Pheasant blew a smoke ring into the night sky, quickly he flicked a finger at the ring to turn it into a heart shaped that dissipated into the cold, biting darkness.

"Fuck it I'm going inside, you take too long to smoke," Roach said through chattering teeth as he headed back into the warmth of the pub, leaving Pheasant to laugh and continue smoking all the way down to the butt as per usual for him.

It was a week after Roach first visited Pheasant, they'd driven hours to Roach's hometown earlier that day, after six days of Roach staying at Pheasant's place. So far the day had consisted of a greasy full English breakfast, then a full afternoon of Pheasant being dominated on video games, then an evening of going on a pub crawl. They were on pub number three by now, and definitely more than a little tipsy.

"You know my nickname back in school was Absinthe," Pheasant explained, causing Roach to quirk a brow at him.

"Oh yeah?" Roach said with surprise, quirking a brow, "whys that?".

"Because I drank it like a fish. I would always use my lunch money to pay an older guy to buy it for me," Pheasant explained, wearing a proud smirk.

"You rebel," Roach said as he went to punch Pheasant's shoulder, however as his head was spinning and his fist missed, merely swinging through the cold chill of the night air.

"You know it," Pheasant smiles before he took a final inhale of his cigarette, smoking down to the butt as always, "let's go inside, I'm freezing my bollocks off."

He crushed the lit cherry under his shoe before the two men returned into the warmth of the pub.

"A round of double vodka and cranberry," Roach said, the two men paid for their shots that sat on the bar as Roach noticed Pheasant staring off into space, "something on your mind?" he inquired.

"I don't think I ever thanked you."

"Thanked me for what?".

"Being so cool."

"Well I am quite cool, if I do say so myself," Roach grinned, rolling his eyes.

"No I mean cool about the whole trans thing," Pheasant explained, "you never tried to fuck with my kit and all that other shit in training,"

"Being a decent human being isn't something to be proud of, it should be expected," Roach answered.

"I suppose so," Pheasant said as he picked up his shot, he watched the liquid swirl before downing it.

"It must've been really hard for you, growing up in the wrong body I mean," Roach said, looking his friend in the eyes, his dark chocolate pools were unwavering and endlessly supportive.

Pheasant only laughed.

"What?" Roach asked, a smile lighting up his face.

"You sound like my counsellor again," Pheasant giggled, Roach joined in heartily before downing

"Right lads we're off, come with me now or get a taxi later," one of Roach's friends, a burly professional boxer named Simon with a neatly trimmed beard and a black leather jacket that highlighted his enormous muscles, announced loudly.

"Alright we're coming, we're coming," Roach said as he downed his shot before they piled into the boxer's car.

They all had the windows rolled down so they could smoke when suddenly Roach's heart stopped.

No way he just saw what he thought he saw.

"Simon, follow that car," Roach said with urgency, the boxer shot him a confused look.

"Why-".

"Just do it."

They followed the car to the house it parked up on the driveway, Roach instructed them to pull up just behind the house were the car had parked, the vehicle was cloaked by darkness but all three men could see the house illuminated under the sickly glow of the streetlamp the colour of stomach bile.

"Pen?" Roach asked, Pheasant handed him a biro.

Roach jotted down two details on his hand, the number plate and the house address, before handing Pheasant back his pen.

"Roach, why'd you make me follow them?" Simon asked.

Roach looked from Simon to Pheasant, shooting his fellow commando a wink. It wasn't a flirtatious wink, but one of solidarity, esprit de corps.

"You'll see," he said ominously.

"When?" Pheasant asked.

"Soon. Alright we can go now."

As soon as Simon put the key in the ignition Pheasant felt his phone ringtone, Leona Lewis' Bleeding Love, start blaring out. He took it from his pocket, seeing his mum was calling him.

He took the call. It wasn't unusual for her to be up at long past midnight, she had insomnia.

had long lasting insomnia from having her doctor cut her off from diazepam earlier in the year, she'd been replacing it with bouts heavy drinking.

"Mum?".

"Pheasant I need you," she slurred, clearly intoxicated.

"Fucks sake mum, I'm too far away to visit," Pheasant groaned into his phone, wishing he was back in the desert where his problems were a lot more simpler. Enemy contact? Engage. Gun jamming? Make sure there's no misfire.

