by C. S. Nelson
Kevin had put on his full uniform and was walking up and down the bunks. Everyone, including Mia who was also leaving for the first time, was nearly ready. Except Anthony. “Move it or lose it, new recruit.” He walked by. Annie also gave him a look, but it wasn't apparent that Kevin had even noticed. “We don’t have all day to wait for you to finish blubbering.”
Anthony wiped his snot onto his sleeve and slowly put on his vest. “I’m not blubbering," he huffed, before turning and looking at Annie. "I'm not going to come back.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” But she wasn’t sure anymore. Not from the way he had been acting. Mia and Anthony were the last of the new rangers to go on a mission, and it wasn’t coincidental. Neither one of them could complete the simulator that Annie had finished on her first try. Even with all their training. Anthony was failing, and he knew it as well as she did.
He strapped himself up and threw the gun over his shoulder. Immediately after he stood up, Kevin yelled, “Everyone ready?” There were a couple odd cheers from around the room. “Well then, let’s go.”
Anthony gave Annie a long and upsetting hug goodbye. “I’m going to miss you.”
She hugged him back. “You’re only going to be gone for a couple of hours. Tell me all about it when you come back.” She stroked his hair.
Mitch pulled Anthony off her in his typical obnoxious way. “Let’s go, ranger. Better cheer up. The soul suckers can smell the fear on you.” And with that, they were out of the room and off on their mission.
“Jesus Christ, Annie,” Dougie laughed from his bunk. “Is Anthony okay?”
Annie quickly glanced around the room. People were stifling laughter at the pathetic ranger that cried before he went on his first mission. There was nothing Annie could say to justify his behavior. He had lost his dignity. “He’s scared. He likes having me around.”
Ethan, lying underneath Dougie’s bunk, threw a tennis ball against the wall. “Doesn’t just like having you around, my girl. He’d like to stick it in you.”
Justin and Dougie joined in an annoying, boisterous laughter. They had all grown closer over the last few weeks, especially with all their bunks being situated together. Allison and Mia had kept to themselves in their bunk, whispering about the other rangers and worrying more about their appearances than actual training. Ethan and Dougie had turned into a couple of jokers that seemed to lighten the mood most of the time. Turner was still as intolerable as ever, and Justin just happened to be the poor soul that was stuck with him. Where those two were, Annie didn’t know, but Justin was probably stuffing his face in some dark corner and Turner was probably down at the library.
“Anthony does not want to have sex with me.” Annie rolled her eyes. Anthony was liker her brother. She was convinced that he was her brother. She liked to imagine that somewhere in the Shield, they shared parents that had been paired together as breeders and had actually cared for each other. It was rare, but it did happen.
“I’ve seen him.” Ethan made a rude gesture. “Grunting out your name in the shower. Oh Annie, ouhhhh Annnnnniieeeee.”
Dougie was howling in the bunk above Ethan.
“You’re disgusting,” she said, containing her smile.
“You like?”
Sure, Ethan was attractive in a goofy kind of way. Curly hair that had just recently been shaved off, blue eyes, teeth that jut out from his mouth just enough to be noticeable. But he had that nasty temper that made Annie grind her teeth. Dougie was the most attractive of the new rangers, but Annie had known him too long to think of him as anything other than a friend. In an effort to get over Dustan, Annie had been doing her best to move on by flirting with other guys. None of the veterans wanted anything to do with the new recruits, though, and she had known the boys she was training with for far too long.
She looked at her watch. The rangers wouldn’t be back for another couple of hours, and there would be no lessons until Kevin returned. He was going out on missions in the mornings and coming back to teach lessons in the afternoons. He was exhausted; Annie could see it on his face. They had yet to go out on another one of their escapes to the tree house. She had been looking forward to it, but she was far too shy to ask him.
