The sound of my own voice makes every single man behind me freeze on the spot. I feel it. The whole little formation of them stop without knowing what else to do. They’re used to me giving orders. They’re not used to seeing me on my knees in the snow with my hands on my dead brother.
I drag him closer, my grip viciously tight around him now, because some primitive part of me still thinks enough force might change something.
And then the next thought hits.
Vladimir.
Vladimir will grow up without him.
The system will write a line, update a file and shift duties around. Men will go back to work, Vladimir will wake, cry, eat, learn to walk properly, and one day know there was meant to be a man there who would have taught him—
I lift my head and look around for anything with a face I can blame, something, anything I can put my hands on, but there’s nothing.
This place did this.
This system did this.
All the patience, all the caution, all the careful little fucking compromises. None of it saved Cassie. None of it saved Niko. It doesn’t save anyone. It just teaches you how to watch the losses one at a time and call that survival.
The medic says my name again, quieter now. I bare my teeth at him to keep him back, then I look down at Nikoagain because if I don’t, I’m going to stand up and break the first thing within reach.
I reach into his jacket and find his tags. They’re warmer than the rest of him. That nearly kills me on the spot. I close my fist around them until the edges cut into my palm.
“I’ve got you,” I say. The words sound useless the second they leave my mouth.
I’m too late. Hours too late.
The men move once I give the order, and I don’t give it until my breathing has slowed enough for my voice to sound like mine. Even then it feels wrong taking my hands off him. A stretcher appears, and I move back just far enough to let them work and watch every second of it.
Their hands are careful. Gentle, even. They lift him. They secure him. They check twice. None of it matters. It’s just a body now. The man I know is already gone somewhere none of us can reach.
Snow keeps falling while they work, softening everything it touches. I force myself not to look away because looking away would feel too much like leaving him there.
When they lift him fully and the place where he lay becomes just a dark red stain already fading into the snow, everything in me turns numb.
By the time we get back to base, whatever shock might have softened this, even slighty, has burned off, leaving something colder behind.
The transfer is handled quietly and efficiently, routed through all the channels designed to keep things from becoming anyone else’s problem. I sign what needs signing. I answer what needs answering. I don’t raise my voice and I don’t lose control.
The men around me relax when they realise that I won’t.
And I fucking despise them for it.
Niko’s flat is dark when I finally get there, hours later, after everything that had to be done has been done. The silence inside is worse than the site itself.
I unlock the door and step in carefully, closing it behind me without a sound. The room is exactly as it was the last time I was here. At the site, there was snow and blood. Here, there’s just the fact that he should be in this room and isn’t.
I move through the flat without touching more than I have to. The nursery door is open. The cot is empty because Vladimir is elsewhere right now.
That thought doesn’t comfort me in the slightest.
I sink into the chair by the cot and let my hands rest on my thighs. This should be the point where grief looks recognisable. Tears, maybe, or even collapse.
Instead, there’s nothing.
Niko trusted this place enough to keep going. Not me, that trust dies with him.
Niko tried to get himself back together after Cassie died and then tried not to become another burden in a world already full of them.
