The anger that’s been simmering snaps hot and fast. Not because she’s done something wrong. Because fear always gets to rage first with me. Because seeing her out here alone, half-recovered and spread out in the rain like she’s daring the earth to keep her upright, does something ugly to my pulse.
I close the distance in long strides, stopping just short of where she lies. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t even flinch.
I yank one side of her headphones down. “Your father’s been calling you,” I snap. “You don’t get to disappear like this.”
Her eyes finally shift to me, slow and tired, not defensive. That should’ve stopped me. It doesn’t. Or maybe it does and I’m just already too far into the momentum of being scared.
“He’s worried,” I continue, voice rising despite myself. “So here’s how this goes—you call him back, or I do. And if I do, I don’t filter a damn thing. He gets all of it.”
Still nothing. No argument. No fire. No sharp little remark meant to shove me back on my heels.
She just looks back up at the sky, rain slicking over her cheekbones, voice quiet when she finally speaks. “I’m not ignoring him.”
“Then what the hell are you doing?” I demand.
She exhales, long and measured, like she’s choosing her words carefully because even that takes energy now. “I needed to be somewhere on the ground,” she says. “Somewhere solid. If I’m upright too long, it feels like I’m falling. Constantly. Like I never actually landed.”
The words hit harder than any shout could have.
My anger stutters, loses momentum so fast it almost leaves me dizzy. I look at her differently now—not defiant, not careless. Just trying to exist inside her own skin without breaking. Trying to negotiate with gravity and memory and whatever the hell those men left inside her head.
Every instinct in me screams to sit down beside her. To block the rain with my body. To pull her close and anchor her the way I know how. To put my hand on the back of her neck and tell her the ground isn’t going anywhere, that neither am I, that if she needs something solid I can be that for her even if it kills me.
I don’t.
Because wanting her doesn’t make it right. And wanting her doesn’t make it safe. And I have wanted enough destructive things in my life to know the shape of ruin when I see it.
I straighten, forcing distance back into my bones. “Call him,” I say, quieter now. “Please.”
She doesn’t answer, just reaches for her phone with slow, deliberate movements. Fingers stiff. Breathing measured. Like even obeying me now costs her something I have no right to ask for. I take a step back, then another, giving her space I don’t want to give.
As I turn to leave, her voice drifts after me, barely audible over the rain. “Hey, Dad.”
It shouldn’t feel like a victory.
But it does.
I keep walking, hands clenched at my sides, rain soaking into my jacket as the sound of her voice fades behind me. I don’t look back. If I do, I might not leave. And if I don’t leave, I might sit beside her. And if I sit beside her, I’m not sure I’ll remember how to get back up.
I don’t get more than twenty yards before the sound cuts through the rain.
The low thump of rotor blades, slow at first, then building—heavy, unmistakable. A chopper spooling up. The kind of sound that doesn’t belong to drills or transport runs, not this close to dusk, not without warning.
My steps slow. Then stop.
Instinct overrides everything else.
I turn toward the noise, boots already changing direction before my head catches up, rain slicking the concrete as I move along the perimeter road toward the helipad. The sky above is bruised gray, the last of the sun burning low and sharp at thehorizon, caught in the spinning blades as they begin to blur. The air shifts with the force of it, wet wind whipping my jacket open.
This isn’t routine.
I round the corner and see Larkin immediately, ponytail soaked, jacket already strapped tight, clipboard discarded on the ground near the skids. A crew is loading up fast—no chatter, no wasted motion. Rifles slung, packs cinched, helmets clipped on with practiced efficiency. Faces already gone blank with the kind of focus that means they know exactly where they’re headed and what might not come back with them.
My jaw tightens.
“What the hell is this?” I call over the growing roar.
