“People watch movies,” Arthur said, his voice dropping to a low rumble to undercut the sound of the sleet. “They think it’s all slow motion, heroic music, guys screaming and charging machine gun nests. It’s not. It’s just chaos. It’s deafeningly loud and then it’s terrifyingly quiet and it smells like copper and voided bowels.” He took a slow sip of his coffee. His hands, usually so steady with a wrench, had a microscopic tremor to them. “We were clearing an airfield. We pushed into a hangar, dark, sweeping the corners.

A kid, couldn’t have been more than 19, maybe 20, stepped out from behind a stack of crates. He had an AK-47. He didn’t even have it raised. He was just holding it across his chest, frozen, shaking.” Arthur closed his eyes. The deep creases around his mouth tightened. “My training took over. It’s a physiological response. Muscle memory bypassing the brain. My rifle came up. Two rounds to the chest, one to the head. Less than a second. He dropped like a sack of wet cement.” Chloe felt a chill that had nothing to do with the drafty garage.

“We secured the hangar,” Arthur said, opening his eyes. They were devoid of any light. “I walked over to the kid. He was wearing canvas sneakers. They had holes in the toes. He had a picture of a girl tucked into the webbing of his vest. She had dark hair, smiling.” Arthur rubbed his right shoulder, right over the spot where Chloe knew the faded SEAL trident was inked into his skin. “I killed him,” Arthur said flatly. “I did exactly what I was trained to do. I executed a flawless tactical maneuver. I saved my own life and maybe the lives of the guys behind me, and it broke me.”

He looked at Chloe and for the first time, she saw the sheer weight of the ghost he dragged around with his bad leg. “I came home and they gave me medals. They patted me on the back and called me a warrior. But every time I closed my eyes, I saw those canvas sneakers with the holes in the toes. I realized that the kid and I, we were just two terrified animals in a dark room. And I was just a slightly faster animal. There was no glory in it. It was just sad, just a miserable, tragic waste of human life.” Chloe swallowed hard. Her throat felt tight.