Wolakota, something deep inside whispered again. Balance, not stillness.
Zorro rested a hand lightly on her elbow. “You with me?”
“I am.”
“Then we walk.”
He matched her pace, close enough to catch her if she faltered. The team moved around them, quiet, efficient. At the creek, he rechecked her vitals and retied the sling.
“How’s the world?” he asked.
“Less dark,” she said. “Better.”
“Good.” He secured her weapon so it wouldn’t drag her arm. “That’s enough for now.”
A breeze slipped through the leaves, bringing a faint trace of sage. Memory, not air.
Wóchekiye, her grandmother’s voice said again. If you must call out, let it be a call home.
Bailee didn’t pray. She just breathed. The words settled behind her ribs where Zorro had listened. She stepped into the creek, Raider pacing at her side, men at her back.
“Exfil grid in six,” D-Day called.
Suddenly in the distance, a dark cloud parted, and her cousin moved through it like death itself. You forgot me. Everyone forgot all of us.
Zorro looked over. “Bailee?”
She couldn’t see Zorro anymore, the black edges were claiming all the available light. “No,” she whispered. “Guilt took me. Shame caged me.”
Strong arms caught her as her mind slipped away into a place that only existed in visions, her body just as dead weight as her arm. Something deeper moved through the ground and the trees and the water. It didn’t come from a voice. It didn’t need one. That word that was entwined in sinew and bone, in flesh and in blood, in history and ancestry.
Wolakota rolled through her again, low and steady, balance in motion.
The jungle didn’t stop being hot or dangerous. It didn’t care about the wreck, the dead, or the map still burned into her mind. It just breathed, and for the first time, she realized that breath included her.
Her thoughts reached for logic and hit a wall. Then the wall gave way, opening like a path. Maybe I haven’t been forgotten. Maybe I was listening to the wrong message.
She had spent years searching for a voice that sounded like ceremony and never heard one. But the land spoke differently, slower, patient, sure. Was the silence she’d feared not judgment after all. It had shape. It had presence. It was full.
Her breath caught, a tremor more than a sob. It wasn’t weakness, just release. The part of her that lived by training tried to pin it down, to label it, to file it away as data she could control. But the shame was quick, and it reached for her again, the same cold voice whispering, I was chosen, but never enough.
The words felt hollow and far away. They still hurt, but not the same way.
The memory of the dead support officers pressed against the edges of her thoughts, doors she’d have to open later. Beyond them stood her cousin at the place where the river met shadow, waiting for something…her? The women behind were swallowed up in that black cloud. Their voices silenced, their absences ringing with neglect.
Wolakota settled behind her breastbone, in the small place that had always been locked. The lock was still there, but the door had cracked open, by pain, by shame, by a quiet that wasn’t being understood.
She had seen her truth, and it had seen her.
Shame hadn’t vanished. It just sat quietly in the corner, waiting for the day she’d be strong enough to face it.
This isn’t living, Bailee. This isn’t even existence. This is a shade trying to find substance. Search for yours. Find it where you were made. Find it or die. Inside, outside. It doesn’t matter. Death will have the last word. Will you let it speak for you?
The jungle swayed around her, green blurring to gold as the light shifted. Her arm throbbed in sync with her heartbeat, every pulse a reminder of failure. Not of skill, but of control.
She let her body rest in their shielding arms, the smell of loam grounding her. Somewhere in the distance, the thump of helicopter blades grew louder. Relief and exhaustion tangled together.
As her eyes drifted closed, she thought, not of the mission, not of her injuries, but of his voice. That calm, immovable tone that he used to anchor her.
