Lila
Hampton, Virginia
The crowd has thinned, leaving only shadows and silence in its wake. I find Logan standing alone by Ryan's boots and rifle. His shoulders are stiff, his posture rigid, like he's holding himself together by sheer will. I don’t think he even hears me approach.
The sight snaps something inside me, unraveling memories I’ve kept buried beneath layers of time and fragile acceptance.
Lincoln's memorial was drenched in sunlight, an insult to the darkness swallowing us whole. I remember the sharp creases of Dad’s uniform, the way his hands trembled when he thought no one was looking.
Mom’s vacant stare, as if she’d been hollowed out from the inside.
The folded flag she’d pushed into my hands before breaking down in Dad’s arms. It felt heavier than anything I’d ever carried, weighted with all the words he’d never get to say, all the years he'd never get to live.
The ache in my chest is old but familiar, a wound that never fully healed. I swallow it down, pushing the grief back into the corners where it usually hides, and step closer.
“Logan.” My voice is soft, tentative.
He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even glance at me. His jaw tightens, a muscle feathering along his cheek, and his eyes stay locked on the memorial as if looking away might make it disappear. This space between us is something we don’t know how to navigate.
Without a word, he finally turns and starts walking toward the parking lot.
I fall into step beside him, the silence stretching long and taut, but not uncomfortable.
When we reach his truck, he opens the door for me, a simple gesture that feels meaningful even though it seems automatic for Logan.
I climb in without a word, and he rounds the front, sliding behind the wheel.
The drive to my house is quiet. I don’t know what to say. Maybe there isn’t anything to say. Maybe this silence is the language of grief, and we both speak it fluently.
When we arrive, he kills the engine and steps out, circling the truck to walk me to my door. I hesitate, my hand on the knob, then glance up at him. “Do you want to come in?”
His eyes meet mine for the first time since the memorial, something raw flickering in their depths.
He doesn’t answer right away, but after a beat, he nods.
He steps inside, dropping his flight cap on the entry table without a glance.
I close the door behind him, and when I turn, he’s standing there, staring at the floor like he doesn’t know what to do next.
Physically, he looks incredible in his service dress, filling out the uniform perfectly, the fabric pristine, his tie slightly loosened.
The black sling keeps his injured shoulder in place, but rather than making him seem weak, it somehow makes him more compelling, chipping away at the untouchable, invincible version of him I built in my head and leaving behind someone real.
Emotionally, he’s wrung out. His face is pale, his eyes red-rimmed and glassy. The weight of his pain is written all over him, pressing down on his shoulders, making his towering frame seem smaller somehow.
I step closer, hesitating for only a moment before I reach for him. “Come here,” I murmur.
That’s all it takes. He pulls me against his strong chest with his uninjured arm, clutching me so tightly it almost hurts. His body trembles against mine, and I feel his breath hitch as he buries his face in my shoulder.
“I’m so sorry,” he chokes out, his voice breaking.
My arms wrap around him, holding him as close as I can. “You don’t have to apologize. I’ve got you. I’m here.”
He shakes his head against me. “That was so fucking hard, Lila.” His voice is raw, shredded. “Seeing his parents, his brother…hearing them say goodbye to him… It was… I thought I was going to lose it.”
I don’t say anything, instead I just press my hand to the back of his neck, running my fingers through his freshly cut hair.
“He was my best friend,” Logan continues, his words muffled against me. “He had so much ahead of him. He didn’t deserve this.”
Tears sting my eyes, but I fight them back. He doesn’t need me to cry. He needs me to be strong for him. “No, he didn’t,” I say softly. “But he’d be so proud of you. The way you honored him today, Logan…I know he’d be proud.”
He pulls back just enough to look at me, his gray-blue eyes swimming with anguish. “I didn’t say enough. I couldn’t get the words out.”
“I know you said what mattered,” I tell him, brushing my thumbs over his cheeks. “You showed how much you loved him. That’s what everyone saw.”
His jaw tightens, and he looks away, a tear slipping down his cheek. “It’s not fair. None of this is fucking fair.”
“I know,” I whisper. “It’s not.”
For a long moment, we just stand there in silence. Then he pulls me into another hug, it’s almost desperate. He holds me like he’s afraid I’ll vanish, and I let him. I hold him just as tightly, my own tears finally spilling over.
Eventually, his grip loosens, and he pulls back, his arm resting on the small of my back. His gaze locks on to mine, and I see the weight he’s carrying, the pain, the guilt, the anger.
“I can’t believe I let this happen again.” His voice hitches on the last word. “I don’t know how to move past it,” he admits, trembling in my arms. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to go a little at a time. First get through today. Then tomorrow.”
