Free-Fire Zone Read Online Free PDF

candy.
    And it stings my eyes and it’s the sweat. And the blood. Of course. I look at my hands while the boot stomps are cracking my candy apple head. I’m absolutely covered in that guy’s blood. Covered in it. Covered in it and it’s melting down all over me from my head right on down over me and it’s sticky and thick in the heat. But I could be convinced, with the look of it and the way everything feels, that it’s actually seeping out of me, out of the cracks in my skull.
    â€œAre you with us, Cabbage?” It’s Hunter. He’s slowed way down because apparently I’ve slowed way down, and the United States Marine Corps never leaves a man behind. Hunter is leaning close to my face. To the awfulness that my bloody face must be.
    â€œI’m with us,” I say. “Sure, I’m with us.”
    Hunter’s all right. Hunter’s a good guy and I like him.
    â€œYou sure you’re okay?”
    â€œOf course. What do you think?”
    â€œOkay, then congratulations, I guess. First confirmed kill.”
    I feel the blood uncake on my lips when I smile. “Confirmed? You think?”
    At first I see Hunter pull his face away from me. He has his hand on my back, I now notice, pushing my speed a little. We’ve definitely dropped off the pace. He’s looking at me in a weird, trying-to-figure-it-out kind of way.
    Then his face relaxes, and he pats my back. “Uh, yeah, I’d say we can confirm the kill. I can never keep track of the religions they got all over the place here, but if that guy believed in reincarnation then I think you snuffed out his next life and the one after that, too.”
    â€œGood for me,” I say. It comes out just as stupid as it sounds.
    â€œWho’s Ivan?” Hunter asks as we near the back of the pack again.
    â€œWhat?” He freaks me out a little with this.
    â€œIvan. Before you dropped back I was listening to you whispering and growling and muttering stuff to somebody named Ivan.”
    I push Hunter’s hand off my back, march a little more quickly so that I reach the company just before he does and he has to bring up the rear now. I’m not going to be last anymore.
    I’m not going to be last ever, anymore.
    â€œIvan’s my brother,” I say, even though ’til now I’ve always been an only child. “He’s a killer, just like me. We’re killer brothers.”
    â€œWell, Ivan would be proud of ya, Cabbage.”
    â€œHe would be, you’re right,” I say. “He would, and he will.”



I hate writing letters. I look at the writing after I’ve done it and I feel like the stupidest guy ever. I can’t help thinking a guy who writes like that should not be allowed to cross the street by himself.
    Good thing there are pretty much no streets around here.
    And I have to write. After the war I might never do it again, but I have to be in contact with certain people right now or it’s worse even than being dead.
    Brother Ivan,
    Some days here everything surprises you. Some days nothing does. Have you noticed that? Well no because nothing ever surprises you because you are always ready for everything, right, and if you’re not ready for it then it’s probably worse for the surprise than it is for you.
    I’m almost like your equal now so what do you think of that?
    See, because this is a letter and not a faceto-face I can tell you that and not be scared that you are going to murder me. I should have wrote to you all the time back home, would of saved me a lot of beatings right? Ha ha.
    But you know what? It’s almost like I am not scared. Of anything. Even you.
    Do you feel like you could do just anything here, Ivan? I mean more than even before since you could always do whatever you wanted to? I mean, do you feel like you could do whatever not just because there seems to be no laws here but also because you just feel it? Feel it, I mean.