Chapter 6 #2
Joined the Army. Became someone else. Someone harder. Someone who didn’t look back because looking back meant seeing everything you’d lost. I let Valentine—and everything in it—fade into something that felt more like a dream than a life I’d actually lived.
Easier that way. Cleaner. You couldn't miss what you didn't think about.
I wondered where she'd ended up. If she was happy.
If she'd married some guy who deserved her more than I ever could have—some guy who stayed, who built a life instead of running from one.
If she ever thought about those summers the way I sometimes did in the dark hours before dawn when memory was stronger than discipline.
"Mr. Dane?"
I looked up, blinking away the past like smoke. The hostess stood nearby, her expression polite and patient.
"Your flight is ready."
I drained the whiskey in one swallow, the burn familiar and grounding, set the tumbler down on the polished table, and stood. My body moved automatically, muscle memory taking over—grab the duffel, check for wallet and phone, move with purpose even when you don't know where you're going.
She led me through a side door and out onto the tarmac, the air carrying the sharp smell of jet fuel and heated asphalt. The plane waited thirty yards away—sleek, white, expensive in a way that didn't need to announce itself with logos or branding. Just clean lines and quiet power.
I climbed the stairs, ducking slightly as I stepped through the doorway, and immediately felt the temperature drop—climate controlled, perfectly calibrated for comfort.
The interior was immaculate. Cream leather seats that looked like they'd never been sat in.
Polished wood accents catching the soft overhead lighting.
Everything designed to make you feel important without being ostentatious about it.
A steward stood near the cockpit, young and professional, his smile perfectly calibrated—friendly but not familiar, attentive but not intrusive.
"Welcome aboard, Mr. Dane. Please, make yourself comfortable."
I dropped into one of the seats, the leather sighing under my weight, and before I'd even fastened my belt, we were moving. Smooth acceleration. No waiting. No other passengers to board. Just me and whoever was flying this thing and the question of what the hell I'd agreed to.
The steward appeared at my elbow before we'd even reached the runway. "Can I get you anything? We're fully stocked."
I looked up at him, reading nothing in his pleasant expression. "Fully stocked?"
His smile didn't waver. "Pretty much anything you'd like, sir. All you have to do is ask."
For some reason—maybe the whiskey still warm in my veins, maybe the exhaustion of a day that had already stretched too long, maybe the way this entire experience felt like stepping sideways into someone else's life—I thought of Sophie again.
Those summers. The pool. Her standing at the snack bar, deliberating over ice cream flavors like it was the most important decision she'd make all week, biting her bottom lip while she considered.
"You have ice cream?"
"We do, sir."
"Rocky road?"
"Absolutely. I'll bring it right out."
He disappeared toward the back of the cabin, moving with practiced efficiency, as the engines roared to life beneath us.
The plane accelerated, smooth and powerful, pressing me back into the seat.
Then we were airborne—nose lifting, ground falling away, Charleston-bound with ice cream on the way and reality suspended somewhere below the clouds.
I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes, the hum of the engines a white noise that almost felt like peace.
Where did you end up, Sophie?
The question lingered, unanswered, as we climbed higher into the sky.
The flight was short—barely three hours, not enough time to sleep but too long to stay fully alert. I spent most of it staring out the window, watching clouds swallow the landscape below until there was nothing but white and then the clear blue above.
The ice cream came and went—good, better than airplane food had any right to be, the marshmallows still soft, the chocolate rich.
The steward checked on me twice, offering drinks and snacks and anything else I might need with that same calibrated friendliness.
I declined. Didn't want to talk. Didn't want company.
Just wanted to get wherever I was going and figure out what the hell I'd agreed to by getting on this plane.
By the time we descended into Charleston, the city spreading out beneath us in rivers of light and shadow, I still didn't know what I was walking into. Still didn't know if this was opportunity or trap or something in between.
The landing was smooth. Professional. The kind of thing you stopped noticing after enough flights—just a slight bump as wheels touched asphalt, engines reversing, speed bleeding away until we were taxiing toward a private hangar that looked more like a modern art installation than a building.
