CHAPTER 3

I paddled my feet in the bucket of hot water and reached over to scoop more canned peaches into my mouth with a plastic spork. At the center of the room a fire crackled inside a metal burner, lighting the walls with comforting splashes of orange. My new set of fatigues and a fur-lined bomber jacket lay on an air mattress in the corner. It had been turned down with fresh sheets and a very thick comforter. The pattern of dancing purple poodles didn’t even bother me. I was wrapped in a white, terry cloth robe I thought was only reserved for fancy hotels, and I’d even put a towel around my head.

In short, I could have gotten used to that.

We’d stopped for the night in an abandoned town called Waukesha, just outside of Milwaukee. I say it was abandoned but the truth was NUSA had kicked out the residents for nonpayment and set it up as an Army detachment. It had all kinds of extra supplies for platoons out on the road.

When things went south and the cities were abandoned, metro areas became hotbeds of dragon activity. The scalies took full advantage of the clustered buildings, the burrowing subways, and the webbed layout of freeways. 5-90 had told me from the beginning we were to avoid areas like Milwaukee. Droids don’t embellish. Our little detachment in Waukesha was closer to the big city than I cared for. And that went double for Lake Michigan. All sorts of abominations can multiply and crawl out of large, unregulated bodies of water.

On the way to Waukesha, Calhoun let me ride inside Tank 1. I was thankful for the warmth and the break from marching, but even more thankful he’d given me some spare clothes and refrained from speaking to me. There was no length of conversation I wanted to have with the colonel. Some of the other soldiers had good rapport with him, even shared dirty jokes, but I’ve never liked being on the radar. It makes me uncomfortable. I used to have a manager at the mall who would ask me all these personal questions like how my parents were and what I did on my day off. It wasn’t what he said, but how he said it. His eyes would seem to bulge from their sockets, and he had this strange twist to his lips as if he was trying to catch me at something he could write a report over. I was convinced all failed interrogators ended up managing retail.

But something had changed after I killed that acid dragon.

I spent my time in Tank 1 watching the driver use the controls. There were a lot to choose from, but only a certain group of floating buttons were pressed during the trip. It looked pretty standard. Forward, left, right, reverse. And though I tried, I never found anything that would have told me how those wraith rods worked. Not only were there too many controls, none of them had labels. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. If the platoon had this kind of technology the whole time, why didn’t we know about it? Well… I hadn’t known about it.

In Waukesha, Calhoun had other privates make up my room – it was really more of a one-person steel cabin. He had them boil water, find a clean uniform that fit, and get me whatever rations I had a hankering for. There wasn’t much to choose from, but there were the canned peaches which always seemed to run out at chow time before I could get any. The other guys would snag every can while I was finishing up some dumb duty 5-90 had me doing. They’d mock me, too, when I would finally walk in, making sure I saw them slurping the last drops of fruity syrup right out of the can. They would exaggerate how delicious it was. Some moaned and gripped the cans to their chests. One guy named Smithers would always drop onto his back and begin humping the air as if the processed fruit had taken him to the heights of nirvana.

Not even Reynolds would save me a bite.

So yeah, I was enjoying myself in my comfy robe there in Waukesha. I dropped my spork into my third emptied can, humming an old song about moving to the country and eating a million peaches.

I noticed my right hand in the firelight.

There wasn’t even a touch of redness to the skin. I tilted my hand to each side, closed and opened a fist. No pain. It was easy to believe I hadn’t touched 5-90’s flame or heated arm. But I had. I knew I had.

“Knock, knock.” Reynolds pushed through the door, allowing a puff of frigid air to enter.

I dropped my hand, hid it in the pocket of my robe. “I always wondered why people say that instead of just, you know, knocking.”

Reynolds closed the door and set her rifle against the wall. She laughed when she saw the towel wrapped around my head.

“I practically had icicles in my hair,” I said.

She looked around the room and whistled. “Nice digs you got, Contreras. You’re going to make the rest of us scramble to kill the next dragon if this is the kind of reward you get. Sure beats burying the guys who didn’t make it.”

“I’m real sorry about that but–”

Reynolds’s auburn hair fell onto her shoulders as she removed her helmet and tossed it onto the bed. The pack she’d been carrying on her back followed next. The air mattress bobbed a couple times before settling. I wish I could say the same for whatever was going on in my stomach. I don’t think it was the peaches.

“But what?” Reynolds held her palms to the fire.

“It’s about time I got some respect.” I leaned back in my chair, a beat up leather recliner, but I overestimated and ended up springing backwards, kicking water from the bucket and nearly putting the fire out. The burner sizzled steam as Reynolds laughed.

“Careful with that big head you suddenly contracted,” she said. “I don’t have much gauze left to keep down the swelling. Anyway, I’m here about that hand.”

“I’m fine.” I shoved the hand in question a little deeper into my pocket.

“You don’t have to act all tough with me.” She stepped closer. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the way she walked, but it still made me feel weird.

“You know,” I said. “Calhoun said I could have pretty much anything I wanted, within reason.”

“Yeah?” She stopped, thinned her eyes. “So?”

“One of the first things, the main thing, I asked for was privacy. I just want to keep warm and relax for the first time in a year. Not trying to be an asshole, but if you don’t mind…” I waved my left hand toward the door.

