1 prologue | the heaviest things in the world

The last thing Elinor Fiennes remembers is this: the concussive force of a minefield tossing their army jeep into the air like a rag doll, the brief, breathless weightlessness that comes before descent, then impact.

It had all happened so fast.

It was all her fault.

Her squadron was singing loudly with the windows rolled down, half muffled by the rumbling of the engine and grind of the wheels against the smouldering sand. It is so hot that each breath feels like it is boiling inside of her lungs. Lt. Seb Taylor had been driving. This was the last day of his final deployment. "I'm gonna see my dog again," he had proclaimed with a beaming smile that shines brighter than the Afghan sun, then adds as an afternote, "oh, and my wife too."

They all laugh. Elinor cuffs his shoulder and scolds him to keep his eyes on the road. "And do up your helmet properly," she says, prodding at his helmet, which is pushed back crookedly over his head, revealing a line of tan hair flattened neatly over his forehead. The straps are resting loosely over his neck.

"Aw, Elie," he says.

She will always remember that moment, the sunlight reflecting from his clear blue eyes, the open easiness of his smile, which belonged to a boy ten years his junior.

It's Rat Wilson whose obnoxious singing cuts out as he yells with terror in his voice, "SNIPER!"

Ptch.

A red weal appears in Seb's forehead. Elinor stares without comprehension as a slow line of blood trickles down his tanned skin, that gaping hole revealing grisly white bone and a slow congealment of brain matter. He is still smiling, although his eyes gain a hint of childlike confusion, gazing at Elie as though asking what had happened.

"SEBASTIAN!" Tanner roars. "SEBASTIAN, NO!"

In the chaos, Elinor grabs the slack steering wheel and yanks it to the side, causing the entire vehicle to squeal as it turns sharp enough that it totters on two wheels before slamming back into the earth.

"Mayday, mayday!" she bellows into the radio. "Nightwalker Squad Six under sniper fire! Reinforcements needed! I repeat - "

A second hole appears in the window. Rat hisses as it scrapes a deep would on his bicep, his grip on his rifle faltering. Elinor swerves again as she barrels back towards the army base.

A gleam of metal in the sand.

It's too late.

The minefield explodes.

As fire consumes them all, as she watches her injured squadmates moan in terror but unable to shift the heavy vehicle off their legs to escape, as they roast slowly in the oven-like jeep, she thinks: if this is to be her last memory, it would be better to die after all.

.

.

.

Elinor wakes, covered in the bodies of her squadron, screaming in rage and horror and confusion.

Her death is a fast one; a sliver of horizon rolling somewhere westward as the jeep spins flank over belly, then collides with an outbreak of rock. If pressed, she will tell you that she remembers the impact - the cracking glass, the fire and brimstone bursting in until the darkness consumes her.

She won't tell you that it takes three minutes for the flames to fully consume her, and all she can do is watch. Some part of her higher brain function tries to make her death a graceful one, but the more baser part of her instincts override it until she's scrabbling and reaching out for half-imagined figures in the inferno, screaming and crying until unconsciousness closes its heavy fist over her for the final time.

She wakes screaming. She's not a soldier at the moment, not when she has stepped through the doors of death and had somehow been dragged back by the neck. There are straps holding her down, lights shined in her eyes until they roll back in her head, her back arching in a rictus of agony, fingers clawing at the balmy fires beneath her - hold her down! someone cries out - but she's running on adrenaline and rage has given her the stolen strength of a god, and they can't -

She sees the gleam of metal racing for her exposed neck, and her hand reaches out to smack it away with all of her strength. There is a pained cry, the skitter of something sliding on the ground - and the darkness recedes. She's no longer drowning in fire, but in white, because the walls and ceilings are caked with it. She breathes in and it's not the fire but the thick, heady smell of antiseptic. A hospital? Is this the afterlife? Or has she been captured?

The thought immediately sends her entire body into overdrive. She staggers off the bed, clumsy and uncoordinated, and her knee knocks into a table. A small mountain of papers teeter precariously. She reaches out and tries to catch them before they fall, but her body is sluggish and they slip through her fingers. As they spill around her feet, she sees her own face staring back from them, along with those of her squad.

There is a nurse calling her name, small gentle hands on the curve of her elbow, trying to draw her away, but it's like trying ot move a mountain. The damage has already been done. She sees the sheets with their information - their dates of birth, blood type, medical history - and at the bottom, stamped in dark red letters...