A black SUV waited on the tarmac, engine idling, windows tinted so dark I couldn't see inside.
The driver stepped out as I descended the stairs—older, maybe sixty, with silver threading through his dark hair.
He wore a simple black suit, no tie, and moved with the economical precision of someone who'd spent time in the military and never quite left it behind.
He nodded once, taking my duffel without asking and stowing it in the back with practiced efficiency. "Mr. Dane. Welcome to Charleston."
I climbed into the passenger seat without comment. The interior smelled like leather and faint cologne, everything clean and maintained to the point of obsession.
He pulled away from the plane without asking for directions, navigating through the private section of the airport like he'd done it a thousand times before, probably with passengers just as confused as I was.
"Where to?" he said after a moment, his voice neutral, offering choice without judgment.
I'd expected to be taken straight to Dominion Hall. Whatever that was. Whoever Micah worked for. Expected the decision to be made for me, the way most things were in my life now—orders given, missions assigned, destinations predetermined.
But if they weren't forcing my hand …
"Water," I said.
He glanced at me, expression unchanged. "Beach or harbor?"
"Which is closer?"
"Harbor."
"Harbor, then."
He nodded and merged onto the highway without another word, letting the silence settle between us like an agreement neither of us needed to discuss.
Charleston unfolded around us as we drove—old buildings and narrow streets, church steeples silhouetted against a sky that still held the last traces of daylight like it wasn't quite ready to let go.
The sun was setting, casting everything in shades of gold and amber, softening the edges of a city that felt caught between centuries, unable or unwilling to choose which version of itself to be.
I'd been to Charleston a handful of times over the years.
Guys on my team who'd served nearby, who knew the bars and the best places to eat oysters and drink beer until the sun came up and you forgot, temporarily, what you did for a living.
We'd come for long weekends between deployments, blowing off steam, pretending we were normal people living normal lives.
I'd always thought it was an odd sort of place—a city better suited for the old world but trying hard to be new, like it couldn't quite decide what it wanted to be.
Beautiful in a way that felt like it knew what it was and refused to apologize for being a museum that people still lived in, still loved, still couldn't quite leave.
The view hadn't changed. The feeling hadn't either.
The driver navigated with quiet efficiency, turning down streets lined with historic homes and sprawling oaks, their branches heavy with Spanish moss that swayed in the evening breeze like something alive and ancient.
Gas lamps flickered to life as we passed, casting warm pools of light onto cobblestone streets that had been walked for centuries.
We pulled up near the aquarium, the harbor stretching wide and glittering beyond it, water reflecting the dying light in shades of copper and rose and deep purple.
"There you go," the driver said, nodding toward the water. "Nice night for it."
I couldn't disagree. The sky was bleeding pink and orange and deep purple, the sun slipping lower, casting the world in a hue that felt too beautiful for the weight I was carrying, too perfect for a man who'd spent the day killing coyotes and watching his mother forget his face.
"You want me to stick around?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I'll find a place to stay after."
He reached into the console and handed me a card—simple, black, a phone number embossed in silver. Nothing else. No name. No company. No explanation. "Call anytime. Day or night. Someone will come."
I took it, turning it over in my hand, feeling the weight of the card stock, another mystery in a day full of them. "Thanks."
He pulled away smoothly, leaving me standing on the sidewalk, duffel slung over one shoulder, the harbor stretching endlessly ahead like an invitation I didn't know how to accept.
People were everywhere.
Couples walking hand in hand, leaning into each other like gravity worked differently for them.
Families with kids chasing each other along the waterfront, their laughter carrying on the breeze like it was the easiest thing in the world.
Groups of tourists clustered around street performers and food vendors, phones out, documenting everything because if you didn't photograph it, did it even happen.
The smell of fried seafood and salt water mixed with music drifting from nearby restaurants—jazz, maybe, or something bluesy and worn.
It should've been peaceful.
It wasn't.