“Oh, shut up.” She picked up her med pack and stomped over to me. She grabbed my right arm and tugged, trying to remove it from the robe pocket.

“What the hell!” I pulled back but that only made her dig her fingers into my forearm. Hard. I yelped.

Instinct caused my other hand to leap up, to push her away. Everything stopped. She stopped. I did, too. Both of our eyes settled on where my hand had landed: her left breast.

My mouth fell open as my hand fell from her chest. Rage burned onto her face. She actually showed teeth. Dragons and wraiths didn’t have shit on Sarah Reynolds.

I stammered to apologize. “I didn’t mean to. It was an accid–”

Her hand sliced through the air and landed palm-first across my face.

I was at her mercy after that. She had my hand in hers and a flashlight in her teeth before I realized what was happening. With a weaker attempt, I tried to pull away, but she held my hand open, studying it under the white beam of her light. Her eyebrows came together and the flashlight soon fell from her lips.

Slowly, softly, she placed my hand in my lap. She patted it once. “Don’t tell anybody.”

“What’s to tell?” I asked, rubbing my sore cheek.

She went to the bed and grabbed her med bag. Her hands seemed to shake as she dug into it. “I’m going to wrap it up. As far as everyone else knows, you got burned and I treated you. We’re not going to make them think any different.”

“I’m not hurt. I got lucky. That’s all.” I sprang from my chair. My wet feet caused me to slip on the metal floor.

Reynolds caught me by the shoulders. Then she grabbed me by the cheeks. “You and I both know that’s bullshit. You wouldn’t have tried to hide it from me.”

“I…”

Her eyes looked wet and I don’t know if she was tearing up or if the firelight was doing something to them. “You’re a smoke eater.”

I backed away from her, minding my steps. “No. That doesn’t make any sense. I’m just some private who was dumb enough to join up with the Army. Just a regular guy. There aren’t any smoke eaters left.”

“The fire test Calhoun was pretending to give to the kids today? They used to do the real thing all the time. That’s how they found smokies. It’s a genetic thing. You know what smoke eaters can do?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Trust me. I’m very aware. But that’s not me. I think you saw me kill a dragon today and this is some crazy way for you to process how someone like me could have done that.”

“Someone like you?”

I pulled the towel from my head and let it fall to the floor. “Every one of you in this platoon has something against me. I was singled out the minute I joined up. I don’t know what the hell I did, maybe it’s just bad luck. Maybe there always has to be the one guy everyone else gangs up on and it’s permitted because it builds some fucked up form of camaraderie. Who cares about the odd man out when the majority is doing just fine? I’ll tell you this, though. I proved myself today and everyone who thinks they can run over me has another thing coming. I’m not a smoke eater, Reynolds, but I’m glad that dragon found us. I’m glad there are fewer assholes in this platoon for me to suffer.”

She flinched as if I’d thrown a rock at her face. “How could you say that?”

“March a mile in my shoes,” I said. “You’d say the same thing.”

She shook her head, retrieving her helmet and pack. She left a roll of bandages on the bed.

“What?” I said.

She pushed past me.

“Did I say something bad about your friends?” It sounded so sappy, so petulant falling out of my mouth. But when a righteous pride takes over, you tend to let it burn.

Reynolds stopped at the door and turned to me. Her movements were sharp. Her jaw was tight. “Did you forget about that day at the lake? Our little swim?”

I shuddered every time, but I thought about it at least once a day. “No, you just act like you don’t give a shit about me in front of everyone else. That makes you just as bad. Seriously, thanks for all the help you’ve been.”

She groaned. No, it was more of a contained scream. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do? Just… wrap your hand and don’t mention it to anyone. Everyone will forget. If you keep your hand down and your mouth shut. Past that, I can’t help you.”

She put her hand to the door.

“Wait.” I stepped toward her, but stopped when she turned back and actually waited. A million things crossed my mind, a million things I should have said. The only thing to pop out was a question I’d been chewing on as much as the peaches. “How did the tank capture those wraiths today?”

She left me with a disgusted sigh. Her voice trailed through the doorway before it closed. “Ask Calhoun. I’m just the fucking medic.”

Damned if I did, damned if I didn’t.

The briefness of the open door left a chill in me. Of course, it could have been Reynolds’s words. Either way, I got close to the fire and watched the flames dance. It felt good and I tried not to think about how much Reynolds must have hated me. I started thinking about how kids develop a fear and understanding of heat and the pain that comes with it. Do all kids have to experience a burn before they know not to play with fire? Or is it a societal rule that trickles down to each generation? Everyone knows not to jump off a cliff. Everyone knows not to touch fire.

What if I could?

I held my hand a little closer to the flames. Just a few more inches and I could have my fingers passing through them. One way or another, I’d know.

I pulled my hand away. I took a deep breath and looked around at my cozy room. As I climbed into my dry and lush bed, I was determined not to let Reynolds bring me down. I’d earned my good night.

My whole life I’d looked up to the smoke eaters and where had it gotten me? I could make something of myself in the New US Army. Maybe now we could start putting the hurt on scalies and not the people we were supposed to protect. I drifted off, thinking of ways I could improve things when I rose in the ranks.

It was less terrifying than thinking Reynolds was right.