Melvin nodded.
The ramp lowered.
Light poured into the cargo bay.
They stepped off into open sky. There was no wire, no towers, no red lights, only open space beyond the runway.
For a split second Melvin felt the panther stretch beneath his skin, not in caution but in release.
Mac adjusted his ruck and moved forward.
Melvin fell into step beside him.
Chapter 36 - Mac
Inside the big hangar on post, the air felt cool and too clean, filled with echoing announcements over tinny loudspeakers.
They lined up for packets, ID scans, health evaluations, and reintegration briefings.
The words were meant to soften the landing. Don’t isolate. Reach out. Take your time readjusting.
To Mac, it felt curated. Like someone trying to explain grief to the people still wearing it.
They were assigned temporary rooms. Bunks in a different kind of building. Real walls. Shared bathrooms. Laptops, vending machines, hot showers with steady pressure.
There was no threat here and no wire, just a dull, aching quiet.
Mac dropped his gear inside his assigned room and looked around.
The room felt too clean, too quiet.
His wolf held still.
He set the duffel down and stepped back outside. Melvin was already walking up the path toward him.
Mac sensed him before he saw him.
Melvin’s presence settled beneath his ribs the way it always had. “Yours as sterile as mine?” Mac asked.
Melvin glanced back at the building. “Feels like a hotel where no one smiles.”
They stood in the fading daylight. Melvin rubbed the back of his neck. “Is it weird that I miss the noise?”
Mac thought about the generators, the radios, the constant hum of vigilance that had filled the last year. “No,” he said. “I think the noise is still in us. The silence just makes it louder.”
They didn’t stay there long.
Dinner at the DFAC was quiet. Just food and murmurs and the dull clatter of trays. Diaz nodded from across the room. Laird lifted a short wave. Reynolds sat at the end of another table texting someone, smiling like it hurt.
Mac noticed the subtle tells without trying. Reynolds carried himself differently now. More balanced. More certain in the skin he wore.
Control. Good.
No one said goodbye.
It was too early for that.
They were just learning how to be here. The rest of the evening passed quietly.
