Chapter 3: I'm Not a Team Player

You goddamn whore! I pulled my face away from the hands of the nurse as she rubbed some kind of cream on my cheeks and forehead. Jesus, that hurts. This is way too early for me to be up anyway, not to mention have my scorched face rubbed on. She smiled when I pulled away. What a bitch. Good thing she's pretty or I'd backhand the hell out of her.

"Oh come on you baby," she teased, "I'm almost done."

I let her finish screwing my face up. She then took some gauss tape and wrapped half of my face in it. I, by the way, hate the smell of gauss tape. She told me I could go, but I waited for her to leave. When she did, I checked out her ass and legs. Damn, she had it going on down there. Maybe when I'm done with my first love of killing, I might just have to….

"Glad to see your enjoying the nurse, Squad Leader," said a man from outside the tent.

It was Pike. I stood up, ignoring the remark and put on my mask and uniform. He stepped inside and waited for me to finish. When I did, he lead me outside into the dawn. The morning was wet with moisture and ground was damp with dew. The Sergeant lead me to a group of soldiers waiting for him. There were at least ten of them, three of them were camp members that I remember having cages close to mine.

"Take your pick," he said, "only 4."

Man, it was like picking kids for a school yard game. Except the game I was playing wouldn't be so nice. I want only the most hard-core and deadly on my team. I scanned the group looking for my crew of death. Hmmm….I saw a big black man in the back. He had a scar across his face which looked pretty menacing by itself. His arms looked like fucking tree trunks. Fucking bad ass.

"I want that Nigger in the back," I said with a cold uncaring tone.

He stepped forward and saluted me and stepped to my right side. I could tell he heard my racist comment. Hehe, I really couldn't resist. Now, whose next? Whoa, hold on. I just noticed a man in the far right. His expression was completely twisted and he twitched like an LSD addict. He seems interesting.

"Can this man shoot?" I pointed.

One of the regulators replied, "Hell yeah, I saw him shoot a guard from a catwalk with a pistol from 40 feet away!"

"He's a sick little bastard though, he shit all over his cell then stabbed the guard to death with a fucking pencil! I read it on his record in the warden's office," another said.

A man after my own heart! Just what I need. I gestured for him to join me. Now just two more little bastards. I already had more than what I needed. I need to do this professionally. I closed my eyes and randomly chose the next two. They couldn't tell I did this beneath my mask, so it's all good. Alright done. Let's move on to more important things, like killing. Lots of it.

"Alright, mission time," I stated as I looked back at Pike.

"Hehe, not just yet. Be back here tomorrow for debriefing and then we head out, but first we still got to assemble the other squads," he told me.

He nodded and walked off to the other squads. Goddamn it. Tomorrow? What am I supposed to do for the rest of the day? I want out of here now. Eh, I wonder if that nurse is busy…

"Sir?"

One of the men from my new team stepped forward. He must have been one of my randomly picked choices. He was a white man, about 5 ft 10" with that familiar shaved head, courtesy of the camp. His brown eyes were heavy with black bags of pain underneath. His body was sickly, but that face….it had something I haven't seen in a long time. It was youthful, no older than 18 or 19. He must have been a lady-killer before this shit. Yet, more importantly was beyond his face itself, it was his mouth. He had a smile.

"Yeah, what is it?" I asked.

"Well, sir, I just want to say thanks for picking me. I'm sure I will-" he said before I cut in.

"No, stop right there, Skippy. Don't thank me. In fact, all of you listen to me. You are all the most unlucky group of people here. Do you know why? Because I'm a fucking psycho. I will kill anything that moves and I'm hardly a team leader," they all looked at me as I continued, "I'm only helping out for a free ride to as close as they'll get me to the Big Shots. So if you plan on living, here's the fucking rules. One, stay out of my way. Two, don't call me Sir because I don't deserve respect. Three, if you want to impress me, murder is what I'm looking for. Senseless murder. Now, if you will excuse me, I have some business to attend to."

The team was silent, all except for the little smiling brat took their weapons and left. He stood there for a moment to take in what I had said, then his smile evaporated of his face. He, then too, left with the others. Good, no more smile. Fucking little prick almost made me sick. I walked past the rows of make-shift tents, they were lined off like houses. It somehow reminded me of the old neighborhood.

I opened the flap to the barrack tent and walked back inside. Inside was one table for all of us to eat and play cards at and then there were the bunk-beds. Disgusting, scratchy, and with another man right above me while I sleep. Peachy, right? I fell into the hard mattress and into the arms of sleep. My thoughts vanished and the arms rocked me into that sense of comfort, almost has if all the shit in my life never existed. I love sleep.