Chapter 37 Hawk
Hawk
The transport that would ferry me to D.C. sat on the far edge of the field, rotors spinning lazy circles while the crew did final checks. From the outside, it looked like every other flight I’d ever taken into a debriefing: gray paint, dull metal, no comfort offered or expected.
Inside, it felt like a wedge being hammered between me and the only thing that had felt right in a long time.
Julia walked beside me down the corridor toward the exit, fingers laced with mine. She hadn’t let go since the infirmary. I hadn’t tried to make her.
Outside, the afternoon sky over Missouri was soft blue, and clouds stretched thin. It should have felt peaceful.
It didn’t.
“You know they’re going to grill you,” she said. “About everything. About me. About what you did down there. About what we did.”
“I know.”
“Probably run your psych file again.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
She cut me a sharp look. “This isn’t funny.”
“I’m not laughing.”
We stepped out onto the tarmac. Wind slapped at our clothes, tugging at her hair. She brushed it back impatiently, eyes fixed on the aircraft.
“When you shipped out,” she said suddenly, voice raised over the engine noise, “I didn’t get to say goodbye.”
I looked at her.
She wasn’t looking at me. Her gaze stayed on the plane, like it was something she could face down if she stared hard enough.
“You remember?” I asked.
“Every second,” she said. “Your dad told me you left in the middle of the night. Said you’d decided the Rangers were the only thing that made sense.”
“They were, back then.”
“I waited on your porch with a stupid cup of coffee for an hour before I realized you weren’t coming.”
Guilt stabbed me clean, even though those memories were years old and worn at the edges.
“Julia…”
She finally met my eyes. There was a sheen there that had nothing to do with the wind.
“I get it,” she said. “You were a kid trying to survive his own head. We knew each other our entire life, but we didn’t really know each other.
I was too shy to talk to you most of the time, because I was afraid I would tell you that I love you.
You didn’t owe me anything back then. I was just the girl down the road with a crush and a half-finished degree. ”
She stepped closer, the wind snatching pieces of her hair and lashing them across her cheek.
“But I’m not that girl anymore. And you don’t get to disappear on me without warning this time.”
I reached up and smoothed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m not disappearing.”
“You say that like you can guarantee it.”
“I can’t guarantee anything except this,” I said. “I will do everything in my power to walk back to you when this is done.”
“That’s what scares me,” she whispered. “Because ‘everything in your power’ usually means setting yourself on fire for someone else.”
I huffed out a breath. “You’re not someone else.”
“Try telling that to the part of you that still thinks dying for the mission is the only way to make up for the ones you couldn’t save.”
She always did cut right through to the bone.
“Julia—”
“They’re going to see what Reese did to you and think they can use it,” she pressed. “Use your guilt. Your sense of responsibility. Convince you that you’re the only one who can prevent Echo 2.0. What if they’re right? What if you break yourself again trying to fix what they’ll break anyway?”
I didn’t have an easy answer.
The engines on the transport spun faster. Time bleeding away.
“I don’t know what they’re going to offer me,” I said honestly. “But I know what I’m willing to take.”
“And what’s that?”
I tightened my grip on her hand. “Any role that lets me come home to you at the end of the day instead of a flag-draped box. I have the Brave Team and that’s who I am.”
Something in her eyes cracked. Tears she refused to let fall gathered anyway.
“You say that now,” she whispered. “But what happens when you’re in that room and they pile the world on your shoulders?”
I stepped closer, close enough that if I leaned in an inch, I’d feel her breath on my neck.
“Then I remember what it felt like standing in that core thinking I’d lost you,” I said. “And I say no.”
Her throat worked.
“That simple?” she asked.
“That simple,” I said.
She didn’t believe me.
Not entirely.
And I didn’t blame her.
The ground crew signaled. Five minutes.
Aaron approached, a folder in his hand, wind ruffling the edges.
“The brass is impatient,” he said. “They want your brain on a platter as soon as possible.”
“Tell them it’s already overcooked,” I said.
He snorted.
Then his gaze softened, just a fraction, as it shifted to Julia.
“You did good work, Marlow,” he said. “We don’t walk out of that place without you.”
She nodded once. “Thank you, sir.”
“You heading back home on the next bird?” I asked her.
“Yeah. My captain’s been blowing up my phone. I fo.rgot to tell him I wouldn’t be in for a few weeks”
“I feel left out,” Aaron muttered. “No one blows up my phone unless they’re yelling about budgets.”
Miles jogged up, breathless, holding out a small black rectangle. “Jensen. Before you go.”
I took it. “What is it?”
“Encrypted sat device,” he said. “Piggybacks off a couple of private nodes. Not fully secure—nothing is—but it’s off the main grid. Use it if you need to reach us. Or if you…” His gaze flicked to Julia. “You know.”
“Thanks,” I said quietly.
He shrugged. “Hey. Somebody’s gotta keep the soap opera alive. I guess that's Delta Five.”
Julia let out a choked laugh.
The crew chief waved from the ramp. “We’re wheels-up in three!”
Aaron clapped my shoulder. “Go make them nervous.”
“That part I can do,” I said.
He moved off. Miles followed. Boone and Logan hung back, pretending to check gear, really giving us a bubble of space.
It wasn’t enough.
But it was all we had.
Julia stared up at me, eyes bright, jaw tight.
“Last chance to run,” I said softly.
“With you?” she asked.
“Always.”
She stepped into me, grabbed my vest, and rose onto her toes. The kiss hit like a car crash and a lifeline at once—desperate, messy, a little salty from tears. Her fingers curled into the fabric as if she could anchor me there.
When she pulled back, her voice was barely audible.
“Don’t make me watch the news to find out if you’re alive.”
“You won’t have to,” I said.
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes searched mine. Looking for cracks. Looking for lies.
She seemed to find neither.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay.”
The crew chief called again, louder. “Jensen, let’s go!”
I forced my hand to unclench from hers.
She let go a fraction of a second later, like she was daring me to be the one to break contact first.
I took a step back.
Her face blurred for a second.
I blinked it clear.
“One week,” I said. I didn’t know where the number came from. Hope, maybe. Stubbornness. “Give me one week. If I’m not back or you don’t hear from me by then—you call Aaron. You call Miles. You come drag me out.”
“I’ll bring a warrant,” she said, voice shaking. “And a battering ram.”
The corner of my mouth twitched. “I’d pay to see that.”
“I’ll make sure you do.”
I turned before I could change my mind.
Walked up the ramp.
At the top, I stopped and looked back.
She stood alone on the tarmac, wind tugging at her hair and jacket, one hand wrapped around her opposite wrist like she had to hold herself together or she’d fly apart.
I raised my hand.
She raised hers.
Then the ramp closed, and she disappeared behind thick gray metal.
It felt too much like the night I left home the first time.
Except it was my parents waving goodbye back then.