He ran like he did everything else, without apparent effort, the long easy stride of someone who'd covered significant ground in significantly worse conditions than a beautiful Colorado morning. She'd told him she ran fast and she did, her actual pace, no accommodation, and he matched it for four miles without once suggesting they slow down.
It helped. The anger didn't disappear, but it organized itself from the tight compressed pressure behind her sternum into something that had edges, that she could look at and work with. She could use it as a weapon against the bastard who made her leave home and threatened her safety. Not just her physical safety, her emotional safety. And damn it if that didn’t piss her the fuck off. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of fear again. No, now? Now she was angry.
"I keep thinking about the Facebook group," she said, on the way back. "The neighborhood one. I post in there all the time. Lost dog alerts, restaurant recommendations, asking if anyone knows a good electrician." She kept her breathing steady. "He was in all of it. Reading it. Using it."
"Yes."
"It makes everything feel contaminated. Like I have to go back and look at every normal interaction and wonder if it was—" She stopped talking and focused on running for a beat. "I hate that."
"That's a reasonable reaction. He violated your trust in your community."
"I don't want to be paranoid for the rest of my life."
"You won't be." His voice was even. "Right now you're processing a threat. That's not the same as permanent paranoia."
"How do you know the difference?"
"Because paranoia is fear without an object. What you have right now has a very specific object. When the object is neutralized, the fear recalibrates." He glanced at her. "You'll be more careful online and speaking with strangers, even those who claim to be in your neighborhood. That's not a bad thing."
She ran with that for a minute.
"Did you ever—" She picked her words. "After deployments. Did it take a while for things to feel normal again? Like ordinary things?"
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Depends on the deployment." He paused. "Depends on the support."
She looked at him sideways.
"First time back," he said, which she understood was not something he offered easily, "I went to a grocery store andstood in front of the cereal aisle for fifteen minutes because the number of choices felt unreasonable and overwhelming. Why are there so many brands and types of cereal?"
She laughed. "What did you do?"
"Picked the first one I reached out and touched. Went home. Ate it for three weeks."
"Did you even like it?"
"Didn't matter. It was decided."
She was still laughing when they reached the outskirts of the compound, and the laugh metabolized the last of the compressed anger, and by the time they came through the gate she felt lighter than she had since she'd arrived.
She stopped at the porch steps, hands on her knees, catching her breath.
He stopped beside her. Not even winded.
"That's infuriating," she told him.
"What is?"
"That you're not tired."
"I'm tired."
She straightened and looked at him. He looked exactly the same as he had at the start. "You are not tired."
"I'm tired on the inside."
