The factory eventually closed down, but the war did not.
Asael had already learned how to make guns. Now, with nowhere else to go, he found himself on the frontlines, where the guns he once made were being fired.
The factory and company were eventually raided. The workers were defenseless, but Asael was not.
He picked up a gun and shot the attackers.
The commander was impressed.
He put Asael into a squad.
By the end of the year, Asael was the head of that squad.
The squad consisted of Thistle, Root, Bird, Biggy, and Asael Jobbs.
Thistle was slim as a broomstick, but he had great legs. He was white.
Root was the medic. He always looked sleepy, but he was good at what he did. He was Hispanic.
Bird was the sniper. He was Mexican, and he could clip the wings off a bird.
Then there was Biggy.
Biggy was a Black man who wanted to be smaller.
Asael wanted to be Biggy's size.
It was ironic.
Together, they became known as the Blackthorn Unit 514, though they usually just called themselves the Blackthorn Squad.
They were a strange group of men from different backgrounds who had somehow found themselves fighting in the same war. What started as a squad slowly became something more.
They became family.
Asael hid the fact that he was a soldier from his Ma.
He didn't want her to worry about him.
But Ma already knew.
When Asael and the others eventually returned home, she welcomed them.
She looked at Asael for a moment before speaking.
"I wasn't born yesterday, Asael."
She already knew what he had been doing.
She looked at the men standing behind him.
"I see you found brothers."
Asael smiled.
"My brothers in arms."
The men had earned medals. They had risen through the ranks, fought together, bled together, and survived things that should have killed them.
But for Asael, none of the medals mattered as much as the men standing beside him.
They were his brothers.
And for a while, that was enough.
Then Asael was shot.
It happened when he was thirty-three.
A bullet struck him in the side, and he was taken to be treated.
That was where he met Bethany Juliet Jobbs.
She was a nurse.
Her skin was like milk, and she had icy blue eyes.
Asael looked at her and smiled.
"My insides are feeling a little tingly, nursy."
Bethany looked at him.
"Morphine."
Asael smiled.
"No. There are butterflies trapped in there, and you put them there."
Bethany smiled and laughed.
"That's the blood loss talking."
She finished treating him and looked at him.
"Get some rest, Blood Angel."
And just like that, Asael had found something worth fighting for that had nothing to do with war.