Bella taped on a white sticker with her name, surname, age, place of residence and military specialty and looked at Emmett. McCarthy could not pull out a label from the sticker and now was trying to do it with his teeth. Finally, he stuck a sticker on his chest and began to scrape off pieces of adhesive tape from his tongue.
Bella laughed and turned to the rest of the recruits.
There was a small crowd at the office door. Along with the recruits there also were their parents with video cameras, their wives and even infants.
"My parents will come only on the day of initiation." Emmett said. "Sister is due to give birth from day to day. She needs them now more."
"Do you have a sister?" Bella smiled. Somehow she immediately thought that Emmett has quite a large southern family, enough that it barely fit in the room on Thanksgiving.
"Yes. I have a sister and two brothers." Emmett confirmed her thoughts. "As well as grandfather, grandmother and a bunch of dogs."
"Attention, recruits!" They were approached by the officer. "Come to the office in groups of fifteen people and stand in three rows of five people in each. Attendants should stand at the entrance on both sides. The first group goes in, the others are waiting for their turn."
Bella and Emmett along with thirteen other recruits went into a small room with wooden paneled walls, red and blue carpet and a rostrum at the opposite wall, behind which there were Stars and Stripes to the right, and the banner of the Marine Corps to the left. Relatives and friends quietly went and stood along the walls, in anticipation for the main reason they came here today. Once the names of the recruits were included in the list, the officer entered the room and stood in the rostrum.
"You've honorably passed all the tests and proved that you deserve to become Marines." He said. "Now you will take the oath. And from this moment you shall always be faithful – to your country, your President, your comrades and commander." After a pause, the officer said. "Raise your right hand."
Bella and Emmett along with the rest raised their hands. Everything inside Bella shivered as if she was about to dive into the icy water.
"Repeat after me." The officer said. "I, call your name."
Bella took a deep breath and said, "I, Isabella Swan..."
"I do solemnly swear."
"I do solemnly swear." Bella repeated, feeling a lump in her throat rising.
"To support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
"To support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Bella's voice sounded in the mutual chorus of young voices, but it seemed to her that all this was happening with someone else.
"And to bear true faith and allegiance to the same."
"And to bear true faith and allegiance to the same." Bella saw the fervor with which Emmett repeated the words of the officer, and smiled.
"That I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of those officers appointed over me according to regulations and the uniform code of military justice." Having repeated the words of the officer with a solemn feeling, Bella caught a happy look of Emmett, who looked like a kid on the Independence Day, and suddenly the quiver of her body ceased.
"So help me God." The officer finished the oath.
"So help me God." Bella gasped and suddenly saw Renee standing by the wall, filming her daughter on a cell phone camera. New recruits already started to enter the place to take their oath so Bella went to the door. Renee went out with her and, after a pause, she asked:
"Have you already signed a contract?"
"Yes. An hour ago" Bella replied. "You were still at police station."
"I was in a hurry." Renee jammed. "So, that's it. Are you now in the Marines?"
"Yes," Bella nodded. "Now I'm in the Marines."
***
"I'll call you as soon as it'll be allowed." Bella promised, picking up her few belongings.
"Bella, your father thinks you're doing all this because of our scandals with him..." Renee looked at her like a cat from the "Shrek". Her eyes pleaded with Bella to say "No" so that Renee's conscience could sleep again and allow her to continue her carefree life.
Bella decided not to deprive her mother of this enjoyment. Indeed, from this moment her fate is no longer determined by her parents. Her future and her life is now in possession of Marine Corps for at least five years.
"No. I'm just interested in this job. Insurance, good money, benefits. This is a good start in life." Bella said, repeating all that she read in the promotional booklet. "I have to go. I'll call you."
Renee smiled. She believed in what she wanted to believe.
"Be careful, Bella." She hugged her daughter.
"Yes, yes, of course." Bella promised and kissed Renee on the cheek, then ran at full speed to the bus.
"I already took a seat for you." Emmett alerted her, when Bella got on the bus.
Bella plopped down next to him. The guy immediately leaned back in his seat with blissfully happy face.
"It feels like I played the final state championship today, my legs fall off." He exhaled.
"Emmett, are you in reserve as well? - Bella asked.
"Yes. I was so glad that agreed to everything. And just after signing a contract, I realized that I've miscalculated." McCarthy sighed. "I hope I will be quickly mobilized. Reserve, this place is for suckers. You seemed to be recorded in the acting army. Why did you enroll into the reserve?"
"Recruiter hinted that there I have a higher chance of getting into Iraq or Afghanistan." Bella replied. "You just need to learn Pashto and Dari, and then during the call they won't look at any gender or age. In the army I would have been immediately sent to some warehouse."
"Pashto and Dari? What is this garbage?" Emmett did not understand.
"These are the two official languages in Afghanistan" Bella said. "Practically nobody knows it among our military. And it gives me a chance."
"How do you know so much?" Emmett marveled at her.
"I googled it." Bella laughed.
"Cool. But why a girl would want to go in Afghanistan?" Emmett asked.
"Why do you ask?" Bella slyly looked at him.
"I am a man. I love my country and I want to fight her enemies." Emmett said without hesitation. "And I'm a lot stronger than you."
"I think the trigger is pressed on with a finger, and not with the thing that differs you from me." Bella winked, emboldened from the beginning of a new life.
