POV: Max
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I don't sleep much.
Never have. Never needed to.
But tonight, the silence feels too heavy. Like it's watching me.
The safehouse is still. No lights. No movement. Just me — and the echo of a stare I shouldn't have held for that long.
Nat.
He should've been another file. Another name. A rookie they assigned to get killed or get lucky. Nothing more.
But he looked at me.
Not with fear. Not with awe. But with fire. Like he wanted to fight me and understand me in the same breath. Like he saw something behind all this skin and shadow and refused to look away.
That's dangerous.
I should shut it down now. Request reassignment. He's impulsive. Emotional. Sloppy.
But he's not wrong.
That target could've led us to the mole. I would've pulled the trigger anyway. I was trained to.
Because emotions don't survive in DMD.
People don't survive in DMD.
I reach into the drawer beside my cot.
Pull out a dog tag.
It's scratched. Dull. The name nearly faded.
Ethan.
He was my partner once. A long time ago. Before I learned that silence was easier than grief.
We were good together — until we weren't.
He died on a mission I led. I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I just buried his tag and followed the next order.
I was supposed to be okay with it.
I was okay with it.
Until a rookie with too much heart tackled a target in an alley and dared to disobey me. Dared to live like this job hadn't already killed us both.
I close my fist around the tag.
Cold metal against skin.
This isn't going to work.
He's going to get himself killed. Or worse — he's going to make me feel again.
And I don't know which is more dangerous.