It works. Hunter stirs. Just a little.
"Yes," he whispers, still not lifting his head.
Just then, I hear tires rolling up.
Our convoy had three vehicles. Sergeant Cornel was in the last one, which had radiator issues, so he fell behind.
I hear brakes screech behind the truck. Doors slam open. It’s muffled, my ears are still ringing from the blast, but I know something’s wrong.
Three figures appear behind the truck.
NotCornel.
His truck must’ve been hijacked by the NFH. Luckily, they probably didn’t expect survivors. Maybe the smoke confused them.
My body moves on instinct.
A split second before their guns line up to fire, I lunge, slamming into the two standing closer and taking them down. I’m unarmed, except for one weapon: my body.
My forearms tense. Spikes shoot out from beneath my skin. The ones on my right arm drive straight up through the first militant’s throat and into the base of his skull. The left set pierce the second man’s shoulder.
He screams. Thrashes. I retract the spikes and shove down harder, pinning him to the ground. Then I extend them again, this time, they punch into the side of his face, bursting through his eye sockets, tearing through bone.
He goes still.
Behind me, Hunter finishes off the third. A knife sticks out of the militant’s eye. Hunter’s breathing hard. There’s a ferocity in his expression, rage, almost madness. He stares down at the bodies, then at me, his gaze dropping to the silver spikes still protruding from my arms.
The guys in the unit know I’m not a typical alpha. But they rarely get to see this part of me. We’re not front-line troops, we escort humanitarian convoys.
"We need to move," I say sharply. "It’s getting more dangerous by the second. There’s no way that squad only had three men. Reinforcements are definitely coming."
Finally, Hunter nods.
"You’re right, Sergeant."
He bends down and lifts his husband’s body into his arms. His face is pale as chalk. We carefully peek around the overturned truck. The other vehicle, the one they arrived in, is empty, doors flung wide open.
We don’t have a choice.
We sprint toward it and jump inside. I help him place Olaf’s body in the middle seat. Then we take off.
This time, my hands don’t shake on the wheel. Every time I extend my spikes, my body becomes a weapon. And my mind follows. It sharpens, focuses.
We drive into the thickening dusk. I know this stretch is clear, we passed through earlier, but there could still be fighters nearby. I stay alert, eyes scanning every shadow, every flicker of movement, all senses are maxed out.
The silence persists between us.
Hunter just stares at his husband’s limp body, completely still. He doesn’t say a word the entire drive back to base. And I get it. If I were him, I wouldn’t be able to speak either.
This kind of grief hits later, when you’re alone, in the darkness of the night. And when it does, it kills you asecondtime. Then a third. Again and again.
***
Back at base, everyone’s already on edge. This kind of direct attack from the NFH hasn’t happened in months. Morale is shot. We lost four people. The air feels heavy with tension. We have five more convoys to escort and it does not look good. Themilitants win, take over, kill more and more. Death walks with them. The livings lose.
But now, I’ve got something else waiting for me. I’ve barely stepped out of the debriefing with the commander when the comms officer flags me down in the hallway.
"Sergeant Larsen, your parents have been trying to reach you for a few hours. They’re… really anxious to talk."