Emmett grew dumb with astonishment, and a loud cheerful female voice called out from the back row, "That was a good one, sister! And you, my friend, need to close your mouth, or you'll catch a fly!"
Bella turned around and saw the dark-skinned girl with a hundred braids on her head in a T-shirt with a snarling bulldog muzzle on her chest.
"I am Zafrina." She introduced herself, smiling widely .
"Bella." Bella smiled and then saw the same red-haired girl, who unfortunate Riley was unsuccessfully calling for, getting on a bus.
Not noticing anyone, with her head held high, she went through the bus and, without saying a word, landed near Zafrina. Then she pulled out her player and put on the headphones.
"Actually, I took this place for my friend." Zafrina said, gently poking the redhead on the shoulder and showing her jacket hanging on the back.
"Don't spread your hands!" The girl immediately soared. "This seat doesn't have your friend's name on it. So let her sit on another bus and next time she'll arrive on time.
"It's rude, dear." Zafrina frowned, but the girl, which, as Bella recalled, was Victoria has put in her headphones again.
"That bitch." Zafrina grimaced. "If not for the sergeant, I would have showed her how to behave." She got her phone then, dialed the number and said loudly. "Kashira, dear, some bimbo took your place here. There is a sergeant in a bus, so we will have to wait. But then we'll teach her good manners together."
Zafrina removed her phone, and Victoria looked at her and cooed in a sweet voice.
"You are the one who'll have to learn some manners, which are accepted in civilized countries. You have to be careful with your green card. One incident, and you return on a plane home."
"Hey girls, break it!" Emmett said, noting that Zafrina was already prepared to cling into Victoria's luxurious hair and that sergeant, hearing their screams, moved toward them looking like Major Payne.
"Silence, you all. You are not on a school bus here!" He snapped. "We're going to the airport and on the plane that will take you to the place of the twelve-week basic training in recruit depot Parris Island. Everyone take your seats. For the cat fights you'll get in a guardhouse on arrival. Marines, order all clear?"
"Yes, sir!" Privates sitting in the cockpit chorused as the bus drove off.
Emmett collapsed like the grizzly bear in his seat again and, stooping to Bella, said with an irony.
"I see it'll be fun in the barracks."
***
The flight was so tedious and, as it seemed to Bella, painfully endless, and when they got back into the bus again, she fell asleep almost immediately. She woke up when the bus jerked and stopped. Realizing that she rested her head in the most indecent manner on Emmett's shoulder during her sleep, Bella quickly straightened up and rubbed her eyes to wake up faster.
"Get up!" As always loudly the sergeant ordered. "Out of the bus with your belongings!"
That was all he said, and everyone took their stuff and got out.
Bella had a stiff back, her stomach was empty, and the head was aching from lack of sleep.
The street was dark and cool. So when their sergeant came with two more men in uniform, and they were ordered to proceed to registration in a small gray building , Bella felt incredibly happy, sensing the proximity of food and sleep.
But when they got inside, the sergeant ordered them to wait again, explaining nothing.
"It seems that we'll be given a uniform and a haircut now." Emmett said. "Although I have nothing else to cut. If only to make me bald." He patted his close-cropped head.
"Me too." Bella grinned, repeating his gesture.
"Girls don't need to cut their hair." Zafrina said and looked angrily at Victoria's fiery mane. "Unfortunately."
Bella also looked at Victoria and received a supercilious look of beautiful but unpleasant eyes in response. With bitterness Bella realized that there was a new Jessica in her life and her good mood had declined. Leaving Emmett to chat with Zafrina, Bella went to the wall where the portraits of Marines, who received high military awards for their exploits, hung.
Studying series of heroes' faces, Bella stopped near one of the portraits, attracted by the unusual eyes of a young officer in the photo. There was a golden crown around the pupils of his eyes, making them from ordinary green seem like amber. But not only the color got Bella interested in those eyes. Despite the rigor and formality of pictures, they were filled with gentle irony, which was visible in his little smile that touched his lips. Concerned, Bella looked at the sign below the photo.
"Second Lieutenant Edward Anthony Cullen, 3rd Division of U.S. Marine Corps. Navy Cross for the outstanding heroism in "Operation Enduring Freedom - Afghanistan" (2006)".
"Edward Cullen." Bella said and shivered, hearing Emmett's voice from behind.
"You'll see, soon there will be the photo of Emmett McCarthy hanging!"
"Privates!" They heard the voice of Sergeant. "Your Drill Instructors will come after you now. From this very moment they become your commanders on the passage of basic training."
Bella and Emmett turned around and saw three people next to their sergeant, two men and one woman.
Guessing that girl-recruits will have to deal with the Drill - woman, Bella looked at her carefully. Judging from the stripe on her uniform Drill Sergeant wore surname Yang.
Swarthy and slender, with shiny black hair and bright dark eyes, she would have been incredibly beautiful, if not for the three very noticeable scars that ripped up the entire right half of her face, distorting the regular features. Because of the scars her right eye seemed bigger than the left and slightly squinting, and the right side of her mouth curved in eternal grim grin.
"Our sergeant is Joker." Zafrina said.
"No, not Joker. Two-face." Bree Tanner hemmed, the youngest of the recruits. "I just hope she'll show us only her bright side..."
A/N: So, the first few chapters of this story are posted. It's not much, but it explains how Bella got into the Marines. It acquaints you with a few characters of this story as well. So what do you think? Review!