December, two thousand-ten, somewhere in Afghanistan.

She leaned in on the rifle, watching down the polished wooden rail and the metal barrel, waiting.

They'd been waiting for hours, but Rook could keep going even longer. This was their specialty. Viper was right next to her, as he had been through nearly her whole time in Afghanistan. After the first painful year, they'd happened upon each other in that nameless village. Pure chance brought them together.

The village didn't exist anymore. It had vanished sometime in the last eight years. Rook wondered occasionally what had happened, but that sort of intelligence never made it down to their rank. She adjusted her position just slightly, freeing up a cramp that had begun to form.

"Movement," Viper murmured. "Three-fifty-two, thirteen minutes. Seven hundred meters."

She adjusted. There was a faint speck all the way out there in the hills, barely visible to the naked eye. Rook's eyes were far better than normal, according to the doctor back at the FOB. She saw things without a scope some soldiers had trouble seeing with every electronic enhancement in the bag. Between her uncanny eye and her deadly aim, she'd cleared the marksman's exam with one of the highest scores ever seen—and all with a non-standard rifle.

They let her keep the old M/28-30, the very same rifle she'd once pulled out of an Obštšak armory when she was sixteen, though she did have to modify it to allow for long range and other specialized sights as needed. She hadn't known her old employers were called that at the time—in fact, she wasn't sure they were called that at the time—but it had been so long now. Rook wondered if they still remembered her. She doubted any of them were still looking for her, at any rate.

Many times, over the years, she'd considered telling Viper her real name. She knew his, obviously—she'd learned it the day she met him. But Viper just called her Rook, or Tess in private. Everyone did. When she'd finally gotten cleared to join the Marines, after a long painstaking process spearheaded by Viper and his lieutenant, she'd put down the name 'Tessa Hunter', taking the first name from the cover of a magazine nearby. Even the officer taking her paperwork rolled his eyes, but it didn't matter.

Nobody cared, because everybody knew who she was, and everyone knew she was worth having on their side.

"Firing." Rook pulled the trigger. Her rifle cracked.

Viper called it a second later. "Adjust down one."

"Firing," said Rook again. She dropped her aim a notch and pulled the trigger.

"On target. He's done."

Rook let out her breath and relaxed slightly. Viper rolled over and began to pack up. She glanced over at him.

"Are we leaving?"

"Yeah." He shrugged. "Well, five minutes anyway. They're dropping this post. Everyone out."

She raised an eyebrow. "We just took this position a week ago."

Viper rolled his eyes. "And now brass thinks we gotta go somewhere else. You know how this shit goes."

Rook sighed. "Ä lintu varrai laulaa, sen syövät kissat."

"And what's that one mean?"

"Impatience will get us all killed."

She started packing up nonetheless. She might be an official soldier now, but she wasn't technically a citizen of the United States. She existed in a strange half-state, belonging to no one beyond her squad, and perhaps Finland in some long-lost way. If they chose to leave her, Rook would certainly be abandoned again, left in the Afghan wilderness to fend for herself once more.

She wasn't going through that again.

"No shit." Viper rubbed at his arm, scratching an itch inside the sling. Still, they'd held the position, and scared off any attempt at a Taliban approach for days at this rate. "You good?"

"I am ready."

They climbed out from their perch in the rocks, down the steep rear slope and out of sight of any Taliban-occupied territory. Down below, Rook could already see soldiers taking down the OP. They looked frustrated, even from this far away. As she'd said, they'd only just taken this position, and already, they were abandoning it.

No one understood why. She hated it, they hated it, everyone hated it.

It was beginning to feel like she was trapped again, even though she enjoyed more freedom than she had in nearly sixteen years, when she was still a girl on the streets in Helsinki. She still had to take orders from men she did not respect, whose intelligence and expertise she doubted, and whose professionalism was lacking at best.

Her fellow soldiers were far better, but they too were trapped by the chain of command, stuck at the end of nowhere. Rook's only relief was that she'd been assigned to an independent position—a scout-sniper pair with Viper, where they could operate in peace, without direct orders passed on by frustrated lieutenants and sergeants as much in the dark as they were.

Well, not without any orders, but far less than she used to receive.

When Aulikki had first followed Corporal Stefen Gearhardt and the rest of the Americans back to their forward operating base, she was first greeted with outright suspicion. They wouldn't let her in the base until a very long and angry meeting between the lieutenant and the base commander finally gave her access. She walked forward, and was asked for her rifle—prompting another long debate.

Finally, they gave her a place to stay in the corner of one tent section. Viper came to visit her often—though he hadn't chosen his own callsign yet at the time—keeping her up to date with what was going on, as well as any news on a ride out of the country.

None ever came. After a full year stuck at the FOB, Likki saw the writing on the walls. She went to the lieutenant and asked if she could join them on their next mission. After all, she still had her rifle, and she still practiced every day at their range, scrounging spare ammo where she could. She was a better shot than anyone in the entire base. The lieutenant accepted—all of his men had heard the story of the village ghost, the rook who'd fought off the Taliban all on her own for nearly a year. She rode out on their very next mission.

