"Kyle?"

“What are you doing here?” a sullen voice asked.

Shira’s eyes adjusted, and she saw Kyle sitting against the far wall. His back was to the rotting wood, and his gun was leaning beside him.

“Kyle! It's Shira!" Shira called across the space. Her voice echoed. Kyle made no reply. "You dropped your armband, right?”

“What do you care,” Kyle spat.

“I have it,” she said, more subdued.

Kyle stuck out his hand. “Throw it over.”

Shira hesitated. Then she tightened her grip around the armband and began walking to Kyle.

“I said throw it!” he yelled.

Shira stepped between ankle-deep piles of molding hay.

“Throw it!” There was no playfulness in his voice. “Damnit, why can’t you just throw it like a normal person!” He had a heavy, dark, man’s voice, and his words were slurring slightly against the edge of his lip.

Shira slowed her step. She looked at Kyle intently- he was hidden in shadows that fell unevenly across his face. “I’m just giving it back,” she said evenly, and kept walking.

Kyle grabbed the barrel of his gun and lurched to his feet. “Just go!”

“In a moment,” Shira said. “Let me just...”

“Get out!!”

Shira waited for the echoes to escape the barn. “No.”

“Go away!” Kyle took his gun into his hands. His hands were shaking. His knees were shaking. He looked past Shira at the far door and swayed slightly.

Shira narrowed her eyes. “You’re drunk.”

Kyle inhaled sharply and yelled. “Drunk?! You think I’m drunk! I’m a whole lot more messed up than just drunk right now, and if you don’t want to be messed up too, you’d better get out!”

“No.”

Kyle yanked at the rifle’s trigger. Shira flinched as a piece of the ceiling rained down as rotten chunks of shingles. The tremendous echoey bang filled with smoke and dust for its moment. Then the barn was quiet.

“What’s wrong with you?” Shira nearly whispered.

“What could you want?!!” Kyle screamed. Though his gun was empty, he stood tense as a cat ready to pounce. His eyes glittered in the dim light.

“Kyle, what are you doing here!”

“Nothing!” Kyle screamed violently.

“What are you doing? What’s wrong?”

“What, are you going to make me shoot you?!”

Shira stood as if waiting for an answer.

Kyle reached with a sleeve to scour off the glittering wet path cleaved down the shadow of his face, and the sleeve turned crimson and the shadow smeared. Shira’s eyes opened wide. “Damn you,” he whispered viciously. “Damn you to the hottest hell there is.”

“Kyle-“ Shira was horrified.

“It’s not my blood, it belongs to one of the enemy. So you needn’t trouble yourself.” There was a vicious edge in Kyle’s voice.

Shira paused. “The battle was hard?”

"You were there."

"No. I didn't get there until after it was over."

“Damn you, go away.”

“It must have been hard.”

“Next time maybe you won’t get stuck in the mud. Maybe you’ll see what it’s like then.” Kyle’s voice was deep and guttural, and loaded with such bitterness that Shira’s chest filled with wrenching. “Maybe you’ll see someone blast my face off, or me blast off the face of some kid just because of some officer’s say-so! Maybe you’ll hear the wounded scream for you, and trip someone dying, and just want to be anywhere else in the world! But you can’t escape, Shira! They’ll catch you and they’ll shoot you down, so instead you stay and fight and hope you don’t get shot!” Kyle broke off, panting.

“Your armband,” Shira offered.

Kyle stomped to her and snatched the bright scrap from her hand. He was so close, the globs of blood streaked along his forehead and down his cheek made Shira’s own blood rush and churn, and his eyes made Shira slide one foot through the hay toward the door.

Kyle stared at the band. It was red, the color of his country. He stared, panting, for one heartbeat, before he put it in his mouth and began to tear. For that moment, he was a savage. When the armband did not give, he flung it across the barn as hard as he could, and with the other hand flung his gun after it.

Shira turned and left the barn as quickly as she could without running.