Price hadn’t spoken a word since he returned.
Not one.
And the silence was suffocating.
TF141 didn’t need an explanation. They didn’t need details. They didn’t ask.
Because unlike them—who had at least some surviving family tucked away in their secured base—
Price had nothing.
And that meant his entire family was gone.
No one had made it.
They felt it before they even knew for sure.
Price moved like a ghost, quiet and controlled, focusing only on what needed to be done. He didn’t grieve. He didn’t rage.
He just kept moving.
Soap clenched his fists, watching him closely, knowing this wasn’t normal. Ghost stayed silent, but he was always watching, always analyzing, always waiting for the moment Price finally snapped.
Gaz exhaled sharply, whispering just low enough for the others to hear.
"Bloody hell."
Laswell knew before anyone else.
Price hadn’t said it outright, but he didn’t need to. The way he stood, the way his jaw locked, the way his hands stayed clenched—it was all the confirmation she needed.
"They didn’t make it."
Nobody responded.
Because what could they say?
Price’s family had always been tight-knit.
When the outbreak spread and one of them was bitten, they had held on, choosing unity over survival.
They had tried to find a cure instead of killing him.
A valid idea—but they failed.
Someone found out.
Someone broke the bitten person out.
And he killed everyone.
Price had searched. Desperately.
But his daughter’s body was never found. And she had only been two years old.
At that size, it wasn’t hard to assume she had ended up inside something’s stomach.
And so, Price moved forward, never once allowing himself to pause long enough to process it.
A year passed.
The world was a shell of what it had been, and Price was thousands of miles from home, out in Europe with TF141 and their allies, scavenging for supplies in the ruins of civilization.
Then—
Something barreled into him, small hands gripping his leg tightly—a force that nearly knocked him off balance.
Instinct had him reaching for his weapon, already prepared for an ambush—
Until he looked down.
Until he saw her.
A small, scarred little girl.
Covered in dirt, clothes torn, face set with sheer stubborn determination.
His daughter.
His three-year-old daughter.
Price couldn’t breathe.
Soap’s jaw dropped, hand half-raised like his brain had shut down completely. Ghost stared, unmoving, his entire stance shifting into disbelief.
Gaz let out a sharp exhale, blinking rapidly, trying to process.
"Bloody hell."
Price didn’t move, didn’t dare breathe, afraid that this was some trick, some cruel joke, some hallucination his mind had conjured up.
But then she looked up at him.
"Daddy."
The breath hitched in his throat, burning like acid, sharp and broken and unreal—
Because she wasn’t a hallucination.
She was real.
She was alive.
And somehow, she had survived an entire year, crossed multiple continents, crossed two oceans, snuck onto ships, escaped undead hordes, and fought for her life with nothing but the scraps of survival training he had drilled into her tiny toddler brain.
She had lived all the way in South America.
And now, they were in Europe.
She had traveled the entire way to find him.
And she had found him.
"Price?" Nikolai’s voice was cautious, watching the captain frozen to the spot, fully unable to process what was in front of him.
But Price didn’t speak.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t hesitate.
He dropped to his knees, pulled her into his arms, held onto her like she was the only thing left in the world—
And didn’t let go.