She took this time to lay uninterrupted on her bunk. No Anthony crying for help, no Kevin yelling at the rangers, no Mitch coming over to pull her hair or do something else vile that Mitch did. For the first time in a very long time, Annie drifted off into a relaxing, deep sleep.
Annie was awoken by yelling. Coming from multiple voices, as the rangers who had left before came barreling into the sleeping quarters. She gasped, throwing herself forward and blinking hard as she watched the shapes of rangers go past her. Annie rubbed her eyes. One of them was carrying Anthony by the scruff, followed by Kevin, and Mitch.
Mitch had his hand on his shoulder, with bloody patterns dripping down into his uniform, soaking through his elbow, and falling to the floor. He was screaming and swearing. Kevin was screaming and swearing. Anthony was wailing louder than Annie had ever heard. “Enough!” she screamed, even though she had no authority to do so. But it worked; all that had been on the mission turned towards her, wide-eyed. She panicked for a moment, being the center of attention. “Um…did you get the medicine?” She turned towards Kevin.
He blinked a few times before snapping back into the situation. “Er, yeah.” Mia came forward with a closed paper bag, which she handed to the second-in-command. Her face and chestnut hair were splattered with blood, as though she had been in the trajectory of the wound that had been caused by whatever had hit Mitch in the shoulder. “Right here.” He held onto it, dumbfounded for a few seconds.
“Well, assign someone to go take it to the record keeper. Or do you want her to die while you all stand here screaming at each other?” Even Annie was surprised by the words that were coming out of her mouth. It was not like her to talk back, especially not in here. Not in the ranger tent, where everyone’s egos were the size of mountains and their mouths were even bigger.
Kevin handed it to the ranger who was still holding on to Anthony. He sighed as he let the young boy go, grabbing the bag, and disappearing out of the door they had all just came through. Anthony cried, falling to the ground with his hands around his neck where his shirt had chaffed him. “I’m sorry!” he howled, to no one in particular. Kevin reached down and pulled him up by his shirt. “I’m sorry!” he cried again.
“Can someone please tell me what is going on?”
“The fucker shot me,” Mitch growled, spitting at Anthony.
“I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry!” Anthony’s eyes were bloodshot. Snot was dripping down both nostrils. Annie’s best friend had lost any shred of dignity he had when he had been placed in the rangers. The situation was falling apart around Annie and she didn’t know how to fix it.
“I’m sure it was an accident,” Annie said, but she couldn’t hold in her grimace. Mitch was bleeding out all over the floor. He must have been in immense pain. But it was undetectable as all his face portrayed was his hateful glances at Anthony.
“Obviously it was an accident.” Kevin rolled his eyes. “Maybe this is karma, you know, for shooting me a couple months ago.” Mitch and Kevin stared angrily at each other for a few seconds. “Just go to the nurses. They’ll stitch you up and you’ll be back to your usual annoying self in no time at all.”
Mitch’s lips pursed as he gave one final look to Anthony before turning and leaving the sleeping quarters, a trail of blood following him. “Kevin, I didn’t mean to. You know I didn’t mean to, right?” Anthony was shaking, tears streaming down his face.
Kevin looked past the crying boy, and directly at Annie. “I need to talk to you for a moment,” he said to her.
Annie gulped. She should have known better than to speak out of turn. Kevin dropped Anthony and disappeared into the commander’s office at the back of the sleeping quarters. She gave Anthony a sympathetic look and a gentle shoulder squeeze before following Kevin into the
office. It was nearly pitch black until Kevin switched on a small lamp on sitting on a desk in the center of the room.
Annie had never been in this room. The new rangers had been told that it was off limits unless summoned. She wondered where the commander was, as he had been locked up in here for the last couple weeks, working furiously on a project that he wasn’t talking about with anyone. Curiosity couldn’t have even gotten the best of them either, because the thick door was triple locked and the only keys were in Kevin’s breast pocket. She looked around the dark room. Pictures and awards up on the walls, a dying plant in the corner of the room. She watched as Kevin quickly scooped up papers that were scattered across the desk. He shoved them into the desk drawer before Annie had a chance to look at any of it.
