Page 7 of Break Me Open
We stand facing each other, close enough now that I notice he’s a few inches shorter than I am. “Lance Corporal,” I say, letting the words curl lazily in my mouth.
He straightens like my voice hit a switch. “Sir,” he says immediately. The “sir” lands with all the right angles. Respectful, not obsequious. His accent is muted, maybe northern English?
“Arseny Zakirov,” I say, as if Niko hasn’t just told him. I don’t offer my hand to shake. I like watching people decide what to do when I don’t follow the script.
He doesn’t reach out. “I’ve read your file,” he says.
I let an eyebrow go up slowly. “Oh, have you now?” I ask. “I thought they’d scrubbed all the fun bits.”
His mouth does something that almost counts as a smile. “I got the operational summary, Sergeant,” he replies. “Not the... uh, fun bits.”
“Tragic,” I sigh. “That’s where all the good stories are. Explosions, bad decisions, worse haircuts.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “They did mention the explosions,” he says. “And the bad decisions.”
Bold, for someone in my hall who can’t pronounce half of our alphabet. “You’re working with my brother,” I say, tilting my head toward the front where Niko is already half-buried in another conversation.
“Yes, Sir. We’ve been running comms scenarios together.”
“How’s that going?” I ask lightly.
He hesitates with a tiny pause while he tries to decide how honest he’s allowed to be. “Productively,” he says finally.
I actually laugh. “Productively,” I echo. “That’s something you write on a report when you hate each other, but no one died.”
“It means it’s working,” he says, a tight swallow working his throat. “Sir.”
“Mm,” I hum, enjoying the ‘sir’ more than I’m willing to admit. “Try again. Off the record.”
“He’s better than I expected. Most officers in his rank don’t take half the time he does with junior personnel.”
There’s real feeling in that. Respect, at least. Maybe more, if I scratch at it. “Oh, there we go,” I say, pleased. “A real sentence. Careful, you’ll make him insufferable if you keep talking about him like that.”
“I wasn’t—”
“You were,” I cut in, amused. “Relax. I already know he’s good. I just like hearing other people say it.”
That seems to unsettle him, briefly. “If you need anything from me for the secure systems integration,” he says, retreating to a safe script, “I’m in the comms lab most evenings, Sergeant.”
I tilt my head. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll find you,” I say. “You don’t strike me as the type who’s hard to track.”
His eyes sharpen at that. Not exactly in offence, more like logged, labelled, and stored under ‘things to worry about when not under direct fire.’
“I try to be predictable on duty,” he says.
“And off duty?” I ask.
A muscle jumps in his jaw. “I uh... should check in with my CO,” he says, avoiding my question.
Wise choice.
He steps back, gives me a short nod, skirts past, and I let him go for the moment.
I don’t mean to watch him later. It just so happens that my feet carry me past the outside training yard at the exact time his little British pack is doing PT. A very unfortunate coincidence.
I hook my fingers into the chain-link fence, leaning against the cold metal, and pretend I’m interested in the weather. Which is impossible, because the weather is aggressively uninterested in me.
The Brits are running some bastardised version of our circuits. Sprints to the far marker, dropping for push-ups, haul sandbags, stagger back, and tag the next poor idiot.
