Page 60 of Trigger Happy Ending

A few moments pass as a group of children strolls by with their parents. For a brief moment, I’m transported back to my childhood—or lack thereof. A sharp sting of sadness washes over me as I remember how I had to learn to fight at an age that isn’t much older than the kids around us. I don’t like thinking my childhood. Nothing good comes from reliving the abuse and neglect I was forced to endure at the hands of my drug-addicted, good-for-nothing parents.

“Fighting was the first thing I learned how to do,” I admit quietly.

“As a soldier?”

A beat passes.

“As a kid.” I frown, sliding the rubber band off the sushi container.

Raine falls quiet, probably filing that away in the mental folder she keeps on me.

“So,” she says finally. “How’d you end up in the military?”

I huff a laugh as I take a bite of a chicken and avocado roll and look over at her. Her irises catch the afternoon sunlight, turning them glass-bright and impossible to look away from. I’m lost in them, forgetting the question.

“Are you going to tell me or not?”

I chew for a moment and swallow the sushi down, trying to remember the last time anyone showed any genuine interest in my life. The only people I’ve trusted to share anything remotely personal with are dead. “I joined the army when I turned eighteen.”

“Seems young.”

I shrug. “It’s normal.”

“What did your parents think?”

“They didn’t,” I say, dipping the remainder of the sushi roll in soy sauce. “Both addicts. They abandoned me when I was young.”

Her expression doesn’t shift, but something in her eyes softens. A normal person might murmur I’m sorry or you poor thing. She doesn’t, and I like that because I’m not looking for pity or sympathy. I’m just looking for her to meet me where I am; and she does.

Her silence is an open door, and I walk through it.

“I was homeless at fifteen. Lived rough, on the streets mostly. If I got lucky, sometimes I’d couch surf, but more often than not, I was sleeping rough. Bus stops, park benches, underpasses. I was always getting into shit. I’d steal food, cars, get into fights … I was a genuine pest. But the streets were mean. Really fucking mean, actually. I was just trying to survive. I was headed down a bad path until a judge changed my life by giving me a choice. Jail or the armed forces. I didn’t hesitate choosing the army—they offered everything I’d never had. For the first time in my life, I had security, safety. Somewhere to go. It was like a …”

“Family.”

My eyes flick to hers. “Yeah.”

She presses her lips together in understanding.

“For the first time in my life, I wasn’t a menace. I was useful. I got my first taste of respect and what it meant to be a part of something bigger. I finally belonged somewhere, you know?”

“What was your unit?”

“At first? A regular unit, armored brigade.” I tear open a packet of wasabi, tipping it into the little soy tub. “My first deployment came a year later in Afghanistan. I built a reputation pretty quickly. I was aggressive, violent, taking all my childhood trauma out on the battlefield. Few of the guys said I went into situations like I had a death wish.”

“Did you?”

I consider how I felt back then, whether I cared if I lived or died. “Maybe.”

“How’d you end up in Special Ops?”

“Word reached the right—or wrong ears, depending on how you look at it—about me. A few years in, I was invited into a black program. Unconventional warfare became my thing.”

She leans in, chopsticks in hand, lifting her sushi roll. “Meaning?”

I scoop another roll into my mouth with my fingers, no way I’m fucking with chopsticks, and give myself a moment. How much am I revealing here? Do I trust her?

“Black Ops mostly. The shit that doesn’t officially exist. A lot of foreign intel and counterinsurgency. Missions where if we were ever caught, the army would deny we existed. Kinda like the Agency, actually.”