Two rings slid out. My silver wedding band, and his heavier tungsten one.
“I kept them,” Lucas whispered. “Through all of it. They were the only things that reminded me I was human.”
I looked at the rings sitting in my palm. They were scratched, battered, survivor’s rings. Just like us.
“Keep them safe for me, Em,” he said.
Before I could answer, he turned and walked down the sterile white hallway, his limp slightly pronounced, disappearing around the corner, escorted by two federal agents.
I stood alone in the hallway, holding the heavy weight of the past in my hand, my shoulder burning, wondering if anything could ever truly be rebuilt from these ashes.
Chapter 6 (Epilogue): What Remains
Six months later.
The smell of charcoal and sizzling meat drifted over the small backyard of my modest house in San Diego. It wasn’t much—a patch of stubborn grass, a leaning wooden fence, and a view of the neighbor’s roof—but it was quiet. It was mine.