KILLED IN ACTION.

The flames close over her head.

The nurse is still trying to pull her back to the bed, her mouth set into a delicate moue of disapproval, hair coiffed in an intricate style. She tears away from her with little effort and runs for the door.

The room next to hers is equally white and sterile. She kicks open the door and stumbles in, collapsing ot her knees at the bandaged figure half swallowed by tubes and bandages and machines.

"T-Tanner..." she whispers. "Oh, Tanner, no..."

Both of his legs are gone beneath the knee, and the rest of him is wrapped so tightly that it adds another few inches in diameter to his body. Blood seeps out and dyes the bandages red. He cannot move, save for his eyes. Her trembling hands reach for his, and through the bandages, she squeezes it reassuringly.

"I'm here..." she says, trying for a smile, except tears bleed from her eyes and her laugh tastes like despair. "I'm here..."

A groan comes from his mouth. His eyes, desperate, ask her a question.

"The others are just fine... They're in the rooms next to us, complaining... Seb is talking about his trashy luck... Rat is probably trying to pilfer something or flirt with the nurses... we're just waiting for you to get better, yeah? You gotta hang in for me, buddy."

There is relief and pain in his eyes. On some level, she thinks he knows she is lying - he, too, saw the sniper bullet in Seb's forehead, saw Rat burn to death, pinned beneath the skeleton of the jeep. But it is better to live in delusion than to face this kind of pain.

Seized by a sudden rictus of panic, she grasps his fingers tighter.

"You just gotta hang in there buddy, alright? Or I swear to god, I'm gonna join you down there..."

"I wish... I wish I could take your place... if I could take your pain..."

Tanner's eyes immediately turn disapproving, but the yearning and guilt in Elinor's chest grows stronger. There is a deep hunger inside of her, an empty void, a black hole that would consume the entire world in despair if she lets it.

Then, abruptly - something happens.

Excruciating agony surges through her body like lightning, intense enough that her vision whites out and her jaw locks together. Elinor accepts it into her, and as she watches, Tanner's eyes clear with astonishment and confusion. But it soon turns to terror because she can't stop, and new flavours are being added to the pain - relief, desperation, despair - until there is nothing left and his eyes, once bright, fade into a blank, empty stare.

Elinor kneels on the ground, her breath coming in uneven gasps.

"...Tanner?"

A line of drool flows from his mouth.

"Tanner, please... please!"

His heart monitor continues to beep, but she knows - she knows that his soul is gone.

"Tanner..." and her voice comes out as a whimper. "No..."

What has she done?

No... no... her fingers thread through her hair, pressing hard against her skull. The voices won't leave her alone. She needs to go. Where? Anywhere but here. She explodes out of the room, burly men popping out of the framework. She can try to fight through all of them, but they're holding guns cautiously in their hands and she can see more seeping out of the walls like ants, swarming around her. She lets them back her into Tanner's room again, their careful voices a background murmur in her head.

"We're not going to hurt you, Lieutenant Commander. Please, calm down..."

That ineffable hunger rises inside of her again. Her eyes widen and she presses her fist against her stomach, but it only grows stronger. She takes another step back. The hard edge of the window sill digs into her spine.

She licks her lips. Her voice is a horrible, grating sound that sputters and scrapes in her throat, but she peels her lips back from her teeth in a laugh that tastes of ash.

"I can't... not anymore."

Before they can understand what she means, she throws her shoulder into the glass. It doesn't take three minutes for it to break this time - and she's falling again. It's instantaneous. She hits the pavement hard enough to crack it. Glass shards are embedded in her left arm and torso where she had fallen on top of it, and they slice into her feet when she forces herself back up, every nerve screaming at her to move. The first step is the hardest. Once she gains momentum, it's easy to pick up speed, her feet propelling her forward in an attempt to keep her from falling. She knows that if she stops, she will never get back up again.

There are screams, shouts behind her, army suited men hanging out the window. Some begin to burst through the door. She's still attracting attention with the paper gown that she has to hold down so she's not flashing every passerby, and the bloody footprints she's leaving on sun-baked pavement. Glass scrapes against her bones, carving her raw, a fleeing sacrifice unwilling to be hauled back to the burning pyre.

Elinor hits the ground running.