Twelve hours later, they crouched in the belly of a modified MH-6 Little Bird, rotors thumping like a war drum. The pilot, a wiry captain with eyes like chips of obsidian, skimmed the dunes at near-treetop level. Liam traced the schoolhouse schematic on his kneepad, fingers lingering on the eastern entry point. "Shaped charges here," he murmured to Corporal Vance – no relation to the Colonel – who clutched the breaching kit like a prayer book. Marcus checked his HK417’s suppressor. Again. The scent of cordite and sweat filled the cramped space.
The Little Bird flared hard over Al-Sakar’s outskirts. No lights below. Only shadows. They fast-roped into a dust-choked alley, boots hitting sand with muffled thuds. Marcus scanned the roofline through his NVGs. Static green shapes. A stray dog slunk past a trash heap. Clear.
Liam led, moving like smoke toward the school’s rear wall. Vance placed the charges with trembling hands. Marcus covered the approach, his rifle’s reticle painting a guard’s heat signature pacing the front gate. Too close. He keyed his mic once – a silent warning. Liam froze, pressing Vance flat against the mudbrick. The guard paused, scratched his head, turned away. Marcus exhaled. Liam nodded. Detonator clicked.
The shaped charge blew with a wet thump. No flash. Just crumbling mortar. They surged through the breach into a stinking corridor. Classrooms lined the hall. Whimpers leaked from behind one door. Hostages. Rashid’s voice rasped from the end room – guttural Arabic, sharp with command.
Liam gestured: Flank right. Marcus peeled left, hugging the wall. Rashid’s door stood ajar. Marcus glimpsed maps spread on a desk, the gaunt man bent over them. Liam’s grenade arced through the doorway – a flashbang’s searing crack filled the hall. Marcus breached, rifle up.
Rashid staggered, blinded. Marcus’s first shot took him high in the chest. The second, between the eyes. The man crumpled like a puppet. Silence. Then panicked shouts from the hostage room. Liam kicked that door open, weapon sweeping. "US Marines! Down! Now!" Women and children huddled in the corner, wide-eyed. Vance covered the corridor, breathing hard.
Outside, rotors thundered. Extraction. Liam grabbed Rashid’s maps, stuffed them into his vest. Marcus hauled a sobbing boy onto his hip. "Move!" Liam barked.
They ran for the dust-choked hole in the wall, the ghosts howling at their backs. The Little Bird hovered, door gunner laying suppressive fire into the waking village. Bullets sparked off stone. Marcus shoved the boy into waiting hands, vaulted inside. Liam followed, slamming the door shut as the bird peeled skyward. Below, muzzle flashes winked like angry fireflies.
Liam slumped against Marcus, Rashid’s blood soaking his sleeve. "Done," he breathed. Marcus gripped his thigh. Tight. The minefield stretched ahead. But tonight, they’d crossed it. Alive.
The Little Bird bucked violently. Flak burst outside—green tracers stitching the sky. The pilot cursed, banking hard. Marcus braced Liam against the bulkhead. The boy they’d rescued whimpered, curled on the deck. Corporal Vance retched into a helmet.
Liam’s hand trembled as he pulled Rashid’s maps from his vest. One corner was torn, stained with brain matter. He smoothed it on his knee. Syrian border routes. Chemical depot symbols. "Intel gold," Liam rasped. His storm-grey eyes met Marcus’s. "Harlan’s prize."
Marcus scanned the scribbled notations. Dates. Coordinates. A shipment due tomorrow dawn. "Too fast," Marcus growled. "No time to brief. No backup." Liam’s jaw set. He knew. They’d been handed a live grenade.
The pilot’s voice crackled over comms. "LZ Charlie’s hot! Insurgents swarming the pad!" Marcus peered out. Below, muzzle flashes erupted near the landing zone—a dozen, maybe more. The extraction team’s Humvee was pinned down, taking heavy fire.
Liam shoved the map at Marcus. "Memorize it." He grabbed the door gunner’s shoulder. "Put us down east of the LZ! Behind that dune line!" The gunner nodded, swiveling his M134. The bird dropped like a stone.
Marcus burned the map into his mind — depot grid, approach vectors, guard rotations. He tore the paper, swallowed the pieces. Liam watched, approval flickering in his exhausted eyes. The taste of inked paper and blood filled Marcus’s mouth.