Two years later, she joined the Marines, in that same unit. The lieutenant had been promoted away, but the rest were still good men, and Corporal Gearhardt was still right there alongside her, through every single mission.

She wasn't sure why they'd bonded. Perhaps it was pure chance. She didn't believe in fate. Nonetheless, she and Stefen became a tight-bonded duo, inseparable. They weren't close by anyone else's standards, but both of them understood how unique their friendship was—and how far they would go to protect one another.

It wasn't the same as how she felt about the girl, or the village, or back in Helsinki. Rook didn't feel as though she was responsible for Viper. They were partners, equals. He protected her as much as she did him. Even with his dead arm, lost to shrapnel a few years back, she would trust no one else with her life. They'd saved each other more times than she could count over the past eight years.

"I dunno about you," muttered Viper as he climbed into the passenger seat of their scout car. He always rode and operated the radio, while Rook drove. Their vehicle was smaller than most of the humvees around them, built specially to get around faster and over much rougher terrain. "But I'm gettin' pretty sick of this damn country."

"I have been wanting to leave since the day I arrived," Rook reminded him, a touch annoyed. She had infinite patience in the field, but when conversing with Viper in their own vehicle, she did draw a few lines. "And I have been here longer than you have."

"So why the fuck are we stickin' around?"

"I am still waiting for you to answer that question."

Viper snorted. "Fair enough. Here's my answer: I got a ticket out of this shitshow."

Rook didn't respond right away. She wasn't sure if she believed him. She'd now spent nearly half of her life in this country, and most of it fighting amongst American soldiers. Memories of her home were a distant dream, the vague desire for America a fleeting fantasy. Did she dare let such hopes resurface from the depths she'd buried them?

"Well say somethin', Tess."

Rook slowly shook her head, being careful to keep them on the road following the next cloud of dust ahead—the next humvee in their convoy, which she noted with relief had its gunner properly aligned to cover his sector. She glanced at him, and saw it in his face. He was serious.

"Yes," she said finally.

"What?"

"My answer is yes."

"I didn' ask you anythin' yet."

"You were about to."

Viper grinned. "Want to get out of here?"

"As I said. Yes."

Rook kept them on track following the vehicle in front. For all the world to see, she hadn't reacted in the slightest. This was her greatest skill in the field—she never faltered in the moment. When she needed to turn her emotions off, they were off.

Inside, she was elated.

"When?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the road.

"Soon as we set up at the next FOB, I got us an exit. Remember Lieutenant Wynn?"

"Your first commander," she replied.

He raised an eyebrow. "Yours too, you know."

She didn't answer. Of course he had not been her first commander, but Viper would never learn her history.

"Anyway, Wynn got you a ticket out. You're on a flight leavin' tomorrow, and I'm along for the ride. Guess they want me to escort you," he added with a roll of his eyes.

"You would not survive a day escorting me."

"Fuck, I probably wouldn't survive ten minutes."

"...An hour, perhaps."

Viper snorted. "Anyway. We're flying out west."

Rook hesitated. She wasn't sure if she wanted to ask. Viper wasn't aware of her long-standing desire to visit America, but at the same time, he had to know she never wanted to stay in Afghanistan. As the FOB finally came into view, she couldn't wait any longer.

"...America?" she asked, breaking her patience for one of the first times in her life.

"Huh?" Viper shook his head. "Nah. Close, though. We're goin' to the U.K. I got a friend there. He'll hook us up with a place to stay, cash, whatever we need." Viper shrugged. "He's a rich motherfucker, but he's one of the good ones."

"I see."

"....That cool?" asked Viper uneasily. "I mean, I know you're from Finland. We could try to get you back there, if you got family or somethin' you're tryin' to fin—"

"I will come with you."

"...You good, Tess?"

"Mettä antaa, mitä mettäl on," she replied. The forest gives what the forest has.

"...And that one means…"

Rook didn't answer him. After a few minutes, Viper turned back to face the road. A radio call came in for a check-in anyway, and he answered it. They rode in silence the rest of the way into the FOB. All the while, Rook reminded herself not to expect anything more than what she had found for herself.

America would be the same as all the others, she knew. She had been disappointed in every new place she went. The U.K. would follow the pattern, but at least she was traveling with someone she trusted—even enjoyed, to a degree. Every December had not been better. Some had been worse, some had been much worse, but none had ever truly improved.

Rook took to it as she did everything else: she endured. This was another year since the first, fourteen years ago—the year she had stopped being a child, the year her life had come crashing to a halt.

Every year, she looked up to her star and wished for a better December, and this was no different. Every year, the most significant events of her life happened in December, and every year, she feared her memories. She focused on the future, on the next one, always looking forward—because to look back was a fate worse than death itself.

Likki looked up to the sky, as she sat outside their tent in the FOB and watched the stars above. She found her star, and she made a wish for her—that this December would be better than the previous one.