Logan
FOB near the Spratly Islands
I’m in the cockpit, and the world is burning.
The Raptor’s alarms scream in my ears, the canopy fractured like a spiderweb, cracks spreading with every second. Smoke fills the cockpit, thick and choking, but I can’t eject. My fingers are welded to the stick, muscles locked in place.
“Viking, break right!” Ryan’s voice crackles through the comms, urgent and sharp.
“I can’t—” My voice dies in my throat.
“Break right, James!”
I wrench the stick, but the jet doesn’t move. It plummets instead, the ground rushing up like it wants to swallow me whole. And then, suddenly, I’m not in the cockpit anymore.
I’m on the runway.
Ryan’s helmet is in my hands, heavy and slick with blood. His face stares back at me through the shattered visor—eyes lifeless, skin pale. I shake him, chest tightening with panic, but he doesn’t move. His body just slips through my fingers, falling to the ground with a sickening thud.
I scramble to catch him, but the tarmac melts beneath me, dragging me under like quicksand. When I claw my way back up, I’m not holding Ryan anymore.
It’s Lincoln.
His flight suit is charred, shredded from the explosion I couldn’t stop. His mouth opens, but no sound comes out. Just a hollow, gaping silence. I backpedal, heart pounding, but he follows—eyes burning, accusing.
“You were supposed to have my six,” he rasps, voice distorted like it’s coming through broken comms. “You let me die.”
“I tried—”
“You didn’t try hard enough.”
The words slam into me, and suddenly I’m in the crowd at an air show. The sun blazes down, the smell of jet fuel hanging heavy in the air. I scan the sky, searching, but the Raptors are gone. The stands are empty. The world is silent.
And then I see her.
Lila, standing at the edge of the runway, wearing the green dress she wore on our first date. She’s barefoot, her long hair whipping across her face in the wind. Her eyes, red-rimmed and swollen, lock onto mine.
“Why didn’t you come back?” she whispers. Her voice fractures like glass, each word cutting deep.
“I wanted to.” My chest aches, ribs pressing like a vise around my lungs. “I tried.”
Her tears streak down her face, her shoulders trembling. “You promised.”
I step toward her, but the ground opens up again. I fall, weightless, spiraling, the sky shrinking to a pinprick of light above me. Ryan. Lincoln. Lila. All their faces blur together, fading as I plummet into the darkness.
I hit the ground with a jolt.
I jerk awake with a sharp gasp. My chest heaves, lungs burning like I’ve been drowning. The room is dark, save for the dim glow of the machine tracking my vitals, the rhythmic beeping too steady, too normal for the chaos still tearing through my head.
I blink, struggling to catch my breath, but the nightmare lingers, a cold shadow curling in my gut.
Sweat slicks my skin, and when I try to move, pain rips through my shoulder, locking me in place.
I’m stuck in this bed, my left arm strapped tight to my chest with bandages and a sling.
The morphine dulls the worst of the pain, but it doesn’t touch the ache that’s lodged deep in my chest, heavy and immovable.
The monitors are mocking me. Proof that I made it out. Proof that Ryan didn’t.
My fingers curl into the sheets like they’re the only thing keeping me grounded. My heart pounds so hard it drowns out everything else, and for a few terrible seconds, I can’t tell what’s real. Lincoln’s voice still echoes in my ears. Lila’s scream. Ryan’s blood.
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to shove the images away, but they won’t fade. The room feels too small, suffocating in its stillness. My throat tightens, and I swallow hard, chest aching like it might cave in.
The door creaks open, and my whole body tenses, bracing for something that isn’t there.
But it’s just Townsend. His silhouette is sharp against the hallway light, and he steps inside without saying anything at first, closing the door behind him.
“You were screaming. Was it a nightmare?” he asks, voice low, careful.
I can’t answer. I just nod, jaw clenched so tight it hurts.
He doesn’t turn on the light. Doesn’t push for anything I can’t give. Instead, he grabs the chair beside the bed and sinks into it with a heavy sigh, the sound filling the space like it belongs there.
“I used to dream about my flight commander,” he says after a while, his voice rough, like he’s dragging the words up from somewhere buried deep. “I’d wake up swearing I still smelled the jet fuel and burning metal.”
I stare at the ceiling, blinking hard, my chest tight and shaking with each breath.
Townsend leans back in the chair, rubbing a hand over his face. “The nightmares don’t go away, Viking. They get quieter, maybe. But they never really leave.”
I swallow against the lump in my throat, the words clawing their way out even though I don’t want to speak them. “What if I don’t want them to?” My voice cracks, the sound barely more than a rasp.
Townsend doesn’t flinch. He just nods, like he understands in a way I wish he didn’t. “That’s the thing. Part of you won’t. Because not continuing to relive it feels like letting them die all over again.”
I turn my head, meeting his gaze in the dark, and it’s like something shatters inside me. My chest aches, but it’s not just from the injury. It’s everything.
“I let him die,” I whisper, voice wrecked.
Townsend shakes his head. “You think carrying this guilt honors him?” His voice hardens, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “Ryan died protecting you, Logan. Not because he had to, but because he chose to. Same way you would’ve for him.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, but the tears slip out anyway, hot and relentless. I don’t wipe them away. Letting them fall feels like the only thing I can do for the people I couldn’t save.
Townsend leans forward in his chair and pulls something out of this pocket.
An envelope.
My stomach rolls.
He holds it out in front of me
Ryan’s final letter.
I almost don’t take it.
“Take today. Feel what you need to feel. But tomorrow, we honor him by doing our job. That’s what he would’ve wanted. Get some rest,” he says before walking toward the door.
“Nick,” I call out, my voice hoarse.
He stops, turning back to look at me.
“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it.
He nods, a flicker of understanding passing across his face before he steps out and closes the door behind him.
For a moment, I just lie there, the weight of the letter pressing down on me like gravity itself. Before I can talk myself out of it, I tap the light button on my remote and open the envelope.
***