Prologue 2-Honor
Moving back to Barvale was always going to come with a certain level of anxiety.
I just didn’t expect it to hit me like this—slow and heavy, settling into my bones like a bad ache that never quite goes away.
Seven years in a special ops unit will do that to a guy.
Seven years of doing things I can’t ever talk about.
Things that don’t fit into polite conversation or suburbia or the kind of life people assume you’re supposed to come home to.
Somewhere along the way, I lost whatever rosy outlook I once had.
How could I not when I saw humanity stripped down to its rawest parts?
Ugly. Medieval. Soulless.
So yeah—coming back to quiet streets and trimmed hedges and neighbors who wave like the world hasn’t shown them its teeth has been difficult.
Doesn’t help that I’m crashing in the apartment over the garage of what used to be our childhood home.
Hope bought the place from our mom while I was gone.
Fixed it up. Made it hers. And now I’m here, living in the shadow of memories I didn’t ask to revisit, sleeping under the same roof where I learned how to throw a punch and pretend everything was fine.
I’ve got money.
Plenty of it.
That’s not the problem.
The problem is I don’t know where home is anymore—or if I even deserve one.
This seemed like a plan.
Temporary. Safe.
Hope’s living here with someone now.
Her husband. Technically.
Miles Orson.
He’s okay, I suppose. I mean, he treats her right, and that’s saying something.
I’m a big guy. Always have been. But Orson’s got a good three inches on me and shoulders like he was carved out of hardwood.
Pretty sure I could take him in a fight if it came down to it, though.
Not that I want to.
Truth is, I’m secretly glad I don’t have to test that theory.
I’m actually working with him—helping out with his company.
He started his own thing, building decks and custom outdoor furniture.
Calls it Orson Outdoors Co.
It’s honest work.
Solid work.
The kind that smells like sawdust instead of gun oil.
It’s not how I pictured my life turning out.
But it gives me something to do with my hands.
And that matters.
Because hands like mine?
They don’t do well idle.
There’s an old saying about idle hands and the devil—but hands like mine have already been there.
Already done the damage.
They’re not clean. Never will be.
They’ve got more blood on them than I care to admit.
That’s why I came home.
Not to relive the past.
Not to play happy family.
To get away from the war.
To find something resembling peace.
And I am happy for Hope.
Truly.
Seeing her safe. Loved. Stronger than she ever was before—it helps more than she knows.
I just didn’t expect that in gaining her future, I’d lose my place in it.
Didn’t expect to feel this alone standing in the middle of the town that raised us.
Like I came back whole—only to realize I didn’t belong anywhere anymore.
That feeling doesn’t hit all at once. It creeps in when the house is quiet and the world finally stops demanding things from me.
When the night settles heavy on my chest and there’s nothing left to distract me from my own thoughts.
It wakes me in a cold sweat, heart hammering like I’m back on foreign ground, waiting for the next order that never comes.
For a split second, I don’t know where I am—or who I’m supposed to be now that the war is over.
Those are the moments I wish I was somebody else.
Anybody else.
A guy who sleeps through the night.
A guy whose hands don’t remember every life they’ve taken.
A guy who fits neatly into the world he’s standing in.
But I’m not that man.
So I lie there and breathe through it. Let the panic burn itself out. Let the memories loosen their grip.
I wait for the feeling to pass, the way I’ve learned to wait out everything that wants to break me.
I know there are still things worth holding on to—work that leaves my hands sore for the right reasons, a sister who looks at me like I’m still her big brother, mornings that don’t smell like smoke and blood.
And maybe—just maybe—there’s something here I haven’t found yet.
Something I didn’t come back for.
A goodness I might find despite all the bad I’ve seen and done.
Because if there’s one thing I know for damn sure, it’s this—this world isn’t done with me.
Because even if I feel hopeless some nights, I’m just not ready to give up.
Not yet.