Chapter 12
Captain Jonathan
King is counting weapons like it’s a religion.
Out loud. Slow. Deliberate. Each piece laid out with obsessive precision across the metal table, his fingers moving with the easy familiarity of someone who’s done this too many times to still feel anything about it.
Magazines. Sidearms. Knives. Comms. Each one lined up like a prayer answered in steel.
“Thirty-six,” he mutters. “Thirty-seven. You know, if one of these goes missing, I’m blaming you.”
I don’t respond. I’m standing by the open storage cage, arms crossed, gaze unfocused as I watch him work.
The fluorescent lights overhead hum softly, the air smelling like oil and steel and disinfectant.
Everything here is controlled. Cataloged.
Predictable. The kind of room built to make men feel like chaos can be sorted into neat rows if you just stack enough ammunition between yourself and the world.
Unlike my head.
Nurses finally stopped flinching when I walked past the med bay, stopped pretending I didn’t intimidate the hell out of them every time I asked if she was really ready to be discharged.
Bedrest. Limited activity. Observation. As if any of that means something when the real damage can’t be seen on a scan.
As if a chart can tell me whether she’s sleeping or whether every white hallway on this base still makes her feel like she’s suffocating.
I tell myself I’m thinking about Mikhail. About the pattern Moe’s running through processors in Seaborn. About timing and logistics and retaliation. About the fact that men like Mikhail don’t stay still long enough to regret anything.
I tell myself a lot of things.
My phone rings.
The sound cuts sharp through the room, and something in my chest tightens before I even look at the screen. I already know. Some instincts don’t need confirmation.
Her father’s name stares back at me. Will.
I answer it on the second ring. “Jon.”
There’s no accusation in his voice. That somehow makes it worse.
“Hey,” he says, too casual, too careful. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of Delilah. She hasn’t called, hasn’t texted. That’s not like her.”
I straighten, forcing calm into my posture, into my tone. Years of command smooth my voice into something steady and unremarkable. “She’s been busy,” I say. “School schedule’s been heavy. I can see if I can track her down.”
A pause. I can hear the unspoken worry in it, the kind that only comes from knowing your kid too well. “I’d appreciate that,” he says quietly. “Just… have her call me when you find her, yeah?”
“Of course,” I reply. “I’ll make sure she does.”
We hang up, and the moment the call ends, the pressure I’ve been holding back slams into place behind my ribs.
My jaw tightens hard enough to ache. It feels like swallowing a live wire.
One more lie stacked on top of all the others.
One more thing I’m keeping together with both hands and a bad excuse.
King looks up from the table, one eyebrow lifting. “Trouble in paradise?”
I shoot him a look sharp enough to draw blood. “Inventory good?”
“Perfect,” he says, smirking. “Unlike your mood.”
I don’t dignify that with a response. I’m already moving, phone in hand, boots hitting the concrete floor with purpose. I don’t slow, don’t explain. I don’t trust myself to.
King’s voice follows me as I shove through the door. “Tell her I said hi!”
I don’t flip him off. That’s restraint. Barely.
The rain hits me the second I step outside.
Not heavy—more like a persistent drizzle that soaks through without asking permission.
The sky is split between gray and gold, sunlight breaking through in thin, defiant streaks that catch on wet pavement and glass.
Everything smells like wet earth and ozone and the sharp metallic scent the air gets right before dark.
And there she is.
Delilah is stretched out on the grassy hill just beyond the perimeter fence, jacket spread beneath her like she doesn’t care if it gets ruined.
One knee bent, one leg straight, boots muddy, headphones in.
Rain darkens her hair, clings to her lashes, beads on her throat and tracks down the column of it in slow, silver lines.
The grass around her is flattened by the damp, and still she looks like she belongs to the ground more than the base ever did.
She looks… still.
Too still.
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 the horizon, 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.
Larkin looks up, eyes narrowing just slightly before she schools her expression. “Opportunity,” she shouts back. “Tide just called in from Seaborn. The pattern’s holding. Movements, supply shifts, comm blackouts—it’s lining up exactly where we thought it would.”
The words hit, and something inside me locks into place.
Mikhail.
The hours Moe’s been running processors.
The map Delilah sketched without realizing what she’d built.
The quiet dread that’s been humming under my skin since the SUV disappeared into the dark and Mikhail didn’t die with it.
The man standing on that roof, calm as a god, while I drove her away bleeding.
“This isn’t a drill,” I say, already walking closer. “You’re sending a team out.”
“Yes,” Larkin replies. “And before you say it—”
“I’m going,” I cut in.
She scoffs, incredulous. “Absolutely not. You don’t even know this unit.”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“They’ve trained for this op,” she snaps. “They’re fresh, clean, and not emotionally compromised.”
That last word lands sharp. Like a slap wrapped in professionalism. Like she wants to see if I’ll flinch.
I step up to the edge of the pad, rain whipping against my face, chopper wind tugging at my jacket hard enough to sting. “This has been my mission from the start. Mikhail doesn’t move without me knowing why, and he doesn’t get cornered without me being there to finish it.”
Larkin folds her arms, posture rigid. “You’ve been off-center for days.”
“And now I’m focused,” I fire back. “Which is more than I’ve been in days.”
Her gaze searches my face, measuring, calculating. She knows me well enough to hear the truth under the anger. This isn’t recklessness. It’s inevitability. It’s the moment the knife finally finds the hand that belongs on it.
“Tide says the window is small,” she says finally. “If we move now, we catch Mikhail mid-transition. If we wait—”
“He vanishes,” I finish. “I know.”
The rotors are a blur now, the noise deafening. One of the operators glances our way, waiting. Rain turns to mist in the wash, peppering my face and neck.
Larkin exhales sharply, rain dripping from the brim of her cap. “You’re not leading.”
“I don’t need to,” I reply. “I just need eyes on the ground.”
A beat. Then another.
Finally, she jerks her chin toward the chopper. “Gear up. But if this goes sideways, it’s on you.”
I don’t hesitate. I move past her, grabbing a helmet from the rack, muscle memory taking over as I strap in.
The world narrows the way it always does before an op—sounds dull, thoughts sharpen, emotions shoved somewhere deep and locked down.
Every buckle clicked into place feels like a promise.
Every weapon checked feels like a prayer with teeth.
As I climb into the chopper, I catch a glimpse of the hill through the chain-link fence, rain softening the edges of everything.
Delilah is still there, a small figure against the earth, phone to her ear.
One hand tangled in wet grass. Head tilted like she’s listening harder than speaking.
She looks alone in a way that digs something cruel under my ribs.
For a split second, guilt claws up my spine.
Then the doors slam shut, and the chopper lifts, the ground dropping away beneath us.
Mikhail is moving, and I am done letting him.