Page 35

Axel

I packed light.

It was a short deployment, just a recon and retrieval if all went to plan. I’d done missions like this dozens of times. But this was the first one where I didn’t feel ready to go—not because of what was ahead, but because of what I’d be leaving behind.

Lark sat on the porch steps, hair tied up in a messy knot, watching me.

“I made you something,” she said as I stepped out.

I blinked. “You made me something?”

She reached into her hoodie pocket and pulled out a tiny, square leather pouch. Handmade, with a slightly crooked edge, but stitched tightly with black thread. “It’s dumb. But I figured… if you’re going halfway around the world for my sister, I could at least give you something to carry.”

I took it from her gently. It smelled like her—campfire smoke, lavender shampoo, something wild.

Inside was a tiny compass.

And a folded scrap of paper.

I glanced at her. “Can I read it?”

“No. You open that if—” she swallowed, “— only if you’re in trouble. Or if you forget your way.”

I nodded once, tucked it carefully into the inside pocket of my jacket.

She stood, moving slowly, and put her hands on my chest. “You’re not bulletproof, Axel.”

“Nope. But I am extremely hard to kill.”

Her eyes shimmered. “Promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“Promise me you won’t try to be a hero. Not the kind who dies for everyone else. Be the kind who comes home.”

I leaned in and kissed her—soft, deep, slow like I could imprint every second of this onto my bones.

“I’ll come home,” I whispered. “You’re the only place that’s ever felt like one, since I was a kid.”

She closed her eyes. “I hate this part.”

“I know. Me too.”

I turned to leave, then paused at the edge of the steps.

“Lark.”

“Yeah?”

“You were never lost. You were always just… storm-chasing the wrong horizon.”

She smiled through a sniffle. “Then go bring my sister back so we can chase a real one together.”

I didn’t look back again.

Because if I did—I might not have been able to walk away. God I loved that woman.

I stopped and picked up Fraiser. “So you know Marley?”

“Briefly.”