with a quick wave. “So when’s the wedding? I assume I’ll be invited.”
Quinn poked her in the collarbone. “Based on your very public display of affection back there, I should be asking you that.”
* * *
The truck rumbled southward down Route 59, a dirt road that ran through the bumps and hills of the western valley. Jenn, seated shotgun while a trooper from the Third Flagstaff Platoon, Dominic Lopez, a baby-faced nineteen-year-old with round cheeks and a flat, wide nose, drove in manual. Freddie and his three grunts had squished onto the back bench.
Lopez had just dropped off Quinn and her fire team at a lookout position three or four kilometers southwest of the roadblock. The next stop was a location another four klicks south, where Jenn and Freddie’s team would spend the day watching the interstate for refugees, then radioing in sightings to Quinn, who’d in turn relay them to Dylan at the FOB.
“You think the commander will start sending some units home soon?” Aiden asked.
“I hope so,” Tanis said. “What was the official count of refugees at the roadblock yesterday? A hundred and something?”
The truck hit a bump, so Jenn threw a hand down on Espinosa, which lay across her lap. Although vehicles had been traveling this road several times a day for nearly two weeks, there were lots of folds and contours in the ground, perfect places for someone to hide. Jenn kept a keen eye whenever she came out here, and she insisted that her troops do the same. They’d gotten quite adept at watching their surroundings while holding a conversation. She said, “Hundred and eighty. Lowest count by far.”
Lopez eased the truck around a lazy bend in the road. “If anyone’s going back, it’ll be your platoon. First in, first out. Lieutenant Townsend and Sergeant Murphy already agreed to keep the Guard down here till the very end.”
While Jenn was happy to continue doing her duty and contributing, she thought about home more often every day. She looked forward to seeing Maria and helping her make cornbread, scratching Ajax’s belly by the fireplace, and sleeping in her own bed with Sam. “I won’t object if Liam wants to cut us loose.”
Wyatt asked, “Can we get that in writing?”
“Why? You think I wouldn’t?”
“Actually,” Aiden said and pushed up his glasses, “we’re pretty sure you’d do the exact opposite and petition for us to be the last ones out of here.”
“It’s true,” Wyatt added. “You’re kind of a try-hard.”
She knew they meant their remarks in jest, and while she could defend herself, it might be fun to screw with them a little. “Please, Wyatt, feel free to elaborate.”
“Like, you try hard at what you do. A try-hard. You’ve never heard that?”
“Obviously I try hard,” she deadpanned in what Sam probably thought of as her Jennifer voice. “What we’re doing is serious. Are you saying you don’t try hard?”
“No. Yes, I mean . . .” He paused, appealing to his team with panicked glances.
Aiden kept his atten
tion focused outside. “You’re on your own, pal.”
“Yeah,” Freddie agreed. His AR stood propped up between his knees, the stock on the floor. “That was a pretty dumb thing to say.”
A smile tugged at the corners of Jenn’s mouth. “So what exactly are you implying? That you haven’t been trying hard?”
“No, you just take work really seriously,” Wyatt said. “You know what? Forget it. Never mind.”
There was real consternation in his voice. Jenn almost felt bad for him, but not quite.
Freddie laughed through his nose. “Dude, she’s messing with you.”
A few other laughs joined Freddie’s.
Jenn let her smile break through. “I never had you pinned as being that gullible, Wyatt. We’ll need to work on that.”
“Might be a lost cause.” Freddie tapped his knuckles on Wyatt’s head. “Something tells me what’s in here isn’t working properly.”
“Come on, guys,” Tanis said. “Don’t be mean. I didn’t know she was kidding, either.”
“See?” Wyatt asked. “I’m not as dense as you think I am. Tanis is just as thick-skulled as me.”
“Am not!”
Tanis and Wyatt continued their back and forth for another few minutes, Aiden and Freddie interjecting with their own commentary every so often. Jenn liked seeing Freddie and his grunts getting along and joking around; this was the first time they’d shared a moment like this since her injury. Understandably, for a day or two, the squad was a bit shell-shocked, particularly Freddie, who she feared would shut everyone out. But he didn’t. The opposite, really. He’d been asking more questions during training with Dylan after duty shift, showing initiative when it came to running his team, and generally acting as though he wanted to be here. Jenn was hopeful their chat had resonated with him.