Break Me Open (Bloodlines #1)

One

Caiden

The back doors swing open, and Murmansk punches me square in the face. It’s below-zero cold — not the wet British stuff that seeps in, but something dry and immediate, biting at any bare skin it can find.

“Welcome to Russia, lads.” Sergeant Hall grins, clapping a hand against the metal wall. “Off you get. Try not to fall on your arses in front of the locals.”

“Feels like I left my arse three checkpoints back with my bollocks,” Mason mutters next to me, stretching his legs out. He’s from Manchester, built like a wardrobe, and somehow always manages to look like he should be on a building site instead of in uniform.

“Move,” Hall barks, just as tired as the rest of us. Flights, transfers, then this truck, all of it part of the world’s least glamorous exchange programme.

I grab my Bergen, swing it over one shoulder, and follow the others out. The air hits me properly then. It’s like biting into tinfoil.

The garrison sprawls in front of us. There are low concrete buildings, antennae, and a few taller blocks hunched against the horizon. Everything is square, functional, and ugly in the way that says it’ll probably still be standing after the apocalypse.

A line of flagpoles stands near the main admin block, the fabric hanging limp in the barely-there breeze. One Russian flag, one UK, both look equally unimpressed.

My boots crunch on the frost, and my lungs burn with every breath; it feels a long way from England.

“Form it up,” Hall says, and the six of us shuffle into a loose line. A Russian officer waits by the steps of the main building, flanked by two soldiers. He’s maybe mid-forties, square-shouldered, his cap pulled low over his eyes.

A translator stands beside him in a long coat and fur hat, looking like he regrets every life decision that led to this moment.

The officer barks something in Russian, and the translator clears his throat. “Welcome to Murmansk Military Garrison,” he says, his accent is thick, but his English is fairly solid. “Colonel Sokolov wishes you good cooperation and mutual learning.”

He nods as if this is a particularly daring phrase.

Hall steps forward and offers a hand. “Sergeant Hall, Third Battalion,” he says. “We’re grateful for the invite, Colonel.”

Sokolov shakes his hand and says something clipped, the translator trailing behind as they exchange a few more rehearsed lines. Words like “partnership” and “shared objectives” float past.

I try not to roll my eyes.

My gaze drifts over the base, and I see Russians move between buildings, smoking in tight clusters, and hauling crates. A few look over at us with idle curiosity — British uniforms in their snow, a novelty for the morning.

One of the soldiers standing slightly behind the Colonel catches my attention. He’s taller than the two beside him, broad across the shoulders without looking bulky, dark blond hair poking out from under his cap, and his jaw dusted with that nearly-a-beard that strict officers hate.

His uniform fits perfectly, his boots are polished, and his hands are relaxed behind his back. He watches the scene with the kind of alert calm that says he’s not just standing there to make up the numbers.

When his eyes flick over our line, I get the sense he’s cataloguing us rather than just looking. He meets my gaze just long enough for a spark of awareness to jump between us, and then he looks away.

I shift my Bergen higher on my shoulder and tell myself I’m only noticing him because I’m knackered and everything feels surreal after too many hours in transit.

“This is your liaison,” the translator says suddenly, dragging my attention back.

He gestures to the tall soldier I’d just been staring at. “Senior Sergeant Nikorin Zakirov.”

The tall guy steps forward and gives us a short nod. “Dobro pozhalovat,” he says, then adds, in accented but confident English, “Welcome.”

Up close, he’s even more annoyingly put-together. He’s not handsome in a polished way, but he has a steadiness to him. He looks like the kind of bloke who’s funny once he chills out, but you’d probably have to work hard to get him to relax.

“Sergeant Hall,” our sergeant says, shaking his hand. “Good to have you, Zakirov.”

“Please, call me Niko. Everyone does.” He says it like a throwaway line, but I take a mental note of it.

“Right, lads,” Hall says, turning to us. “This is Senior Sergeant Zakirov... Niko. He’s our point of contact. You listen to him like you listen to me, which is to say, perfectly.”

He aims his glare at Mason, who’s already smirking.

Niko’s mouth twitches, like he might want to smile, but he’s trying to remain professional.

Hall introduces us down the line. “Lance Corporal Varrik,” he says when he gets to me.

I give a short nod. “Caiden.” Niko’s eyes flick over me more carefully this time, like he’s adjusting some internal assessment, and he offers his hand.

His grip is firm and warm despite the cold air, and he holds the shake maybe a few seconds longer than strictly necessary. “Good to have you, Lance Corporal,” he says. The way he says it, with his accent, flattens the vowels just enough to make it sound like a title from another world.