The skids hit sand. "Go!" Liam roared. They tumbled out, dragging the boy and Vance. The Little Bird lifted, rotors blasting grit. Bullets cracked past.
Marcus returned fire, covering their sprint toward the besieged Humvee. Liam limped beside him, rifle spitting rounds. "Almost there!" Marcus yelled.
A RPG streaked from a nearby ruin. The Humvee exploded in a fireball. Shrapnel screamed. Marcus tackled Liam, shielding him as molten metal rained down. Heat seared Marcus’s back. The boy screamed.
Silence. Then insurgent shouts. Closing in. Marcus rolled off Liam. Their eyes locked — glacial blue and storm-grey — in the flickering inferno. No LZ. No ride. Just sand, blood, and Rashid’s secrets burning in Marcus’s gut.
Liam grinned, savage. "Walk with me, Sergeant?"
Marcus chambered a round. "All the way."
They scrambled behind the burning Humvee's wreckage. Heat pulsed against Marcus's back, the stench of fuel and charred metal thick in his nostrils. Corporal Vance pressed against the sand, hyperventilating. The rescued boy whimpered, clutching Marcus’s boot. Liam scanned the approaching shadows – five, maybe six insurgents advancing through the smoke, rifles raised.
"Vance!" Liam barked, voice raw. "Suppressing fire! Three-round bursts!" Vance flinched, then raised his M4, squeezing off shaky shots. Bullets kicked up dirt yards short of the targets. Useless.
Marcus ignored him. He focused on the lead insurgent, a bulky figure silhouetted against the flames. His HK417 barked once. The man dropped. The others scattered, taking cover behind rubble. The brief lull was filled by the crackle of flames and the boy’s terrified sobs.
Liam ripped a grenade from his vest. "Cover!" Marcus laid down rapid, precise fire, pinning the insurgents. Liam pulled the pin, counted silently, and hurled the grenade in a high arc. It landed behind the rubble pile. The explosion was deafening, spraying sand and debris. Screams followed.
"Move!" Liam shoved Vance toward a low stone wall fifty meters east. "Go!" Marcus scooped up the boy, slinging him over his shoulder like a sack. They ran, hunched low, bullets whining overhead. Vance stumbled, fell. Marcus hauled him up by his collar, shoving him forward. "Run or die!"
They crashed behind the wall. Sand rasped in Marcus’s lungs. Liam pressed against the stones, peering around the edge. "Two left. Advancing." His rifle snapped. Another insurgent fell. The last ducked behind a crumbling hut.
Silence descended, heavy and ominous. Only the distant thump of the Little Bird’s rotors remained. Too far. Vance retched again. The boy trembled violently against Marcus. Liam reloaded, his movements stiff with pain and fatigue. Rashid’s blood darkened his sleeve. He met Marcus’s gaze.
The coordinates burned in Marcus’s mind – the Syrian depot, Rashid’s final shipment. Dawn was coming. So was hell.
Liam’s gaze locked onto the insurgent’s hiding spot. "Flush him." His voice was stripped raw. Marcus nodded. He pulled a fragmentation grenade, yanked the pin, and hurled it in a low, skidding arc behind the hut. The insurgent bolted like a startled rabbit – right into Liam’s waiting sights. A single shot cracked. The man dropped.
Silence rushed back, thicker than before. Only the crackle of the distant Humvee fire and the boy’s choked whimpers broke it. Vance slumped against the wall, trembling uncontrollably. Liam pressed a hand to his bleeding arm, his face pale under dirt and sweat. "Status?" he rasped at Marcus.
Marcus scanned the boy – unhurt, just terrified. Vance was useless, shell-shocked. "Mobile," Marcus ground out. "But Vance is done." He jerked his chin toward the corporal, who stared blankly at his shaking hands.
Liam didn’t hesitate. "Leave him the water. The pistol." He shoved a canteen and his sidearm into Vance’s limp grasp. "Hold this position. Wait for evac." Vance blinked, uncomprehending. Liam gripped his collar, forcing eye contact. "Stay alive, Corporal. That’s an order."
Marcus hoisted the boy onto his back, securing small arms around his neck. The child clung silently, burying his face in Marcus’s shoulder. Liam pushed off the wall, wincing. "The depot," he said, meeting Marcus’s eyes. "Six klicks northeast. Sandstorm’s brewing." He nodded toward the horizon where dirty yellow clouds were swallowing the stars.
