Part 1: The Promise I will never forget the sound of the paint can cracking open. It was a hollow, sharp pop,…
The quiet was the worst part. After the last bell rings, school playgrounds are supposed to be loud, full of shouting kids and…
I looked at Jenna. Her face was pale, a mask of pure disbelief and simmering anger. Chen looked at the floor, anywhere but…
The rain felt like tears. Not mine – I was too numb for tears – but the sky’s. A cold, relentless November drizzle…
The rain over Seattle was a cold, liquid curtain, relentless and unforgiving. It fell not with the gentle promise of renewal, but with…
The waiting room at Pinewood Memorial was too bright. The fluorescent lights hummed, buzzing under my skin, mocking the chaos that was thundering…
The funeral home was suffocating. The air, thick with the cloying scent of lilies and the stale grief of strangers, felt heavy in…
The chime above the coffee shop door was unremarkable, just another Tuesday afternoon sound. But for me, Frank Caldwell, waiting in a booth…
The November wind that tore down the concrete canyons of Chicago had a personal vendetta. It was a living thing, a predator that…
I looked at my brothers. Ben, our Sergeant-at-Arms, the one who’d done three tours in the sand and had the scars—inside and out—to…