“If Ryan doesn’t ruin them,” I replied, my heart doing a strange, fluttering rhythm I hadn’t felt in years.
“Hey, I resent that,” Ryan called out, leaning on his cane. But he was smiling.
Lucas sat down across from me. He watched my mother set the table. He watched Ryan joke with Hayes. He looked at the scars we all carried—my shoulder, Ryan’s leg, the invisible wounds that hung in the air.
“It’s messy,” Lucas observed quietly.
“It is,” I agreed.
“I brought something,” he said, reaching into his pocket.
My breath caught. I thought he was going to ask for the rings back. I had kept them in a small box on my nightstand, unable to wear them, unable to put them away.
But instead, Lucas pulled out a small, folded piece of paper. It was yellowed with age, the edges frayed.
“When I was in the dark,” Lucas said, his voice meant only for me, “when Voss’s people kept me in that cell, I survived by remembering a note you left in my duffel bag before our first deployment.”
