Page 14 of Wraith’s Promise

"You okay?" she asks, and I realize I've been staring at her for too long without saying anything.

"Yeah. Sorry. Just processing."

"I know it's a lot. Seeing it versus hearing about it."

That's not what I'm processing, but I'm not about to tell her that. "Ranger taught you that?"

"Him and our father, some of it. The rest I learned in the military—hand-to-hand combat training, close-quarters defense, how to disable a threat when you can't reach your weapon." She tilts her head slightly. "You want me to show you more, or was that enough?"

More would mean her putting her hands on me again, would mean her body close to mine, would mean my brain short-circuiting even further than it already has. "That's enough. I believe you."

She nods, seemingly satisfied, and moves back toward the living room. I follow because the alternative is standing alone in my kitchen having feelings about my daughter's babysitter, which is definitely not allowed.

Quinn settles back onto the couch, pulls her legs up underneath her again, and I notice for the first time how flexible she must be to fold herself up that comfortably. Military training, probably. Or yoga. Do soldiers do yoga? I have no idea. My brain is not functioning at full capacity right now.

I sit back down on my end of the couch and try to redirect my thoughts to literally anything else.

"How long were you in?" I ask, because talking about her service record is professional and appropriate.

"Six years. Joined at twenty-one, got out at twenty-seven."

I do the math. "You've been out for seven years?"

"Yeah." She picks at a loose thread on her jeans. "Took me a while to figure out what to do after. The military gives you structure, purpose, and a clear mission. Civilian life is just... a lot of noise."

"What did you do? For those seven years?"

"Tried a bunch of different things. Worked security at a concert venue for a while, mostly just standing around looking intimidating, breaking up the occasional fight. Did some private bodyguard work, but that was too much travel. Worked at a gym for two years, taught self-defense classes." She pauses. "Spent eight months drinking too much and accomplishing nothing. That wasn't great."

The honesty catches me off guard. Most people don't admit the bad parts that fast, especially not to someone they just met. "What changed?"

"Woke up one morning and realized I was turning into my father. And that was unacceptable." She says it flatly, no room for argument. "So, I stopped drinking, started going to the gym every day, got my shit together. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

"I still have nightmares sometimes. Still wake up thinking I'm back overseas, or back in my childhood bedroom waiting for my dad to come home drunk." She meets my eyes. "Some things don't leave just because you want them to."

I know exactly what she means. I still have nightmares about my father, too, about Kate walking out, about Mariah crying for her mother and me not knowing how to make it better. Still wake up sometimes convinced I've failed at the one thing that matters most.

"Yeah," I say. "Some things don't leave."

We sit in that shared understanding for a moment, two people carrying scars we didn't ask for but learned to live with anyway.

"Can I ask you something?" Quinn says.

"Sure."

"Why Wraith? For your road name."

I almost smile. "You know what a wraith is?"

"A ghost. A spirit. Something that moves unseen."

"That's exactly it. When I plan something, I see every angle, every possibility, every move three steps ahead. I'm the one who thinks about what nobody else is thinking about, who catches the details everyone else misses. Phoenix said I was like a ghost in the planning room, there but not there, seeing things nobody else could see." I shrug. "It stuck."

"It fits you," she says. "The way you move, the way you think. Like you're always three steps ahead and the rest of us are still figuring out step one."

"Is that what you see when you look at me?"