Marcus spat sand. "Walk it."
They moved into the deepening dark, leaving Vance huddled behind the wall. The desert wind rose, scouring their faces with grit. Liam limped, each step a visible effort, but his stride never faltered. Marcus matched his pace, the boy a warm, trembling weight. Rashid’s secrets were a live wire in Marcus’s gut – Syrian routes, chemical symbols, the dawn deadline. Failure meant poison spreading across borders. Success meant walking out of a fortress alone.
Liam’s hand brushed Marcus’s arm, a fleeting point. Ahead, silhouetted against the storm-lit sky, rose the jagged outline of low hills. "There," Liam breathed. "The wadi cuts through. Cover." His storm-grey eyes held Marcus’s – no fear, only grim resolve. "Almost home."
Marcus adjusted the boy’s weight. "Almost." They plunged into the wind-whipped darkness, two ghosts carrying the world’s end toward a desert dawn.
The sandstorm hit like a wall. Grit scoured exposed skin, reducing visibility to arm’s length. Marcus navigated by instinct, compass useless in the magnetic haze. Liam stumbled beside him, his breathing ragged. The boy clung tighter, silent now — terror frozen into numbness.
A low ridge materialized through the ochre gloom. Liam gripped Marcus’s sleeve. "Wadi entrance … fifty meters … left." His voice was shredded by the wind. They pushed toward the shadowy cleft in the rock.
Inside the wadi, the roar dulled to a howl. Sand still swirled, but the walls offered shelter. Liam sagged against stone, sliding down. Marcus lowered the boy gently. The child curled into a hollow, eyes wide and vacant.
"Arm," Marcus ordered, kneeling beside Liam. He sliced the blood-soaked sleeve away. The bullet had carved a furrow across Liam’s bicep — deep, ugly, but not arterial. Marcus poured precious water over it, flushing grit. Liam hissed, jaw clenched. Marcus packed the wound with coagulant powder from his kit, bound it tight with gauze. "Walkable?"
Liam’s nod was curt. "Depot?"
Marcus closed his eyes, conjuring Rashid’s map. "Two klicks north. Guard towers … here and here." He sketched lines in the sand. "Main compound … underground access through the motor pool." He looked up. Dawn’s first grey light seeped into the wadi. "Shift change in twenty minutes."
Liam pushed himself upright, swaying. "Distraction?"
Marcus pulled two blocks of C-4 from his pack. "East tower. Draw their eyes." He handed one block to Liam. "I breach the motor pool during the blast."
Liam’s bloodied hand closed over the explosive. His other hand gripped Marcus’s neck, forehead pressing hard against his. "Meet you inside." No goodbye. A promise.
They emerged into the storm’s dying breath. Liam vanished eastward, a limping shadow. Marcus moved north, the boy’s hand clasped in his. The depot loomed — a fortress of concrete and steel. He counted seconds. The eastern sky flared white-hot. The ground shuddered. Liam’s roar echoed through the chaos.
Marcus sprinted. Guards scrambled toward the collapsing tower. He slid under a rusted fuel truck, dragging the boy. The motor pool gate stood unmanned. He planted his charge on the lock mechanism. Five seconds. He shielded the boy against the truck’s tire. The blast punched his eardrums. Metal screamed. The gate yawned open.
Inside, stale oil and chemical fumes choked the air. Stairs descended into darkness. Marcus pushed the boy behind a stack of crates. "Stay." He descended, NVGs painting the tunnel green. Pipes lined the walls. Footsteps pounded above — shouts in Arabic. Too close.
He rounded a corner. Steel drums filled the chamber — hundreds, marked with skulls and crossbones. Rashid’s shipment. A timer glowed crimson: 00:07:32. Marcus ripped open his pack. Shaped charges. He worked fast, fingers flying, planting explosives on support columns. Bring the mountain down. Bury it all.
Boots on stairs. Two guards. Marcus dropped behind drums. Their flashlight beams swept past. He rose. Two silenced shots. They crumpled. The timer blinked: 00:04:15.
He raced back up. The boy waited, trembling. Marcus scooped him up. Gunfire erupted outside — Liam’s M4 barking short, controlled bursts. Covering fire. Marcus burst into sunlight. Liam stood braced against a bulldozer, bleeding anew, pinning down three insurgents near the shattered gate. "Go!" Liam roared, reloading.
