Mal holds my gaze with titanic focus. “I need you to tell him as much as you can without scaring the shit out of him. If you can’t do it, go to Folk or Marc. They’ll help you.”
Folk Whitlock.
Marc Ramsey.
Skylar knows Marc better—he’s a doctor at the hospital—but he’s been out of the Regiment longer than Folk has been a civilian. Retired from combat duty for more than a decade.
Folk can help more.
More than me?
I don’t fucking know.
I rub my eye, out of habit more than anything. It’s been behaving itself since…fuck, I don’t know that either. Maybe since I started sucking Sol’s dick. Does it matter?
“You okay, Jackie?” Sol comes to where I’m lurking by the window with Fiadh at my feet, glaring at the shadowy horizon like I can magic my brother back from the night.
He slides an arm around my waist.
It feels platonic and steadying, like it belongs in the past, and I push it away. “What time is it?”
“Four.”
“Skylar gets off at seven, right?”
“Yeah.”
Sol steps off.
I hate it. I tug him back and fall headlong into the fear swimming in his reddened eyes, his shellshocked gaze everything I’d feel if this kind of military horror wasn’t so engrained in me even a TBI couldn’t shift it.
He doesn’t understand.
“Mal’s not redeploying,” I say carefully, rehearsing for when Skylar comes home. “But these boys are his crew—he knows them better than anyone. He’s the best chance they have of being found.”
“Even if they’ve been captured?”
“Especially if they’ve been captured.”
Sol flinches and I regret the dark words. Know I need to find better ones for the love of my brother’s life.
For the love of mine.
My brain shunts. Or maybe it’s my heart. I blink and Sol leans closer. “All right?”
“Yeah.”
“You should sleep more. I’ll wake you up when Skylar gets home.”
I’m not the one who needs more sleep. Sol looks like he hasn’t shut his eyes in a month. But I sit on the couch anyway. For a few seconds—long enough for Fiadh to claim a cushion. Then I’m up again and back at the window. “Mal can’t lose anymore friends.”
Moth. Raven. Orion. Men who moved heaven and earth to get my brother home to me when he should’ve died in the desert with his best mate.
They’re missing.
Or captured.
Maybe dead.