Captain Jonathan
Seven days. That’s how long I’ve been chasing ghosts, watching every lead slip through my fingers like water no matter how tight I try to hold. Seven straight days of cross-border negotiations, of bluffing intel I don’t have and pretending I’m not unraveling at the seams. Seven days of listening to encrypted voice files I wish I could forget—King’s silence pressed against static, Delilah’s breath hitching between the cracks of someone else’s questions. No answers. No mercy. Just the hollow sound of resilience bleeding out.
They’re torturing me by torturing them, and the worst part is—it’s working.
I’ve barely left this room. The overhead lights buzz like they’re mocking me, casting everything in a sterile white that feels too clean for what’s happening. The air is stale, conditioned, recycled one too many times. The map on the table is covered in inked-up guesses and red-ringed dead ends, and none of it matters. Not when every hour I don’t find them, I’m imagining a hundred ways they’re being broken down—bone by bone, secret by secret.
I don’t say it out loud, not even to myself, but there are moments—sick, shameful moments—where I almost wish King would give in. Not because I want him to break. I don’t. But because maybe then, maybe for a second, they’d stop hurting her.
That thought alone makes my chest burn like I swallowed a mouthful of acid. She’s not supposed to be there. Delilah’s not trained for this level of warfare—at least not the kind that gets in your head and makes you forget who you are. She’s smart, sharp, stubborn as hell, but none of that matters when they’re determined to unravel you cell by cell. And I can’t stop imagining her in some windowless room with blood on her knees and defiance still in her eyes, and God help me, I want to tear the world apart to find her.
I yank the cigar from my mouth and blow smoke toward the ceiling, jaw clenched tight enough to splinter teeth. The paper map beneath my hands curls at the edges from where I’ve burned holes into it—little punishments to a sheet that can’t give me answers. I’ve stared at it so long the red ink is starting to blur, all the lines bleeding together like every failed attempt I’ve made to bring them back.
My burner phone buzzes against the desk.
I don’t need to check the ID. I know the ringtone—low, old-school, the kind you don’t forget once you assign it to a ghost who still thinks he has a daughter in Europe.
Delilah’s father. Will.
I hesitate, just for a second. It’s not fear. It’s guilt. Heavy, low-sitting guilt that rots in the stomach and sours the soul. He doesn’t know. Still sends care packages to a PO box that no one checks, still emails her links to articles she’ll never read, still tells people she’s “abroad for school” and beams when he says it.
I answer on the third ring, voice thick. “Captain.”
His tone is warm, familiar. Hopeful in a way that feels like a knife between my ribs. “Any updates from my girl?”
There’s a silence that stretches between us. I feel it in my molars, in the back of my throat where truth tries to rise and shame forces it back down. I stare at the wall like it might give me words. It doesn’t.
“Reports on her have been busy,” I say finally, and my voice is rougher than I mean it to be. “Looks like she’s been buried in coursework. You know how she is. I’m sure she hasn’t even picked up your Christmas box… from last Christmas.”
He laughs softly, that kind of dad-laugh that wraps around your ribs if you’re not careful. “Sounds like her. Always pushing it to the last minute, that girl. Just like her mom used to.”
I close my eyes, leaning back in the chair until it creaks under my weight. I can almost see it—the way his face softens when he talks about them. His wife. His kid. The life he thought he was saving by walking away from all of this.
“She still wearing those ridiculous big socks?” he asks, chuckling. “You remember? Used to slide around on the kitchen floor, damn near break her neck every Sunday morning.”
My throat tightens. “Yeah,” I lie. “Yeah, I remember.”
He keeps talking. Letting memories spill out in a way he never used to when we were young and stupid and thought we’d die before we hit forty. He tells me about the way she used to dance around the kitchen in socks too big for her feet. How she called every dog she met ‘best friend.’ How he always knew she was meant for something more. How he’s proud of her for “doing the school thing,” even if she doesn’t call enough.
I let him talk. Let him reminisce. I don’t interrupt. I let every word slice through my composure until I can barely breathe through the weight of what I haven’t told him. Every second I keep his world intact is another second I’m lying through my teeth. But shattering him won’t bring her home. Not yet.
When he finally hangs up, I sit there with the phone still in my hand and the silence pressing hard against my skull. The ache behind my eyes has nothing to do with lack of sleep and everything to do with the fact that I’m failing the one promise I never should’ve made. I told him I’d keep her safe. And right now, I don’t even know if she’s alive.
I don’t think. I just move.
Her quarters are two floors down, still sealed and untouched since the day she didn’t come back. The hallway is dimmer here, quieter, the kind of quiet people walk past on purpose. The door hisses when I key in the code, and the second it opens, it hits me—her scent. Faint but distinct, like coconut shampoo and leather and something warmer, softer underneath. The ghost of perfume she never admitted to wearing.
I step inside slowly, like I might wake the memory of her if I move too fast.
The room is small, neat in the way only she could manage—organized chaos with intent. Her boots are still under the cot, toes lined up like they’re waiting for morning drill. Her jacket is slung over the back of her chair, one sleeve half inside out where she tugged it off in a hurry. On the desk sits a protein bar half-eaten beside a stack of mission reports, pen uncapped and lying across the top page like she meant to come back any second.
I sit on the edge of her bed, elbows resting on my knees, and for the first time in days, I let myself exhale. The mattress gives just enough under my weight, a reminder of how small she is compared to everything she’s taken on.
Something hard presses into my palm beneath the pillow. I reach for it and pull out her iPod.
That old piece of shit I gave her two Christmases ago, still scratched and stubbornly functioning. I told her it was outdated, but she rolled her eyes and said vintage was in. We both knew itwasn’t about the tech—it was about the thought. She was always better at pretending not to care than actually not caring.
The overhead lights in the makeshift rec room are dimmed low, strung with cheap red and green bulbs someone probably picked up from the corner store last-minute. The heat is too high, sweat clinging to the back of my neck beneath the collar of my dress shirt, sleeves already rolled to my elbows. Someone queues up a Christmas playlist that is now three hours deep into the “acoustic and moody” section. It isn’t festive—it’s melancholy with a side of cinnamon whiskey.
