The camp is quiet. Or almost. The wind lifts the dust, carrying with it the smell of gasoline and burnt metal—something you learn to ignore, but it’s always there, clinging to your skin. I walk slowly, my boots crunching over the gravel, my fingers tight around the strap of my bag.

I’m looking for him.

And then I see him.

Sitting against a crumbling stone wall, shirtless, his hands clumsily bandaged. His military pants are stained with dried mud… maybe blood. A cigarette hangs from his cracked lips, thin smoke curling into the air. His face is partly covered by a white bandage, tied haphazardly across his eyes.

Caleb. Sergeant Caleb Ryker. The best. The most reckless. The most alive.

I walk closer, slower now. He tilts his head, a crooked smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, showing a canine still stained with red. “Gonna stand there staring at me all day, or sit down?” His voice is rough, sandpaper against my ears, like he’s been shouting for too long.

I drop down beside him without a word. My fingers brush the burning heat of his arm, careful of the bandages. I trace the dark dragon inked across his shoulder, coiled and menacing, like it’s breathing with him.

“You should’ve waited for extraction, idiot…” My voice wavers. “And leave you back there? Never.”

I close my eyes for a second. He laughs softly, then lifts his hand toward me. He finds my cheek without hesitation, his rough fingers brushing over my skin. “You’ll be fine, little one.” He says that like he’s not the one still bleeding.

I cover his hand with mine and hold it tight. “Are you blind?” He grins. “Temporarily.”

Silence stretches. Then he pulls the cigarette from his lips and offers it to me. “Here. Share.” I shake my head but take a drag anyway. The heat burns down my throat.

And then, without warning, he laughs again. “Losing my sight was worth it. You’re even more beautiful like this.”

I laugh, too, and in the middle of the chaos, for a moment, we both breathe.