Everything was so easy back there. It was his life back home he didn't know how to solve.

"Please, for me?" she begged.

"Fine," Pheasant snapped, "but you're paying half of the taxi fare," he hissed before hanging up.

He said his goodbyes to Roach and Simon, stepping out of the car and calling up a cab. He waited for ten minutes before being picked up, heading from Canterbury to Hackney where he got the lift up to his mother's bedsit, finding her passed out surrounded by empty bottles of alcohol and emptied wrappers of prescription.

Vodka and Librium, he knew immediately.

Ever since he could remember she had been slipping and sliding between her two drugs of choice-benzodiazepines and alcohol. She'd been prescribed Librium for alcohol withdrawals to prevent delirium tremens, where she'd stay blasted off her arse on Librium until they cut her off of it at which point she would start drinking again.

He made sure she was breathing, listening out for the gargling snore of a fatal overdose that never came. He put her in the recovery position, feeling her body was cold, and watched over her as he called the emergency services to report alcohol poisoning and drug overdose.

While he waited for them to arrive he grabbed a bowl, shoving his fingers down her throat so she would throw up whatever toxins her body hadn't yet absorbed. She didn't even do much as groan or flinch-he'd never seen her so out of it.

She had been doing well. Two months completely sober, but he returns home and she relapses? Was she celebrating his safe return, perhaps driven to celebrating too hard at the fact the next time he comes back it could be in a body bag?

There was nothing more he could do. They both had to live their lives, and he was inspired by her to be something besides a drug addicted, alcoholic benefits cheat. He'd spend his teens idolising his mother, wasting his life stoned out of his mind and vegging out in front of the telly while he made his money stealing from shops like all his older friend did. He didn't want to live that way anymore.

He just hoped one day she could change with him.

As the paramedics strapped her onto the gurney he couldn't help but beg for that day to come soon- before her demons killed her.

He cleaned up the bedsit, throwing out the bottles and pills, before calling up Roach.

"Hey mate can you pick me up?".

"What about your mum?".

"It's been dealt with."

"Okay, if you're sure."

"I am, I'm ready to go right now."

"Alright I'll be there in an hour, just kick back and have a brew till I get there."

"Cool, see you soon Roach."

Soon enough four days had passed and Pheasant found himself once again being driven by Roach, except it wasn't to either of their homes.

It was into a forest, which looked eerie under the moonlight. Illuminated twigs looked like twisted claws and the pines looked like fur that belonged to a massive beast.

"What is this place?" Pheasant inquired, his eyes darting around nervously.

Roach only tapped the side of his nose and wore an excited yet devious smirk, "you'll see."

Roach got out of the car, stepping into the tree line as he motioned for Pheasant to join him, which he did with great hesitancy as he remembered Roach was his friend and Pheasant had to trust him.

Following after his shorter friend through the thickets that spilt open their exposed skin, the pair of them found themselves in a clearing; a man, who had urinated all over his trousers and who's head was concealed by a hood, was kneeling in front of three burly man, faces that registered with Pheasant yet he did not know where from.

"Alright lads take the hood off," Roach instructed.

Roughly one of the men ripped the hood clean off.

"No," Pheasant uttered in utter devastation, he spun on his heel and turned his back on the man, as he took his first step away Roach grabbed him by the arm.

"C'mon this is your revenge," the shorter man exclaimed excitedly whilst Pheasant fought the urge to vomit, the dirtiness of that night violating his body all over again.

Sighing heavily Pheasant glanced over his shoulder at the man. Snot and tears were smeared all over his face, he looked a pathetic and snivelling mess.

"Aye, we tried to nab the other bastard but someone else got to him first," one of the muscular man said in a thick Glaswegian accent, Pheasant looked to him with all the fear of a deer caught in the headlights.

"You're the bouncers from that night aren't you?" Pheasant said, speaking barely above a whisper.

"That we are," another one answered, "we thought you'd appreciate the opportunity to get some real justice. No courts, no due process, just you and your fists. Fucker deserves it."

"You know my mum actually thinks I wasn't raped. That because I'm a man I'm always up for anything," Pheasant said, raged boiled inside of him as he seethed through gritted teeth.

