(Landon's PoV)

Tristan, Gavin, and I came inside talking, pleased that none of us had guard duty.

"Hey, Holly," Tristan called. "It was easy again today!"

"That's because you have no idea what you're doing," she muttered without looking up from her clipboard.

"Have you been working all day?" I asked. I walked over to her and tried peering over her shoulder to see what she was doing, but she snapped it against her chest before I could read anything.

"Well someone has to," she replied bitterly. She elbowed me in the rib, and it took a lot of strength not to double over. "Now step away from me before I rip your arms out of their sockets."

I smiled at her. "Whatever you say, blondie."

She huffed and began walking back to her room, but of course, we followed her. "You know what?" Gavin began. "Maybe you're right, Holly. Maybe this war stuff is hard. I think I'm getting a headache."

"Suck it up," she told him.

"But I need some medicine for it," he whined.

"I'm not helping you," she replied irritably. "If you really need it, you're capable of getting it yourself."

"Of course," he responded, smirking. "I'd be happy to search for it...in your room."

Holly stopped dead in her tracks. "No. No. No. No," she repeated. She ran ahead to block the doorway. "None of you are allowed in my room. I'll get it."

She made her way over to the medicine cupboard and opened it. She looked at the top shelf apprehensively, but still tried to reach for the bottle of Tylenol. She couldn't quite get her hands on it though.

The three of us stifled our amusement. "Need help?" Tristan taunted.

"No," she answered indignantly. "I don't need your help. I can do things myself." She went to the other side of the room to get the wooden chair. It wasn't in great shape. It wobbled as she set it in front of the cupboard.

"Are you sure that's steady?" I asked.

"It's fine," she cut me off.

Once she climbed on the chair, she was easily able to reach the bottle.

"Holly," Gavin started again.

"What now?" she exclaimed. She tried to turn around, but her foot was caught in the back part of the chair, and she ended up falling backwards.

It did look like it hurt and I did feel kind of bad, but I laughed cuz the other guys did. I meant to ask if she was all right, but it ended up coming out as, "on second thought, it looks like you're the one who's gonna need the headache medicine."

Still on the ground, her face was flushed pink and her muscles were tense. "Get out!" she demanded while getting up. "Get out, all three of you!"

"Calm down," Tristan told her. "We're just trying to get you to lighten up a little bit."

"Well stop before I drown you in your own blood," she threatened.

Tristan rolled his eyes as we turned around to leave. "Why is she always so serious? I mean, since being drafted does suck, we should at least get to try to make a little fun out of it."

Gavin shrugged. "I don't know. She's definitely not like any girl I've ever met."

No kidding, I thought to myself.

(Gavin's PoV)

Lt. Jason brought a small stack of letters into the barracks.

"Anything for me?" I asked, trying to hide my eagerness.

He shuffled through them and picked one out. My hopes soared. She must've written to me.

"Nope, none for you," he replied. "But can you give this to Tristan?"

And with that my hopes stopped mid air and face-planted.

"Sure," I agreed half-heartedly.

I walked back to my bunk and handed the note to Tristan. "Here."

He grabbed the letter and examined it. "It's from Kierra," he stated. "Haven't heard from her since I told her I was a war hero."

"What'd she say?" Landon pressed.

Dear Tristan,

Bullshit.

Landon and I couldn't contain our laughter. Tristan folded his arms. "It wasn't that unbelievable," he objected.

"Sure," I told him.

"But I guess it is kind of funny," he added, suppressing a smile. He folded up the note and grabbed a pencil. "Well I guess I should go think of a better comeback."

Landon rolled his eyes. "Good luck." He turned to me. "By far the funniest letter I've ever seen."

"Yeah," I agreed, although I still couldn't help feeling jealous since I didn't get anything.

(Will's PoV)

Matteo kept reading and rereading his letter that he got from his girlfriend a week ago. His eyes were glued to the note.

"You really miss her," I observed, taking a seat next to him.

He looked up and nodded. Sighing, he added, "Yeah, but letters at least help. Even if they only come every so often."

"I bet," I replied.

