Page 99 of Homestead

I lean over to kiss him before I climb out of the Jeep. I’m not all that great with blood and wounds, so it’s not like I’d do any good helping with Jimmy’s leg anyway.

I limp over to Mack.

“Is something wrong?” I ask before I reach him.

He’s still staring down at the ground.

When I’m standing beside him, I see why.

There are dead bodies on the ground. A couple are blasted to charred pieces, almost unrecognizable as human. But one must not have gotten hit with the full blast of the grenade because it’s more intact.

It’s dead. Definitely dead.

But it looks like a child.

A boy. It’s hard to tell the exact age because malnutrition is so prevalent, but I’d swear the boy was no more than eleven or twelve.

He must have been working with the bad guys, shooting from behind the boulder, and he’s dead now.

Mack killed him.

He was a child.

My stomach churns and I grow cold. “Oh no,” I breathe. “Oh no!”

Mack still doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just stares.

“You didn’t know,” I murmur hoarsely. “You didn’t have a choice. They were trying to kill us.”

Finally Mack wrenches his eyes away from the body. He meets my gaze, but his expression is empty.

Empty.

All the warmth has gone out.

He still doesn’t speak.

“You can’t blame yourself,” I say, grabbing his big arm in my urgency. “Mack, innocent people were in danger, and you were protecting them. You were protecting all of us.”

Still no answer.

No reaction at all.

I have no idea what to do. It feels like Mack is broken, and I’m the only one who recognizes it.

Where the hell are his friends? They need to help him through this.

I look around frantically until I find Cal and Rachel. He’s scowling as she’s trying to wrap up the wound on his shoulder.

Cal sees me staring. With a question on his face, he nudges Rachel, who looks over at me too.

I gesture toward them and then at Mack.

To my relief, they both come immediately. I don’t have to explain. They see it as clearly as I do—both in the boy’s dead body and in Mack’s frozen stance.

I like Mack. A lot. He seems like a genuinely great guy, and he might have saved all of us by throwing that grenade. But Cal and Rachel are his people. Not me.

I’ve got enough to do trying to take care of my own people.

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