“Just Caiden’s fine,” I say, the cold attacking my lungs as I breathe in.

“Then you call me Niko,” he replies. “Not Senior Sergeant.” One corner of his mouth lifts, almost amused, as he adds, “Too long.”

Mason mutters something under his breath, causing Bennett to elbow him in the ribs.

Sokolov and Hall peel off with the translator, heading toward some office where they’ll drink bad coffee and nod over paperwork.

“Come,” Niko says, turning to us and gesturing for us to follow. “We’ll get you rooms, then food.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Collins mutters behind me. He’s the youngest out of us, nineteen, from somewhere in Wales that I can’t pronounce and eats consonants for breakfast.

The accommodation block he leads us to is a long, low building with peeling paint and a row of windows that all look equally unimpressed to see us. “Home sweet home,” Mason muses as we step inside.

“Better than a ditch,” Bennett replies. He’s from Glasgow originally and isn’t big on chatting.

Niko leads us down a corridor lined with metal doors. “We put you all together. Easier for you, less... mixing.” He searches for the word, finds it, and shrugs. “You can shout English at each other all night. My men sleep,” he explains, trying to hide a tiny grin.

He unlocks a room and swings the door open. There are eight bunks, four on each side. The mattresses look thin, but I’ve seen worse. “You’ll sleep here,” Niko says. “Showers at the end of the corridor. Water is sometimes hot, sometimes not.” His mouth twitches again. “It’s a lottery.”

“Anyone die in these recently?” Mason asks, eyeing the beds.

Niko looks at him, absolutely deadpan. “We washed the sheets after.”

I’ve been here all of ten minutes, and I already like him.

“Drop your kit, lads,” Hall says, as if appearing out of thin air. “We’ll get squared away, then see what they’ve got planned for us.”

I choose a bunk halfway down and throw my Bergen on it. The springs complain as I prod the mattress with two fingers; it doesn’t immediately collapse or move on its own.

Good enough, I guess.

There’s a window above, smeared with the kind of dirt that doesn’t come off with normal effort. Beyond it, I can see part of the parade ground, a distant line of trees, and the hint of a grey sea.

It’s Murmansk, and I’m actually here.

If you’d told the sixteen-year-old version of me, fresh out of school with too much anger and not enough world experience, that at twenty I’d be standing in a Russian barracks on some joint exercise, I’d have laughed in your face and probably nicked your lighter.

“Ten minutes,” Hall says. “Dump your crap, check your weapons, then we’ll go pretend to be friendly.” We scatter, and I move on autopilot, bag stored in the metal locker beside the bed, uniform straightened, boots stamped, weapon stripped with familiar muscle memory, then oiled and reassembled.

It’s comforting, in a way.

The routine, the sameness, like no matter where they send you, the Falklands, Germany, Russia, some things never change.

Across the room, Niko leans against the door frame, watching us work. It’s not intrusive; he’s just there taking notes. “You are infantry?” he asks Hall.

“Yeah,” Hall says. “Thirty Brigade, light role.”

Niko nods like this makes some internal sense. “You will not like our assault course then.”

“Oh?” Mason pipes up. “What’s wrong with your assault course?”

“It is on a hill, in a forest, with mud,” Niko shrugs. “And ice sometimes.”

“So just like home,” Collins says.

Niko’s gaze flicks over to him. “We don’t close if it rains,” he says mildly. “Or if it snows. Or if you cry.” That almost smile creeps in again.

“Alright, that’s enough flirting,” Hall says, clapping his hands. “Let’s move.”

We troop back out into the corridor. Niko leads, unconsciously taking point, adapting to us behind him without having to think, it’s the mark of someone who pays attention to what’s happening on his flanks, not just what’s right in front of him.

I catch myself watching the way he walks, he’s confident and balanced, then I tell myself to stop staring.

We head over to the mess hall, which is a long, echoing room with big windows on one side and rows of tables on the other. Russian soldiers are already sitting, eating trays of something steaming in front of them.

Conversations drop to a murmur as we file in.

A few heads turn, and I hear the word “Anglichane” mumbled twice.

We queue with our trays like it’s school dinners all over again.

The food is... beige — putting it politely — some sort of stew, potatoes that have seen better days, and bread so dense it might stop a bullet.

Niko appears at my shoulder with his tray already loaded.

“You should eat,” he says. “You will need the energy.”

“I’ve had worse, I think,” I say, eyeing the stew. “Just hope it’s not still moving.”