“I’m sorry, Kevin, I shouldn’t have-”
Kevin raised his hand. “Anthony can’t stay here.”
Annie’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?” Changing careers was not an option. Everyone knew that. If it were a possibility than there would be no rangers left.
He sighed, rubbing his eyes. “If you had seen him out there, Annie…I swear to God, he could have gotten all of us killed. I’ve seen new rangers freeze up out there, and I understand, it’s a stressful situation. But he didn’t think. He panicked, and when he finally snapped back into reality he fired blindly. Mitch was the only one unlucky enough to get shot.”
Annie couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed for her friend, or relieved. A chance to get him out of here, into a career where he could excel. “So what do we do?” Annie asked.
“Commander Matthew is in a meeting with the president right now. When he comes back, I’m going to talk to him. It is possible in extreme situations for a switch of careers.”
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
“I need you to come with me, vouch for what I’m saying. You’ve known Anthony longer than anyone here. I doubt the president would take it seriously unless we can stress how important it is.”
Annie was intimidated. She was scared enough of having conversations with the commander. She didn’t think that the president of the Shield would be interested in anything that she had to say.
The doors to the sleeping quarters burst open, and a group of guards entered, a couple of whom were grasping tightly onto both arms of the commander. He was in trouble, Annie could tell, although his face revealed nothing. He stared at the rangers with a blank expression.
“We need the following rangers to come with us.” One of the guards pulled out a crumpled piece of paper that had come from the desk of the president himself. “Daniel, Abby, Tony, Jesse, and Kevin.” All of them were veterans. All of them were very close to the commander.
Annie watched as the first four lowered them selves off their bunks, exchanging nervous glances, and slowly making their way to the group of guards. Annie looked at Kevin, who had no idea what was going on either. “What’s this about?” he asked.
“Please come with us,” the guard repeated. Kevin turned and gave Annie one last look, before turning and following the rest of the group. When he came back, hours later, he came back by himself. No guards, no veterans, and no commander. He was as pale as a ghost.
Nobody had said a word since the group had left. There was something wrong, but nobody had any idea what it was, so what was there to say? Even Anthony, who normally couldn’t keep his mouth shut, had lay on his bunk with a blank expression on his face. Annie had wondered if Mitch hadn’t been in the hospital, getting bullet shards removed from his arm, would it have been so uncomfortably quiet?
“What happened?” one of the veterans asked as Kevin slowly closed the door behind him. He was a tall, bulky boy who looked like he could take on a soul sucker with his bare hands. Annie was pretty sure that his name was Scott, but he had never spoken a word to her.
His lips were pressed firmly together. “Kevin, what happened?” Dougie asked, jumping down from his bunk.
Kevin looked up at everyone, both of his hands on his head. “I’m the new acting commander.”
“What? Where is Commander Matthew?” Scott asked.
“He got reassigned. Everybody got reassigned.”
“They moved Commander Matthew away? Why?” Everybody knew that the commander was the only reason the rangers were still standing. He was the backbone of the whole operation. From the way he spoke about his job, Annie could tell that he loved it, even with the thirty years and countless missions he had gone on. He was passionate about it. There was no way he would have willingly moved away from his post.
“I don’t know. I didn’t get a chance to ask many questions.” But Kevin’s voice still sounded hollow. Something was wrong. “You know how difficult the president can be.”
“Why do you look like you just witnessed a murder?” Ethan asked.
Kevin shot him a dirty glance. “I’m the new commander. The others are not coming back. That’s all you need to know.” Kevin walked past everyone and straight into the commander’s office, his new home.
“Annie,” Ethan whispered. “Go find out what’s going on.”
“Why me?” she asked. “Do you see the mood he’s in?”