Logan freezes and he pulls away from me. He digs his hands into his tousled dark hair like he’s trying to rip out the memories. Realization shifts in his gray-blue eyes and he begins pacing. “Lila. Shit. I’m so sorry. This is probably bringing it all back. When Reaper...”
Reaper?
“How do you know his—”
I can’t believe I let this happen again.
He stops moving, eyes trained on the floor.
“Logan. I don’t understand. Did you know Lincoln?” I blink a few times trying to steady myself, I feel like the room is spinning. I try to reach for him but he doesn’t let me. “What do you mean? What happened again?”
He finally turns to me, his eyes blazing with something dark. There was pain there before, but this is something else, something more. “I’ve lived this before—my wingman sacrificing his life to save mine.”
“What are you talking about?” I whisper, dread pooling in my stomach.
Logan has alluded to something in his past, something he isn’t proud of, something that causes his nightmares, especially on deployment. But he’s never shared more. And I’ve never asked. I don’t know if it’s because I’m trying not to pry or because I’m afraid of what he might tell me.
He laughs bitterly, a sound that sends chills through me.
“You think I’m some hero, don’t you? Logan James, the invincible pilot.
A guy who always does the right thing.” His voice drips with self-loathing.
“But you don’t know. You don’t know what I did.
I’m a lot more like a Viking than anyone could have guessed. ”
I take a step closer, desperate to understand, but he holds up a hand, stopping me.
“It was my first deployment,” he begins, his voice trembling.
“I was flying F-16s then. We were sent in to take out a high-value target.” Logan's eyes are distant, fixed on something I can’t see, something buried deep in the wreckage of his memory.
His posture is slumped, shoulders weighed down by a burden he’s carried alone for too long.
The raw edge in his voice makes my chest tighten, but I don’t interrupt.
“Lincoln…Reaper…he was my wingman. We trusted each other with our lives because that’s what it meant to fly together.
” He swallows hard, his jaw clenched so tightly I think it might shatter.
“The mission went sideways fast. Enemy fighters were on us before we could blink. I was locked in a dogfight, outmaneuvered and vulnerable. I should’ve had it under control, but I didn’t. ”
His hands tremble slightly as he runs them through his hair, his breath ragged like the words are physically cutting him on the way out.
“Reaper saw it. He broke formation, came back for me. He saved my ass.” Logan’s voice drops to a whisper, filled with self-loathing. “But it cost him everything. He took a missile meant for me. His plan was to eject, but nothing went right. Systems failed. Murphy’s fucking Law at its finest.”
I feel like the ground shifts beneath me, the weight of his words crashing over me. My brother didn’t die in some random twist of fate. He died saving the man in front of me.
“It should’ve been me,” Logan chokes out, his face contorted with guilt and grief. “I should’ve died that day. He was the better pilot. The better man. But I lived, and he didn’t.”
I’m frozen, my knees locked, my hands in tight fists at my sides. Shock, grief, and betrayal ripping through me. Through any feeble attempt at scabbing over the wound caused by my brother’s death.
He’s shaking now, his hands trembling at his sides.
He retreats until his back is pressed against the wall of my entryway, putting more distance between us.
“And you want to know the worst part?” he says, his voice dropping to a whisper.
“This happens all the time. Collateral damage, they call it. A sanitized fucking term when someone like me is responsible for the death of someone who didn’t deserve it.
” He slides down the wall, crumbling onto the floor.
Someone like me.
A Viking.
My heart is shattering in real time. I can’t process it all, can’t reconcile the man I’ve come to know with the man Lincoln died for. I want to scream, to cry, but nothing comes out. Just silence.
And then he makes it worse.
“I remember you at his memorial,” he says softly, as if the words are a confession. “I saw you standing there, broken. I…I wanted to say something, but what could I say? That I was the reason your brother was gone?”
My breath stutters, tears blurring my vision. I remember that day vividly and he was there. He saw it all.
Logan drops his head into his hands, his body shaking with silent anguish. I stand there, paralyzed, trapped between heartbreak and fury, drowning in emotions I can’t name.
After a long stretch of silence, he lifts his head slightly, his storm-colored eyes full of tears.
"I didn’t recognize you in Vegas. That night…
it was just you and me, no past, no ghosts.
I didn’t know you were Lincoln's sister. When you walked in on your first day with the demo team, all I saw was the girl I’d been trying to find since that night.
I thought you were brought into my life for a reason, like God was giving me something good.
" He stares at me for a long moment, his chest heaving, his expression unreadable.
His voice cracks, bitterness bleeding through. "But then I heard your last name. And just like that, Murphy’s Law struck again. God wasn’t giving me anything. He was reminding me that I destroy everything I touch."