I close my eyes and then jerk them awake, when I recall it’s my turn to watch. The gun in my hands is heavy, but suddenly it lightens.
I turn to see Andrius taking it from me.
“Rest,” he says. “I am good to keep watch for a few hours.”
I crawl to the farthest corner of our putrid home for the last few days and curl in on myself, trying to preserve some bodily warmth. My eyes close, and to the background noise of war and chaos, I drift away.
My mind goes back to the day when I was thirteen-years-old and I found out my father had left. I think about it a lot recently. It was the day that set me on this path.
I’d had to step up yet had no idea how. At first, I’d simply turned to stealing. I stole food mostly, but sometimes clothes, for the baby, from other people’s washing lines. Then I learned how to make vodka from an old man who I ran errands for. It was dangerous work. Get it wrong and you could blow yourself sky high, or blind yourself if you drank the fore shot. Still, I learned, and soon I became the go-to kid for miles around if you wanted homemade, cheap-ass vodka. It kept the family from starving, but things were hard. Every day my hatred for my father grew and grew. And it never went away.
These days, I daydream about him having gone east, so that I can come up against him in this God forsaken war and blow his fucking brains out.
Mother never recovered from him leaving, and I’m sure her sorrow contributed to the cancer that ate away at her, unknown and unseen until the day she collapsed, only to die three weeks later. My sister was weak from the start, a sickly child who never thrived.
I blame my father for that too.
God, I hate that fucking bastard. I wonder if he’s dead and hope not. I want to be the one to kill him.
My eyes droop to comforting thoughts of blowing my old man’s brains out, and the sounds all around me drift away.
“Konstantin.”
I jerk awake, and for a moment I panic. There’s a hand over my mouth, but then I realize it’s Andrius, and my breathing calms. “They’re here. Tanks are entering the town from the west now. Local pro-Russian battalion, but we have to assume the plan is still the same—that our unit is going to come for us from the east, while the battalion take fire for us and at least give some cover. You ready?”
I nod, waking up in an instant, as is the way when you’re in the middle of war.
“I might get to go home and see my wife and baby.” Semyon grins, his teeth flashing in the dark afternoon light. “You two sad fuckers will have to make do with the tender arms of the whore you pay.”
I laugh because I’ve never paid in my life. I’m fucking catnip to the ladies, and I know it. Add in what I do for a living, and women are lining up for me. Semyon is distinctly average. Medium build, average height, and pale, with ears that stick out too far. No wonder he got married and knocked her up; men like him, they need a wife. Men like me? Like Andrius? We can drown ourselves in pussy; no need to tie ourselves to it too.
Andrius, he’s handsome. I’ve seen women throw themselves at him. He seems to get the adrenaline junkies and the war ghouls who want to hear all about the action he’s seen, which is ironic because he hates all that shit. It’s his eyes. Freaky as fuck. They’re pale and almost ghostly, unless you piss him off, and then they turn the color of storm clouds. His eyes get him a lot of attention.
Me? When I scrub up, I don’t look bad, but it’s my body that gets me the ladies. Six-foot-four, and two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle. I get a lot of looks from simply walking down the street in a fitted shirt, or a t-shirt.
That’s not why I hone my body. I do so because I’ll never allow myself to be weak or a victim again. Not after what my father did to me and my mother. I started to lift when I was a teenager, and I’ve kept it up ever since.
I think some of it always goes back to that moment in the woods and what that woman said. She talked about being a winner because in this life there are only winners and losers. To the victor go the spoils.
I’m determined to be the victor, always.
I trained for the special forces because Russian special forces training is the toughest in the world. No matter what those stupid Brits claim about their SAS, we Spetsnaz are the best. I wanted to be the elite, best of the best. Next for me is making my way financially. Why I care so much I don’t know; there’s only me now, no one left to impress, but I’m hungry for it.
It’s another thing Andrius and I both have in common. We have no family. His were taken from him by strangers, and mine were taken from me by the one person supposed to protect us.
My sister died aged eleven. Pneumonia, the doctor said. Claimed that the damp and squalor we lived in wouldn’t have helped. There was only me then, in the shitty, dilapidated cabin we’d called home.
I took my belongings after she’d died and burned the place to the ground. Now, I have only photographs to remind me of the people killed by my father’s weakness.
The only family I have remaining are the brothers in arms I’ve made in the Spetsnaz. People like Andrius.
No matter what happens after this fucking war ends, Andrius and I will always be brothers under the skin, in a way Semyon will never understand. We’ve a bond forged in fire, but it is cemented in the detritus of our similar backgrounds and experiences.
He’s Ukrainian but with Russian family and citizenship. I’m Russian, but my mother’s family are Ukrainian, and I hold dual citizenship. We speak both languages, and both speak English. We will kill you if you threaten our lives, the lives of those we love, or the country we serve. We don’t kill for fun.
Neither of us has to swagger, or shout about our place in this world; we’ve earned it with blood. Ours, and our families and loved ones.
Yes, whatever happens after we get out of this hellhole, I will always have a special place for Andrius in my heart.
The sound of gunfire to our left has Semyon popping his head over the edge of the trench.
Fucking idiot! What is he doing? I reach to pull him back, but as I grab his collar, his head explodes like a watermelon dropped on the floor.
Skull, hair, and blood splatter my face.
For a moment, I can’t move or even breathe. It’s like the cold shock of water when you dive into a freshwater lake. Then I come back online and gasp in air.
“Fucking fuck,” Andrius shouts.
No choice now. Our cover is blown, so we must fight. A group of soldiers firing at the snipers on the buildings are heading our way, and I think they’re on our side. They’re certainly coming from the right direction, as per Andrius’ instructions.
The high-pitched whistle of bullets whizzing past, and the crack of the mini sonic-boom they make has me crouching low and checking my weapon.
Andrius has already grabbed Semyon’s AK. I look at the young man briefly. Hell, I call him young, but myself and Andrius aren’t much older; we’ve simply lived a lot more. Semyon was wet behind the ears and itching for a fight. Well, he got it.
I wipe his brains and blood from my face with a grimace and stare at Andrius, who is checking his ammo.
“On three?” I say as something hits the dirt right by my head. Motherfuck, this is getting too close.
“Yeah, on three. Fire at the buildings and run.”
“In a straight line?” I quip.
Andrius looks at me, his pale eyes ghostly in this dim light, and grins. “Of course, straight line all the way.”