He set his letter down and thought for a moment. "Have you ever thought about writing to anyone?" he asked.

"What?" He caught me a little off guard.

"Like your sister," he prompted. "Have you talked to her at all since you left?"

"No," I responded, probably a little too hastily. She wouldn't want to talk to me, I added in my mind.

"You should," he told me.

"I shouldn't," I corrected.

"But why not?" he pressed further.

I struggled to find the right words. "Well...I...it's just...I don't want to bother her. She's got her own stuff to deal with." That wasn't a lie. She had school, our parents, and her health to worry about, and the farther away I was kept from it the better.

I grew stiffer at the thought. There was no way she'd want to hear from me. I couldn't blame her. If I were her, I'd be happy I was gone. One less thing to worry about.

Matteo seemed to notice my discomfort. "Hey," he put his hand on my shoulder. "I never said you had to. It was just an idea."

My shoulders seemed to fall back to normal after he backed off from the idea.

"But what's the big deal with it anyway?" he asked.

"She's just not that kind of person," I told him. "I don't wanna add any more stress to her life," My tongue tied itself into knots the longer I spoke. "...and...and I just shouldn't, okay? Trust me."

He put his hands up in mock defense. "All right," he said. "You should at least think about it though."

Believe me, I said to myself. I wouldn't do it, but the mere thought of contacting Rose would haunt me for the rest of the night.

(Holly's PoV)

The base got considerably louder the second the boys got back from fighting--if one can even call it that.

I pressed my fingers against my temples as my migraine worsened. Do they ever shut up?

"Holly!" I heard Blake's overbearing voice.

"What?" I replied irritably.

"Get the boys their MREs!"

I folded my arms. I should've known better than to think I'd be told to do something important. "Cuz they're so incapable of getting those themselves."

"Doesn't matter, it's your job," he reminded me.

I glared at him before heading to food storage.

"Very threatening," he mocked.

I muttered to myself as I searched for the day's dinner. "That condescending, arrogant, sexist..." I grabbed as many of the MRE bags as I could carry. As I made my way to the barracks, I could start to pick up parts of their conversations.

"Twenty times in a row," Trevor said, causing me to raise an eyebrow as I handed him and his singing friends their meals.

Did I really want to know what they were referring to?

"Just because you were the tic-tac-toe champion-" Clayton tried to respond, but I wasn't having any of it.

"You were playing tic-tac-toe?"

"Yeah, in the dirt?" Logan replied.

"During a war?" I pressed further, hoping they would notice their stupidity at least in hindsight.

No such luck.

"I won," Trevor said, smiling.

I swear they reach new levels of ignorance every day.

"Even Daniel joined in a couple rounds," Clayton added.

Daniel pursed his lips and shrugged. "I mean it was getting pretty boring."

I sighed through my teeth, slamming the rest of the MREs on the table. "You were playing games on a battlefield?"

"We just usually end up talking the entire time," Landon chimed in.

I turned to him. "That's not much better."

"Well what else are we supposed to do?" Gavin asked.

"Pay attention," I nearly screamed. My voice grew shrill as I continued. "You don't understand how easily you could get hurt."

"And what's it to you if we do?" Tristan questioned.

Resisting all of my better judgment telling me to strangle them, I responded, "cuz if you get shot, guess who gets stuck cleaning up your damn mess."

Gavin leaned back in his chair. "Relax Holly. I highly doubt that's gonna happen. Barely anything goes on around here."

"Would you like me to rip off your skin and sew it back in the wrong places?" I threatened. "Would that make things more interesting?"

"Listen, blondie," Landon began.

"No, you listen," I interrupted. "So you get stuck protecting a base and you don't think it's interesting. Well I can guarantee that if things were "interesting", at least a fourth of you idiots would be dead and another third would have some type of injury. Even though it may seem boring, you have a huge responsibility, so act like it."

(Aaron's PoV)

One of the Chinese soldiers had ran past his barricade. He was shot in the heart while charging toward us. He collapsed face first, but before he died, he managed to throw something.

