Page 2 of Break Me Open
Niko’s mouth twitches, like he might want to smile, but he’s trying to remain professional.
Hall introduces us down the line. “Lance Corporal Varrik,” he says when he gets to me.
I give a short nod. “Caiden.” Niko’s eyes flick over me more carefully this time, like he’s adjusting some internal assessment, and he offers his hand.
His grip is firm and warm despite the cold air, and he holds the shake maybe a few seconds longer than strictly necessary. “Good to have you, Lance Corporal,” he says. The way he says it, with his accent, flattens the vowels just enough to make it sound like a title from another world.
“Just Caiden’s fine,” I say, the cold attacking my lungs as I breathe in.
“Then you call me Niko,” he replies. “Not Senior Sergeant.” One corner of his mouth lifts, almost amused, as he adds, “Too long.”
Mason mutters something under his breath, causing Bennett to elbow him in the ribs.
Sokolov and Hall peel off with the translator, heading toward some office where they’ll drink bad coffee and nod over paperwork.
“Come,” Niko says, turning to us and gesturing for us to follow. “We’ll get you rooms, then food.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Collins mutters behind me. He’s the youngest out of us, nineteen, from somewhere in Wales that I can’t pronounce and eats consonants for breakfast.
The accommodation block he leads us to is a long, low building with peeling paint and a row of windows that all lookequally unimpressed to see us. “Home sweet home,” Mason muses as we step inside.
“Better than a ditch,” Bennett replies. He’s from Glasgow originally and isn’t big on chatting.
Niko leads us down a corridor lined with metal doors. “We put you all together. Easier for you, less... mixing.” He searches for the word, finds it, and shrugs. “You can shout English at each other all night. My men sleep,” he explains, trying to hide a tiny grin.
He unlocks a room and swings the door open. There are eight bunks, four on each side. The mattresses look thin, but I’ve seen worse. “You’ll sleep here,” Niko says. “Showers at the end of the corridor. Water is sometimes hot, sometimes not.” His mouth twitches again. “It’s a lottery.”
“Anyone die in these recently?” Mason asks, eyeing the beds.
Niko looks at him, absolutely deadpan. “We washed the sheets after.”
I’ve been here all of ten minutes, and I already like him.
“Drop your kit, lads,” Hall says, as if appearing out of thin air. “We’ll get squared away, then see what they’ve got planned for us.”
I choose a bunk halfway down and throw my Bergen on it. The springs complain as I prod the mattress with two fingers; it doesn’t immediately collapse or move on its own.
Good enough, I guess.
There’s a window above, smeared with the kind of dirt that doesn’t come off with normal effort. Beyond it, I can see part of the parade ground, a distant line of trees, and the hint of a grey sea.
It’s Murmansk, and I’m actually here.
If you’d told the sixteen-year-old version of me, fresh out of school with too much anger and not enough worldexperience, that at twenty I’d be standing in a Russian barracks on some joint exercise, I’d have laughed in your face and probably nicked your lighter.
“Ten minutes,” Hall says. “Dump your crap, check your weapons, then we’ll go pretend to be friendly.” We scatter, and I move on autopilot, bag stored in the metal locker beside the bed, uniform straightened, boots stamped, weapon stripped with familiar muscle memory, then oiled and reassembled.
It’s comforting, in a way.
The routine, the sameness, like no matter where they send you, the Falklands, Germany, Russia, some things never change.
Across the room, Niko leans against the door frame, watching us work. It’s not intrusive; he’s just there taking notes.“You are infantry?” he asks Hall.
“Yeah,” Hall says. “Thirty Brigade, light role.”
Niko nods like this makes some internal sense.“You will not like our assault course then.”
“Oh?” Mason pipes up. “What’s wrong with your assault course?”
