Break

One night, a long time ago, Ian Kensington became the Angel of Death. His life made sense for a few perfect hours, until the police came. For the next ten years the courts and a team of doctors beat that Angel into submission, and held him there with an endless cocktail of pills. Battered into exhaustion and numbed to the world around him, Ian became a productive, if solitary, member of society. But the Angel’s whispers still plague him day and night.

Therapy teaches him that those whispers can’t be real, just like the draft notice that came in the mail can’t be real. No army would ever want someone so badly damaged. But when he gives it to Dr. Goetner, the only person Ian trusts, the doctor looks like he’s just seen a ghost. None of it makes any sense: there’s no war going on, no public draft lottery, just Ian and a list of two dozen other names. And two men promising a mysterious process that can supposedly fix his broken brain, a prospect so outlandish that he’d never thought to hope for it.

But why would the army bother helping a guy like him? What’s in it for them? Ian can’t decide how much of his life is just going on inside his head. When Dr. Goetner abruptly resigns the safety net Ian has depended on for every decision of his adult life is gone; he stops taking his medication and starts taking a hard look at his options. Is the chance of living without his twisted psyche worth giving the Army and the Angel what they want? Should a man like him even be trusted with a gun? The Angel’s whispers are still there, just behind him, and they’re getting louder. They’re waiting for his willpower to break.