It was way off from his intended target of us. Seriously, his aim was worse than Isaac's, but I guess that was a harsh judgment since he was literally dying. Whatever it was landed about 50 feet away in an area with some of the tallest trees in the jungle. Connor and I looked at each other in suspicion.

"What do you think it is?" I asked.

He shrugged while maintaining to keep his eyes fixed on the area. "I'm not sure. A grenade, maybe?"

Even if it was a grenade, we'd be fine. We were still well out of the injury radius. But I still couldn't stop focusing on that one place. I stared at the area, just waiting for something to happen, but it never did. After around a minute of nothing, I finally spoke up. "Wouldn't it have gone off by now?" I wondered.

"It should've," Connor replied. "Those things only have about five seconds before detonation."

He was right, although my original question was still left unanswered.

Against all good judgment, I allowed my curiosity to get the best of me.

"I wanna check it out."

He turned to me, puzzled at first, but went with it anyway. "All right," he agreed. "I kinda want to know what it is too."

We made our way to the area, keeping rather low to avoid gunshots. Our barricade didn't extend quite as far as we were going.

Once we were there, it wasn't long before I spotted a familiar grey object. I picked it up and tossed it in my hand. "You were right, Connor," I told him. "It was a grenade, although the guy forgot to take the pin out."

Connor, however, seemed to be frozen in his tracks. "Aaron," he mustered out.

I walked over to where he was. "What is it..." but I couldn't even finish my sentence. Just ahead of him was the body of a young boy.

I could tell he was American because he had the same uniform as we did, although the right side of his jacket was covered in blood. His eyes were closed and his entire body appeared stiff. Partially decomposed, his skin seemed to have even less color than mine did. Most noticeable was a bullet hole in his arm.

"He's dead, isn't he?" I didn't know why I said that. Of course he was dead. I just didn't want to believe it. I wondered if he could have survived if he had gotten help in time.

Connor nodded grimly.

The poor little kid looked so young. He didn't stand a chance against a gun, then again, who did? It looked so painful.

"I wonder where he came from?" Connor thought out loud.

"I don't know," I could barely get the words out. "I don't recognize him..."

"Guys!" I heard Sean's high-pitched voice.

My eyes widened instantly. "Oh my God, he followed us here." He couldn't see this. I wasn't sure how he'd handle it. Maybe he'd be just fine, but more importantly he didn't deserve to see death in a kid so young.

Connor and I looked back and forth from the boy's body to each other, unsure of how to hide him.

Eventually we just ran over to where Sean's voice was coming from and turned him around. The three of us began heading back to the barricade.

"What were you doing?" Sean asked. "Did you see something? Was it an animal?"

"Uh...no," I answered awkwardly. "It was just a grenade that didn't go off."

His face fell. "Oh. It'd be cool if we did see an animal. Like a panda or something."

I didn't get how someone could be so innocent. Instead of war and death, he could still associate China with pandas.

"Yeah, that'd be cool," I agreed, faking a smile. There was no way I could tell him everything we saw.

(Connor's PoV)

I couldn't sleep. My mind wouldn't stop. It was filled with thoughts of that boy's lifeless corpse. It wasn't exactly scary, just a lot to take in.

"Connor," I heard Aaron whisper from under me. Evidently he was awake as well. "How old do you think that boy was?"

"Not sure," I responded. "Probably about 15 though. A little older than Sean."

"Sean doesn't even seem 14," he said.

"I know," I told him. There were times when he seemed like he was seven just because of the way he viewed everything with excitement.

"I think he ran away," Aaron suggested.

"The kid?" I confirmed.

"Yeah," he replied. "Think about it. There isn't a base nearby. I think he got fed up with the fighting, so he left and tried to escape."

"He just didn't make it," I finished.

"It's sad," he stated. " I mean what kid plans on being a war casualty." He sighed. "It's just so unfair. To die like that for something we didn't even sign up for."

It was horrible. His death wasn't going to be known. It was just going to be added to all the others to form a total.

"He probably had a best friend," Aaron lamented.

"Who'll be devastated when he finds out," I added. My words felt heavy and difficult to say. I didn't even want to begin to fathom his pain.