Page 5 of Wings
Core work next. Planks were a bastard with altered weight distribution, but the staff at the VA had shown me modifications.
Twenty minutes of exercises designed to maintain my mobility. The apartment's ancient radiator clanged accompaniment while I worked through the routine that kept me functional. Not whole—I'd given up on that fantasy—butfunctional enough to ride, to work, to maybe earn a patch that meant belonging somewhere again.
Shower next, hot water beating against muscles that screamed from standing at attention for two hours. I'd installed a shower chair the first week—pride was a luxury I couldn't afford when it came to not cracking my skull on porcelain. The water heater gave me exactly twelve minutes before turning arctic. I used every second.
Clean clothes. The remnants of Mrs. Patel’s samosa. Six alarms set because oversleeping tomorrow would end my Heavy Kings prospects faster than a bullet. Then, finally, I faced the closet.
Behind three good shirts and my tactical gear, shoved into the deepest corner where I wouldn't have to see it every day, sat a banker's box sealed with enough duct tape to survive a hurricane. I'd moved it four times since coming back from Syria. Never opened it. Never threw it away. Just carried it like shrapnel too deep to remove.
Tonight felt different. Maybe because Duke had given me a chance. Maybe because I'd stood in that chapel and defended my actions.
The tape came away in strips, adhesive protesting against cheap cardboard. Inside, time capsule artifacts from another life. Another Gabriel who'd believed in happily ever after and protecting people without losing them.
A baby blanket so soft it felt like clouds against my calloused fingers. Pale blue with tiny stars, the kind of thing you'd wrap around someone precious while they slept. I'd bought it at a shop in Damascus, of all places. This old woman selling handmade goods near the base, and something about it had called to me. Possibilities. Futures. The chance to care for someone the way I cared for my crew.
Board books about brave princesses and gentle dragons. Waterproof pages because Littles sometimes needed bath time stories. I'd researched for hours, learning about age regression and safe spaces and how some people needed to be small to heal from being too big for too long.
At the bottom, wrapped in tissue paper like something precious, a leather journal. My handwriting filled the pages, careful printing because this had mattered. "Rules for My Little," the first page declared in bold letters.
1. Always use your safe words
2. Bedtime is negotiable but sleep isn't
3. Vegetables before dessert (usually)
4. Your feelings matter, even the scary ones
5. Daddy will always keep you safe
I'd written twenty-three pages of rules, protocols, ideas for rewards and gentle corrections. Structure for someone who needed it. Safety for someone who'd never had it. All the protective instincts that made me a good crew chief, channeled into something softer but no less vital.
Jorge had found the journal once, picking it up during a rare downtime between missions. I'd tensed, ready for mockery or disgust. Instead, he'd handed it back with a simple nod. "Everyone needs someone to take care of them, Chief. Nothing wrong with knowing who you are."
Two weeks later, an RPG turned him into a memory.
I touched the wing tattoo over my heart—not angel wings like everyone assumed, but modeled after the Night Stalker emblem. Unit motto: Death Waits in the Dark. We'd brought death plenty of times, precise and professional. But that last mission, death had been waiting for us instead.
"I'll earn this family," I said to the empty apartment, to Jorge's ghost, to the Gabriel who'd written those careful rules believing he'd get to use them someday. "But nobody else dies because I couldn't let go."
The box went back together neater than before. Each item wrapped and placed with military precision. I'd carry it to the next apartment and the next, this piece of who I used to be. But Duke had given me a chance at who I could become—a Heavy King, a brother, someone who protected without the weight of command.
I sealed the box with fresh tape, shoved it back into its corner, and set to preparing for tomorrow. Doc would brief me on the medical runs. I'd prove myself useful, reliable, worthy of the patch. And if sometimes I dreamed about soft blankets and someone who needed protection I could actually provide—well, dreams were just another form of phantom pain.
Chapter 2
Kiara
Ithadbeenalong night, and it was about to get even longer.
The motorcycle accident rolled through our ER doors at 2:47 AM, and I knew before I saw the road rash that he hadn't been wearing a helmet. They never did.
"Trauma two," Nancy called out, already moving. I grabbed gloves from the wall dispenser, muscle memory taking over. Three years of night shifts had trained my body to respond before my brain fully engaged.
The patient was maybe twenty-five, conscious but disoriented, half his body painted in that specific abstract art that only asphalt could create. Dr. Ramirez was already at his head, checking pupils, asking the standard questions that would determine if this was just stupid or fatal.
"Can you tell me your name?" Ramirez's voice stayed calm, professional.
"Tyler . . . fuck, it hurts . . ."
