Page 111 of The Words Beneath the Noise

“Then you'll figure it out. And you'll write about that too.” His hand covered mine on the notebook. “I believe you're more than what the war made you. Even if you don't believe it yet.”

I had to look away. Couldn't handle the weight of his faith, the certainty in his voice.

“I have something for you too,” I said roughly. Reached into my pocket and pulled out the watch. “It's old. Belonged to my father.”

Art took it with reverent hands. Tarnished silver, scratched from years of use, but still keeping time. Still ticking steadily when you held it to your ear.

“Tom. This is... you can't give me this.”

“Can and am.” I closed his fingers around it. “Carried it through every mission that should've killed me. My luck, Dannyused to call it. I want you to have it. Want you carrying a piece of me.”

His eyes were bright with unshed tears. “That's terrifying.”

“Yeah, well. Fair's fair. You terrify me daily.”

He laughed, wet and beautiful, and tucked the watch into his pocket like it was something precious. Because it was. Because he was.

We stayed for a bit longer, standing in the snow, hands intertwined, watching the light shift on the frozen lake. The ducks had settled into contented silence. The robin had flown off to find breakfast elsewhere. And we were just two men, holding on to each other, refusing to let go.

When we finally walked back toward the estate, the world felt different somehow. Brighter. More solid. Like the future had stopped being something to fear and started being something to build.

Dangerous feeling, that. Hope. Got you killed faster than bullets if you weren't careful.

But walking beside Art, watching him smile at nothing, listening to him speculate about whether the fish would remember us come spring, I couldn't bring myself to care about the danger.

Some things were worth the risk.

He was worth all of it.

TWENTY

UNDER INTERROGATION LIGHTS

ART

Istood outside Finch's office, hand raised to knock, unable to make my knuckles connect with the wood.

The summons had arrived during my shift. A runner, barely eighteen, standing awkwardly at my desk while everyone in Hut X pretended not to watch. “Captain Finch requests your presence at your earliest convenience, Mr Pembroke.” Earliest convenience meaning now. Meaning drop everything. Meaning something had gone wrong.

My hand trembled against the grain of the door.

Knocked before the waiting could stretch any longer.

“Enter.”

The office was smaller than I remembered, or perhaps that was the panic distorting everything. Finch sat behind his desk, spine rigid, uniform immaculate. But as I entered, I noticed something I hadn't seen before: the deep shadows under his eyes, the slight tremor in his hand as he reached for his pen, the way his jaw worked like a man grinding down on something bitter.

He looked exhausted. Not the ordinary tiredness of long hours, but something deeper. The exhaustion of a man carrying weight he couldn't set down.

“Sit down, Mr Pembroke.”

I sat. The chair was hard beneath me, angled awkwardly. My hands found each other in my lap, fingers threading and unthreading in the pattern I'd used since childhood.

Finch watched me fidget for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was quieter than I'd expected.

“Do you know why you're here?”

“No, sir.”