Marcus ran west, toward the wadi. The boy’s breath hitched against his neck. Behind him, Liam’s rifle fell silent. Marcus risked a glance back. Liam staggered, clutching his side, retreating toward the motor pool entrance. Alone.
The ground heaved. A thunderous groan tore the sky. The depot collapsed inward, swallowing itself in a cloud of dust and flame. The shockwave knocked Marcus to his knees. He shielded the boy as debris rained down. Silence followed — vast and absolute. The poison was buried. Liam was buried with it.
Marcus stared at the settling ruin. The boy whimpered. Slowly, Marcus rose. He turned his back on the grave. Walked. One step. Then another. Toward nothing. Toward everything.
He found Liam half-buried under concrete slabs near the motor pool’s edge. Alive. Bleeding from the mouth, leg pinned. Storm-grey eyes met Marcus’s through the dust haze. No surprise. Only weary acknowledgment. Marcus dropped beside him, digging bare hands into the rubble. Blood slicked the stones. The boy watched, silent.
"Took …your time," Liam rasped. A bubble of blood popped on his lip.
Marcus heaved a chunk aside. Liam’s leg was crushed below the knee. Pulped meat and white bone fragments. Marcus tore his belt off. Cinched it high above the ruin. Liam screamed – a raw, animal sound that echoed in the sudden quiet. Marcus ripped open a morphine auto-injector, jammed it into Liam’s thigh. The screaming subsided to ragged gasps.
"Depot?" Liam whispered.
"Gone."
A ghost of a smile touched Liam’s lips. "Good." His head lolled back. Marcus slapped his cheek. Hard. "Stay."
He scrounged rebar from the wreckage. Lashed it to Liam’s shattered leg with strips torn from his own shirt. A crude splint. Useless for walking. Marcus scanned the horizon. Empty. The storm had passed, leaving a brutal, washed-clean sky. Heat shimmered off the sand.
He hauled Liam onto his back. The Major cried out, then bit down on a scream. Marcus adjusted the weight, hooked an arm under Liam’s good thigh. The boy clung to Marcus’s front, small arms locked around his neck. Three souls. One burden.
Marcus walked west. Toward the fading rotor throb. Toward maybe. Each step drove splinters of agony through Liam’s stifled groans into Marcus’s spine. The sun climbed. Blistering. Merciless. Sweat stung Marcus’s eyes. Salt crusted Liam’s beard where blood met dust.
Hours bled. Shadows shrank. Liam drifted in and out, murmuring fragments – Elaine’s perfume, Harlan’s sneer, coordinates Marcus already knew. Marcus focused on the next step. Always the next step. The boy slept, head lolling.
A black speck appeared on the western horizon. Grew. Resolved into the angular silhouette of a Reaper drone. Circling low. Marcus stopped. Raised a blood-caked hand. The drone dipped its wings once. Acknowledgement. Hope flared – sharp, dangerous.
Marcus shifted Liam’s dead weight. Kept walking. The drone shadowed them, a silent guardian against the burning sky. Liam stirred. "Jenny …" he mumbled against Marcus’s neck. "Tell her …"
Marcus tightened his grip. "Tell her yourself." He walked on. The ghosts were quiet now. Only the sun, the sand, and the relentless thud of boots moving forward. Toward extraction. Toward reckoning. Toward whatever came after the minefield.
The Reaper banked sharply, vanishing north. Marcus tracked its path. Extraction point. Five klicks. Maybe six. Liam’s weight settled heavier, his breathing shallow and wet. The boy’s arms trembled around Marcus’s neck. Heat haze danced on the dunes.
A low rumble grew. Not rotors. Engines. Marcus veered toward a rock outcrop, scrambling behind cover as three battered technicals roared into view, kicking up dust. Insurgents. Hunting survivors. They slowed near the depot’s smoldering grave, shouting.
Marcus eased Liam down. The Major’s eyes fluttered open, alert despite the morphine haze. Marcus pressed his HK417 into Liam’s good hand. "Cover." Liam nodded grimly, propping the rifle on a rock, sighting on the lead truck.
Marcus slid down the outcrop’s flank, knife drawn. He moved like shadow. The last insurgent leaned out, scanning the dunes. Marcus’s arm snaked around his throat, blade plunging deep beneath the jaw. A wet gurgle. He lowered the body silently.
