Page 29

The storage room door stood ajar, thin blade of light cutting through darkness. Tactical disadvantage—backlit target, unknown number of hostiles, no cover past the threshold. Standard doctrine said wait for backup, establish perimeter, negotiate if possible.

But Rodriguez's screams echoed in my skull. The wet sound Watanabe made when the bullet found his throat. Waiting meant dying. In Kandahar, in Ironridge, didn't matter. Violence had its own timeline.

I hit the door hard, bursting through with weapon raised, ready to engage—

Purple hair. Lena, crouched by the bottom shelf, frozen like a deer in headlights. One hand on a guitar case I'd never seen before, the other reaching for her baseball bat in pure panic. NotSerpents. Lena, eyes wide with terror at the armed figure in her doorway.

Time fractured.

She swung the bat in desperate defense, a reflex born of fear. My free hand shot out, catching aluminum with a solid thwack that sent shock waves up my arm. The Glock stayed steady, muscle memory keeping it trained center mass even as my brain screamed conflicting data.

Friend. Threat. Asset. Target. Protect. Eliminate.

Her eyes went wide with recognition. "Tyson? Oh God, Tyson, it's me!"

The guitar case had fallen open in her panic, spilling its secrets across the floor. Not a guitar. Never a guitar. A stuffed tortoise, worn and loved. Coloring books. Something that looked like—Christ, was that a pacifier in a jewelry box?

But the damage was done. My nervous system had already dumped every combat chemical into my bloodstream. Her scattered secrets became IEDs. Her purple hair morphed into smoke from burning vehicles. The storage room walls pressed in, crushing like the Humvee's cab after the blast.

I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. The fluorescent lights flickered and became muzzle flashes. Lena's face kept shifting—one second clear and real, the next replaced by Martinez begging for his mother, Rodriguez trying to hold his guts in, Watanabe drowning in his own blood.

"Tyson?" Her voice came from underwater, distorted by phantom explosions.

The Glock shook between us. My hands—steady through a hundred firefights—trembled like autumn leaves. She was saying something else, but mortar rounds kept drowning her out. The acrid stench of cordite that wasn't there burned my nostrils.

Get down. Find cover. Return fire. Protect the asset. Complete the mission.

But which mission? Save my squad or save the girl? Past and present tangled into Gordian knots I couldn't cut through. The weapon wavered, uncertain which reality to defend against.

Martinez screaming. No—that was me. Ragged breathing, too fast, too shallow. Hyperventilating. Combat breathing protocol, where was the fucking protocol?

She was too close. In the kill zone. Everyone in my kill zone died. That was the pattern, the truth written in blood and burned flesh. I protected nothing. Saved no one. Failed mission after mission after—

"I'm going to get you killed." The words ripped out, raw and certain. "Always get them killed. Can't stop it. Can't—"

My vision tunneled down to a pinpoint, darkness creeping in from the edges. This was how it ended. Not in combat but in a tattoo shop, pointing a weapon at the one person I wanted to protect. The one person who'd made me feel something other than numb in six years.

Perfect. Fitting. Another failure to add to the collection.

The Glock grew heavier, arm muscles burning with the effort of holding position. Time moved in stutters—too fast, too slow, broken frames of a film with half the scenes missing. Lena's mouth moved but the words wouldn't process. Just noise. Just chaos. Just another situation spiraling beyond my control.

I was going to kill her. Or fail to save her. Same result, different methods. The only constants in my equation.

Someone was making a wounded animal sound. Took three heartbeats to realize it was me.

“Hey. Hey, Soldier Boy. Look at me."

The voice cut through the red haze, but I couldn't place it. Couldn't place anything. My hands shook around the Glock's grip, sweat making the metal slick.

Not real. Not real. Except my finger on the trigger was very fucking real.

"You're in Ironridge. In my shop. It's Thursday morning, technically. You're safe."

Lena. That was Lena's voice. But wrong—too calm, too steady. Where was the attitude, the chaos? My vision swam, past and present bleeding together. She'd lowered the bat, I realized. Hands visible and empty at her sides. Smart girl.

"I'm going to move really slowly, okay? Just gonna set this bat down."

The aluminum bat clinked against the floor, rolled away harmless. My weapon tracked her movements, muscle memory overriding reason.