“Because, stupid, you’re the only one he likes to talk to.” Ethan walked over and began pulling her leg out of her bunk bed. She rolled her eyes as her body got dragged from the top bunk and landed hard on both feet on the stone floor.
“Fine,” she sneered. She hit him with her shoulder as she walked past him. “Asshole.”
Annie walked to the office and gently knocked on the door. “Not now,” Kevin growled from behind.
Annie was thankful he didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to talk either. “Okay, sorry.”
The door swung open, and Kevin stared at her with glossy eyes. “I didn’t know it was you.” He paused, looking as though he were trying to hold in tears. “Come in.”
“Are you sure? I can come back later," she mumbled uncomfortably. "Or never even, if that’s what you’d prefer.”
Kevin motioned again for her to step inside, and she slowly obliged. “What’s up?” he asked, leaning against the commander’s desk. This room looked too big for Kevin.
Annie laughed unintentionally. “‘What’s up’? I think everyone out there is a little curious as to why five people went missing, Kevin. They think they deserve more of an answer than what you’ve given them.” His face revealed nothing as she spoke. “And honestly, I agree with them.”
Kevin sighed. “They didn’t give me any information, Annie. They brought me into a room by myself, told me that everyone was being relocated and that I was the new commander. You all know everything that I know.”
Annie raised her eyebrows at him. The look on his face as he had first re-entered the sleeping quarters was not one of someone who had just received a promotion. Something had happened. “You’re not going to tell me anything else, are you?”
Kevin smiled genuinely. “No, I’m not. But let’s go take care of the Anthony problem.”
“What, right now?”
“I’d rather not be in this building at the moment. Plus the president is in his office for the day. And he’s doing relocations, why not throw Anthony into the mix.”
“You just really want to get away from the rangers, don’t you?” Annie grinned at him.
Kevin shrugged, still smiling. He hadn’t even taken off his jacket yet. Annie followed Kevin out of the office, taking one last look around. She likely wouldn’t be invited into the office again. “I’m going to speak to the president?” Annie asked. For a population so small, the president somehow always managed to stay hidden unless he was attending a public event. Annie had never spoken to him before. He wouldn’t even know who she was.
“Don’t act excited, he’s the biggest prick I’ve ever met,” Kevin said. They stepped out of the sleeping quarters, with everyone’s eyes following them. Ethan and Dougie were staring daggers at Annie, who intentionally avoided eye contact as she grabbed her own jacket
off her bunk bed. It was getting brisk outside, and the leaves were beginning to change colour.
“Why do you say that?”
“I’ve had the privilege of talking to him on multiple occasions since becoming a ranger, likely because I was so close to Commander Matthew.” City hall wasn’t far from the basecamp, but Annie had never been inside. Like most of the citizens in the Shield, Annie had only been inside the school, the library, and her career placement. “Just…stay quiet until addressed,” Kevin told her as they approached the door of the sleeping quarters. “We’ll be back,” Kevin turned, addressing the rest of the rangers. “Enjoy the rest of the day.”
They walked the short distance in silence, Annie trying to mentally prepare herself to meet the most powerful man in the Shield. They climbed the stairs to city hall, one of the only buildings that had been in this area before the Shield had even been created. That meant it was one of the only buildings designed and laid out properly, complete with windows and steps, and constructed with thick grey bricks.
Kevin looked nervous when the president’s guards opened the doors to city hall. Annie found herself staring at the one to her right, who nodded to Kevin as they stepped through. He had two lines of red paint on each cheek, and one down the bridge of his nose. He locked eyes with her as she walked past, and she looked away, embarrassed.
“Those two used to be rangers. They both killed five soul suckers, you can tell by the stripes on their faces. They were then promoted to the president’s guard after. Now they’re living the good life, following him around all day, never having to step foot outside of the Shield again.” Annie had seen the stripes on people before, very few people, but she had never known what it meant. She imagined her own face with red stripes on each cheek, walking across the Shield as a hero.