The second man turned. Marcus threw the knife. It sank hilt-deep into the man’s throat. He crumpled, choking. The driver spun, fumbling for his AK. Marcus was already on him, wrenching his head sideways with a sickening crack.
Silence. Only the idling engines. Marcus dragged the bodies into the sand, stripped them of water and ammo. He tossed a full canteen up to Liam. "Drink."
Back at the outcrop, Liam lowered the rifle, sweat streaking the grime on his face. "Clean work, Sergeant." He drank greedily, water spilling down his chin. The boy watched Marcus with huge, unreadable eyes.
Marcus hoisted Liam again. "Almost home." He pushed the nearest technical into gear, steering it behind the rocks. Concealed. A contingency. Then he walked on. The drone reappeared, lower now.
The throb of approaching helicopters vibrated in Marcus’s chest. Black Hawks materialized on the horizon, racing toward them under the Reaper’s watchful eye. Liam’s head lifted weakly. His fingers dug into Marcus’s shoulder. Not a grip of pain. Possession. Promise. The future was still a minefield. But they’d cleared this patch. Together.
The lead Hawk flared overhead, rotors kicking up a blinding sandstorm. Medics rappelled down, rushing toward them. Marcus lowered Liam gently onto the stretcher, his hands reluctant to leave the Major’s bloodied chest. A medic jabbed morphine into Liam’s arm.
Liam’s storm-grey eyes locked onto Marcus’s, fierce through the haze. "Stay," he rasped, before the drugs dragged him under.
Marcus scooped up the boy as another medic reached for him. The child clung tighter, burying his face against Marcus’s neck. Marcus shook his head curtly at the medic. He climbed the rope ladder one-handed, the boy secured against him, Liam’s stretcher swaying below.
Inside the vibrating belly of the Hawk, the roar was deafening. Medics worked frantically on Liam, cutting away the makeshift splint, applying pressure packs. Blood soaked the deck. Marcus buckled the boy into a jump seat beside him. Small fingers clutched Marcus’s sleeve. Outside, the desert shrank beneath them – the grave of Rashid’s poison, the grave they’d clawed out of.
A medic crouched before Marcus. "Sergeant Holt? Your arm —" Marcus looked down. A deep gash, unnoticed, wept blood onto his fatigues. He shook his head again, eyes fixed on Liam’s pale face. The medic hesitated, then slapped a pressure bandage into Marcus’s hand. Marcus pressed it absently against the wound, his gaze never leaving Liam’s still form. The rhythmic beep of a heart monitor was the only counterpoint to the rotors’ thunder.
The boy leaned against Marcus, exhaustion finally claiming him. Marcus rested a heavy hand on the small head. Below, the burning depot was a smudge on the tawny vastness. Ahead lay base, surgeons, debriefings … and David’s final signature waiting in Marcus’s locker. Ghosts stirred. But Liam breathed beside him. Ragged. Labored, but breathing. Marcus closed his eyes, not in prayer, but in grim assessment. The extraction was secured. The war inside them? That trench ran deeper. He opened his eyes as the Hawk banked, the horizon tilting. Tomorrow was already here. They’d walk it. Side by side.
*****
The base hospital’s sterile light felt alien after the desert’s brutal sun. Marcus paced the narrow corridor outside surgery, the boy asleep on a gurney nearby. Every muffled clang of instruments tightened the vise around his ribs. Hours bled.
A surgeon emerged, mask dangling. "Major Thorne’s stabilized. Lost the leg below the knee." Marcus absorbed the blow without flinching. "Infection risk is high. He’s asking for you."
Marcus entered the dimmed ICU cubicle. Liam lay pale against stark sheets, his right leg ending abruptly under thick bandages. Morphine softened the granite lines of his face, but his storm-grey eyes were lucid, fierce. He tracked Marcus’s approach.
"Took your damn time," Liam rasped, voice sandpaper-rough. He gestured weakly toward the stump. "Still got one good leg. Still walk." The defiance was raw, edged with pain.
Marcus pulled a chair close, the vinyl squeaking. He didn’t offer platitudes. He laid his hand, palm down, on the sheet beside Liam’s arm. A silent anchor. Liam’s gaze dropped to it, then flicked back to Marcus’s face.
"The boy?"
"Safe. Sleeping."
Liam nodded, a fraction of movement. His eyes drifted shut, then snapped open, struggling against the drugs. "David’s papers …" It wasn’t a question.
