He leaned close enough that I smelled stale coffee and chewing tobacco. “You look like you crawled here. You think this is some charity camp for strays?”
“No, First Sergeant.”
The courtyard went still.
“So what is it, then?” he asked. “Why do you drag the rest of us down with whatever backwoods nonsense you brought from… whatever you call home?”
A flicker of resentment stirred in the ranks. He wanted it. He expected it.
“I do not know, First Sergeant,” I answered evenly.
“Drop and give me twenty. Everyone else, make room for the show.”
I let my palms hit the blistering pavement. The pain meant nothing, not compared to what I had seen men and women endure while wearing the same flag on their shoulder.
For six weeks, he targeted me. Punishments for imagined insubordination. Latrine duty with tools so inappropriate the task became humiliation. Extra marches. Inspections designed to fail. He barked insults, sometimes creative in their cruelty, sometimes just blunt force meant to break the psyche.
“You do not belong here,” he once informed me in front of the formation. “America does not need people like you. We are defending something you will never understand.”
His words echoed those whispered through anonymous reports sent to Army Command. Reports we could never confirm. Reports that died in bureaucracy. That was why I had come. To be the proof.
Recruits began avoiding me. Isolation is contagious. Even Lila grew hesitant, torn between compassion and survival. On the rare nights when lights-out brought quiet, I could feel her watching me with guilt she did not owe.
It all came to a head one Friday during uniform inspection. My gear was immaculate. My boots reflected sunlight. There was no reason for Briggs to find fault, but he did not need one.
He stalked behind me like a storm building pressure.
“Your hair,” he observed softly.
“It meets regulation, First Sergeant.”
He smiled in a way that made my skin crawl. “Regulation is whatever I decide it is. Hold her.”
Two soldiers grabbed my arms. Not with enthusiasm, but fear.
Briggs pulled clippers from his pocket. They hummed to life with a sound that drew every eye.
“Please do not,” Lila whispered from somewhere behind me.
Briggs ignored her. Hair fell in uneven clumps, sliding over my shoulders and down my collar. I did not flinch. I watched the flag ripple above us and forced myself not to blink.