He followed them in.
For a heartbeat, he saw Blair ahead of him, framed in smoke and chaos, moving with Tier 1 operators like she had done it her whole life.
Then she turned the corner, and he lost sight of her.
The bottom dropped out of his gut, and he grabbed Kodiak’s arm as he passed. “Keep your eyes on them,” he said.
“Of course, brother,” he promised.
Breakneck hit the nearest wall, took a knee, weapon up, heart slamming like artillery, and realized too late that he was breathing too fast. He forced it slower, forced his mind to slot the information back into patterns.
He listened.
Gunfire. Shouts. The harsh bark of commands.
Blair’s voice came through his earpiece, clear and calm.
“I’ve got left.”
He closed his eyes for the span of one breath. He would never admit it to anyone, not even himself, but the sound of her voice in that moment was the only thing keeping the edges of him from coming apart.
He shifted to cover the doorway, taking the angle that would keep anything from flanking them. He had so much he wanted to protect, the least of all, his heart.
16
Naval Academy Dock, Annapolis, Maryland
Than didn’t stand where Fly had put him because he was steady. He stood there because he was frozen.
The shock hadn’t even begun to metabolize. It had only seemed like a few minutes ago, he had been holding her, planning a life, navigating the logistics of separation with the quiet certainty that they would bridge the distance. He had told her he loved her. She had said it back. The sound of her voice still rang in his ears, warm and sure, drowning out the wind and the slap of water against the hull.
He was a naval officer in the making, trained for emergencies, drilled in crisis response. He knew the protocol. He knew he should be scanning the horizon, securing gear, helping Fly manage the boat. His body refused. The tether snapping was the only thing his mind would play, over and over. That single, final sound.
He stared at the water, eyes fixed and unblinking, but he wasn’t seeing the chop or the darkening swell. He was seeing the empty space where she had been. The deck still felt like her. The air held the faint impression of her presence, as if she had only just stepped out of reach.
His hands were locked on the rail, knuckles white, tendons standing out along his forearms. He wasn’t shaking. He was vibrating, a frequency so tight it felt like it might split him apart. The calm that defined him was gone, replaced by a hollow, ringing void.
He should have grabbed her. He had lunged, but not fast enough. Not close enough. Training had failed him. Instinct had failed him. The water had taken her anyway.
When Fly called for the search, Than didn’t move. He couldn’t. His legs felt fused to the deck. It wasn’t insubordination. It was a complete system failure. His mind rejected what it had seen, replaying the last seconds again and again, trying to force a different ending where his hand closed around hers.
“Than.”
Fly’s voice cut through the wind.
Than didn’t respond. He kept staring at the dark, indifferent water, breath coming in short, sharp pulls that didn’t seem to reach his lungs. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a quieter voice kept insisting that it wasn’t over. People survived worse. Someone could find her. She could reach shore. Boats were still scattered across the bay. But every instinct he had learned from a lifetime near water was telling him something else.
The storm had come too fast, waves were too big, and the search had already stretched too wide. Than kept staring anyway, as if the next swell might lift her out of the gray water and prove that voice wrong. The space opening inside his chest was vast and echoing, and he had no idea how to stand inside it.
Hands found him.
He didn’t know whose at first. Someone peeled his fingers from the rail one by one, gentle but firm, like they’d done this before. Another hand came to his elbow, steering him without asking. Than went because resistance would have required decision, and he had none left.
Valor lurched hard beneath them as a swell rolled through the marina, the hull knocking once against the fenders before settling again.
The rain came down harder as Valor eased alongside the dock, cold needles driving through his soaked clothes. The storm was fully awake now. Wind tore at everything loose. Water hammered the bay like it was trying to erase what had happened.
“Easy,” someone said near his ear.