"In my locker," Marcus confirmed, his voice low. "Signed."
Liam’s jaw tightened. He shifted slightly, wincing. His hand moved slowly, deliberately, until his fingertips brushed the back of Marcus’s knuckles. The contact was electric. Simple. Real. "Burn them," Liam whispered, the command thick but unwavering. "Tonight." His eyes held Marcus’s, a shared understanding deeper than vows. The past was ash. The minefield remained. But they’d navigate it together.
Marcus curled his fingers, trapping Liam’s touch. He nodded once. "Tonight."
He stayed until Liam’s breathing deepened into drugged sleep, the monitors beeping a steady rhythm. Outside, the corridor’s fluorescent glare felt like an interrogation. The boy sat upright on the gurney, eyes wide and hollow. Marcus scooped him up without a word. The child’s arms locked around his neck, trusting and desperate.
Marcus’s quarters were a tomb. David’s scent lingered — cedar and regret. The blue envelope lay on his footlocker. Final. He tossed it onto the metal surface, the boy clinging silently. Marcus struck a match. The flame caught the corner, blue paper curling black, David’s elegant script vanishing into smoke and ash. The boy watched, unblinking.
Later, Marcus stood under scalding water in the communal showers, scrubbing desert grit and dried blood from his skin. The boy sat wrapped in a towel on a bench, small and lost. Marcus dressed him in fatigues cut down to size, sleeves rolled thickly. The fabric swallowed him whole.
They walked the perimeter fence at dusk. The boy’s hand was cold in Marcus’s grip. Distant gunfire echoed — training exercises, or maybe not.
Marcus stopped at the comms shed. He dialed Jenny’s number, the one he’d carried since Fallujah. Her voice, sleep-rough and wary, answered. "Marcus?"
"Jenny." His throat tightened. "Got someone needs … softness." He glanced at the boy staring at the horizon. "He’s quiet. Seen too much."
A pause. Then, fierce warmth. "Bring him home, Marcus. Your home." The line clicked dead. Marcus exhaled. Home. A word without shape. But Jenny’s voice carved a space for it.
He found Liam awake in the dim ICU, staring at the bandaged stump. Marcus pulled the boy forward. "This is Elias," he said, naming the ghost-child. Liam’s gaze shifted—assessing, softening. He held out a hand. Elias hesitated, then placed his small palm in Liam’s scarred grip.
"Elias," Liam rasped. His thumb brushed the boy’s knuckles. "Welcome to the ruins." He looked past the boy to Marcus. "Both of you." The unspoken map unfolded between them: discharge papers, prosthetics, Jenny’s porch light. Minefields ahead. But Marcus saw the path. They’d clear it. Step by brutal step.
*****
The base chaplain’s office smelled of lemon polish and despair. Marcus stood stiffly beside Liam’s wheelchair, Elias perched silently on his hip. The Major’s storm-grey eyes scanned the sterile room — the cheap wooden cross, the pamphlets titled "Grief & Grace". Liam snorted softly. "Hell of a honeymoon suite, Holt."
A nervous lieutenant entered, clutching a file. "Gentlemen? The Colonel approved your … expedited separation." He slid papers across the desk. Discharge forms. Medical retirement for Liam. Compassionate reassignment for Marcus — stateside, indefinite. "Sign here. And here." His pen tapped like a metronome.
Marcus scrawled his name. Freedom tasted like dust. Liam signed with a flourish, his grip still fierce despite the pallor. The lieutenant gathered the papers, avoiding their eyes. "Transport departs for Ramstein at 0600 tomorrow. Civilian gate." He fled.
Outside, the desert wind whipped grit against the barracks. Elias buried his face in Marcus’s neck. Liam wheeled himself forward, his gaze fixed on the horizon where the depot had burned. "First stop," he stated, not turning. "Get this kid ice cream. Real ice cream. Not that powdered shit."
Marcus shifted Elias’s weight. "And you?"
Liam finally looked back, a ghost of his old smirk twisting his lips. "New leg. Then whiskey." His hand rose, hesitated, then gripped Marcus’s forearm. Solid. Anchoring. "Then Jenny."
The name hung between them — a promise, a reckoning. Marcus covered Liam’s hand with his own. Elias watched, solemn, as the wind carried the scent of diesel and distant rain. Tomorrow had wheels. They’d roll towards it. Together.
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