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11678 is exhausted. Her face sticky with sweat, her uniform soiled with mud and bramble thorns.
It’s all over. It’s all fucking over, or it will be soon. She grips her gun, jaw clenched, as a bead of sweat rolls down her back.
It doesn’t matter if they kill her for this. They were going to kill her anyway. Just like they kill every rose red.
She’ll die soon anyway.
One way or the other.
The first thing 11678 can remember is blood. She’d just woken up, disoriented, confused.
They had told her her number – 11678 – and that she was supposed to fight but—
She couldn’t help but think something is wrong, someone is missing
And she’d have been thinking about that, really, she would’ve, if it wasn’t for that the Rose Red (that’s what she is, they said, what they all are, a Rose Red) beside her, 11679 is still being examined.
Poked, prodded, just what they’d just done to her.
There’s something wrong with her, 11678 thinks, she’s shaking. Not from fear, but from strain, like her legs couldn’t hold her, her arm rattling, and—
And 11678 could tell she wasn’t quite right.
The man dressed in scrubs and a frown told 11679 to hold out her arm, to flex her fingers, to hold still.
11679 couldn’t. Couldn’t still the shaking, couldn’t stand straight, couldn’t—
Couldn’t be a good Rose Red, 11678’s brain supplied.
Then there was a loud bang, it jarred through her, head to toe, and then—
And then there was blood.
Across her face, her chest, across her neck and sides, as 11679 slumped dead, falling backward to the floor.
Dead.
Not even 10 minutes old, and gone.
11678 isn’t supposed to be here. She’s supposed to be carrying supplies to the kitchens for the norms to eat.
She’s supposed to be.
But she isn’t. Instead, she crouches in the brush and brambles a ways away from the camp, hugging a rifle to her chest. Thinking. Debating.
They’re all dead. Her sisters are dead. Every single one of them, and the new ones— the new Rose Reds they’ve shipped here?
They’re all starry-eyed, eager, and—
They’re not her sisters. They’re not hers.
11674 had just kept bleeding.
She just kept on bleeding and bleeding.
78’s hands were covered in blood, as she dragged 74 across the reddened ground, past bodies with her face, past disembodied arms, past what was most of a torso as bullets hailed around them, as—
As her world finally ended. Was going to end. Was about to be over.
74 occasionally took a step, expression glazed, “Ellis?” She kept saying, she kept on saying, “78, where is Ellis?”
She was barely breathing by the time 78 had finally got her to the medical tents. There was only blood as the medics took her, there was only blood as they ordered her back to the fighting, there was only blood as—
As she didn’t ever come out.
There was only blood when she found the body, stripped of her uniform and ammunition. Tossed in the body piles, freckled face pale, empty, stark with its dots, its freckles against the death white faces of the other dead Rose Reds.
11678 had knelt there beside her until she was shouted off by a norm dropping off more of the dead.
There was a war to fight, to win, and 11678 had to fight it.
Alone.
11678 has loaded and unloaded the rifle at least a hundred times now, wondering if this is a terrible idea.
It probably is, but they’re all dead.
She’s going to go out on her own terms, if she only ever decides who she’s going to shoot here. There were only ever two options. The barrel of the rifle is tempting, but it isn’t what they deserve, isn’t—
It isn’t what 75 would want from her. What any fucking one of them would want from her.
75 is dead, so are 74 and 76, and there is really only one woman at fault for that, and it sure as shit isn’t her.
She’ll show them a rebel. She’ll show them a traitor.
Steel-toed boots meet flesh, meet bone, meet brain.
11675 had been silent.
11675 had not made a sound.
Not as Copper hauled her before the Army, not as she was forced to kneel, not as—
Not as Copper kicked her down, to all fours, to her stomach, to a ball, curled up on the path.
Not as Copper just kept on kicking her.
75 had covered her head at first, until her wrist split from her hand, until her hands were too broken, shards of bone and blood and gore, until—
Until there wasn’t enough of her awake to keep what was left of her arms covering it.
Skin split across her cheek, torn like paper, bone and muscle beneath, scalp hanging off her skull, her eye socket broken in, head dented like a tank hit by gunfire, nothing but gore.
Nothing but blood.
76 had her hands over her mouth. 74 was looking away. 78 could not take her eyes from 75’s face.
It’s empty.
Dead.
75 didn’t move, didn’t breathe. Dead.
Then Copper looked at them.
“If even a single one of you ever, ever plot treason against me again, you will be worse off than her, do you hear me?”
A chorus of yes sir’s echo around them.
Copper’s eyes boring into her, then 74, then finally to 76, who had sunk to the ground.
She had been smiling.
Copper had been smiling.
The rifle is loaded. The rifle is heavy. It’s going to stay that way until it finds its target.
Through the scope, she sees camp, sees the tent where Copper resides. It’s almost the time the norms all eat. Its almost time for her to—
To kill her.
To kill Angelica Copper.
What’s the worst they can do? Kill her? She isn’t even afraid to die. Not anymore. Not when there’s no one left to mourn her. To care.
Not when she’s lived as close to death as she can. 75 had only called Copper a bitch. 78 will show her treason.
11676 hadn’t let go of her since 75 had been —(murdered, killed, slaughtered, made an example of, murdered)— terminated.
76 hadn’t stopped shaking. 76 hadn’t said a word. 76 hadn’t eaten her rations.
She’s a mess.
74 was quiet now, back to the two of them. She had said 76 was as good as dead with how she’s acting. It’s no different than when 69 died, she said, 75 is gone. Gone and not coming back. Body drained of blood and usefulness and left to gather flies in the pile with the rest of them. If we’re going to live we have to accept it.
76 just dissolved into more frantic quiet tears, and 74 had shrugged. Turned away.
78 doesn’t want to agree, but she—
76 can’t fight if she can’t eat. She can’t survive if she can’t run. She can hardly run as is, with how fucked her leg is.
76 is pressed into 78’s arms, face buried beneath her chin, nails digging into her back through her uniform.
She’s weak. Her and 74 both know it. Fragile. 75 was the only thing keeping her alive in the fights. 75 was the only thing keeping her from spiraling into ashes and bullet shells.
76 doesn’t sleep that night, and when they’re sent into the field the following day?
A bullet splits 11676’s skull as 78 tries to pull her towards cover. She doesn’t react fast enough, doesn’t dive, doesn’t—
Doesn’t do what she was supposed to.
She hits the ground dead. Blood stains the soil.
74 stares at her body, turns to 78, and asks if she thinks 76 meant to catch it.
74 looks tired. Looks resigned. Looks like all the grief had already been wrung out of her.
78 stares at the body, feels tears burn in her eyes, and covers her face.
She doesn’t answer the question. 76 knows the answer anyway.
11678 stares through the scope, as finally, finally Angelica Copper walks out of the tent.
Walks right into the open.
11678 is a Rose RED. 11678 is a Royal Engineered Defender. 11678 has survived two years at war. 11678 is a good shot. She was made to be one.
78 takes breathes in, deep, then out. Her hands don’t shake. Her expression does not waver.
She’ll show her treason.
11678 pulls the trigger.
Copper falls dead.
And 11678 smiles.