Then he broke down.

"I didn't ask for it!" he exclaimed, a pained rawness to his voice as he kicked up some dirt.

He eyes fell to his rapist, full of a chaotic whirlwind of emotions, "you fucking bastard, how could you do that to me? I didn't want it-why?" he screeched as he launched a foot into the man's stomach, he crumpled into the dirt as a pained groan escaped him.

Pheasant grabbed the man by the scalp, grabbing a fistful of his hair and yanking up upwards so they were eye to eye.

"You violated my body and I lost a part of me-you took a part of me that wasn't yours to take and you killed it. Ever since that day I've been empty, hollow. Happiness is just a memory, every smile is fake-you hang over me like a shadow, always following me, and I bet you love knowing all the pain you caused," Pheasant screamed in his face, spittle landing on the rapist's face.

Then Pheasant went quiet, a slight smile playing across his lips. One that seemed resilient and proud, "but you haven't broken me. I've had to learn to live with what you done, but I'm not broken. You could never break me, you can hurt me but it only makes me stronger. So I guess in a guess you've taught me I can survive the death of myself, and be reborn like a phoenix. I always rise from the ashes, but tonight my friend, I'm going to show you the pain you put me through."

Pheasant immediately pulled down the rapist's zip, taking out his penis that he then began to kick over and over as screams filled the air, till it was a twisted, swollen sausage like appendage the colour of dark purple and yellow. Broken and bleeding, a satisfied grin elated Pheasant's features as he watched the man curled up in pain.

The rest of the night passed by in a flash of brutal sadism and vigilante justice, till the bouncers dragged the rapist into their boot, leaving a blood trail in his wake. Pheasant had concussed the rapist, fractured the monster's skull, left swelling and bleeding on its brain and bruised multiple ribs and, the coup de grace, broken one arm in six places, broken the other in three and broken both legs so severely he would never walk again.

The bouncers told Pheasant they'd drop him off somewhere where they wouldn't be seen, leaving the beaten monster to freeze in the cold till he either died or was found and reduced to drinking through straws as he sat hooked up to life support, paralysed from the neck down.

"Roach?" Pheasant said as Roach fired up the heating in his cold car.

"Yeah?".

"Thank you."

"Not a problem mate."

"I got closure. He cant hurt anyone anymore, and I'm free to try and put the pieces back together and move on. It'll take time but I know I'm strong enough to do it."

Roach smiled at his best friend, "too right mate, course you will."

Meanwhile Heaven was lying in bed, swaddled in fluffy pink blankets with a black and white Staffordshire terrier at her feet on the end of the bed, and her aunt Marie cleaned the minor scrapes on her face from the grenade explosion.

"I failed them," Heaven choked out, the dull sting of her stitched wounds incomparable to the tortured playground of her mind, "how am I ever going to face them again?".

"There was nothing you could've done. It's not like you've been kicked out or given told off, so your superiors obviously see no problem with it," her aunt reassured, brushing back the flyaways of her brunette hair the exact same shade as her eyes.

"But I should hold myself to the highest standard possible. I joined the commandos to be one of the elite, I wasn't though. Not then. And I don't know what am going to do," Heaven began to allow the tears she'd held back for so long finally begin to flow, something she could never do before but she had been strong for too long. 

Marie wiped tears from her eyes, "you remember where your name comes from right? You were your mother's angel from heaven. Let me do your make up and I'll make you beauty shine inside and out."

Heaven could only offer a weak, watery smile.

"It's probably all just because the painkillers aren't working so good anymore, making me emotional," Heaven explained as she forced a light chuckle, her aunt simply nodded and allowed her aunt to doll her up before they hit the clubs, knocking back drinks as she wore her dog tags with her black cocktail dress, getting a few free drinks from patriots who wanted to hear her war stories, so she shared her life with strangers and by the time she got home her head was swimming, her pain was number, her laughs were not forced and neither was her smile.

For a brief moment she took a second to remember she was here for the briefest flash of time, and she was going to revel every every perfect moment and find her bliss in knowing her will to survive would carry her through the days that were as dark as the sky hung above her head, and her courage would shine as bright as the stars within the black sky.

She was free, untamed and unbreakable.