Prologue

Darkness.

The only thing visible: the absence of light. It engulfed her, overtook her, the one voice screaming in the trench jammed with a regimen upwards of 3,000 men and women. 3,000 men and women still making her feel alone.

You can do it now, her mind rumbled. You can kill everyone, Elizabeth. One shot will do it—bam. They startle. They kill. You watch. Easy. Simple. Child's play. Pull a trigger.

She stuttered out a breath—I'm too loud—and looked away from herself, from her hands as they trembled to the floor, settled on a dead man's body, and stripped him of his weapon. Salt water polluted her cheeks. She gulped, her breathing shallow, hollow, and indecisive as if contemplating whether transmitting air in and out from her lungs would truly have positive effects on her body. Numb fingertips quivered against the bitter chill of metal, of a trigger.

She didn’t pull it.

She bent back down. She restored the gun to its rightful position. She tried to eradicate her sobs.

You didn't do it. At least that was the truth. You're okay. You didn't do it. It's just a thought. A thought of many thoughts. Thoughts you can't control. Just a thought.

But was it really? Or was she simply insane? She didn't know.

"March!" cued the general.

She blinked back to the trench, obliging.

Left, right, left. March, march, march.

That was what she was supposed to be doing, what she was supposed to be thinking.