He was up to no good then—he must have been, those big schemes gone sour—but Jess was so stuck in her own head that she didn’t catch on. And anyway, there was still some of that magic left sometimes, like she’d come out of her fog now and then, and there was Ty, like the old days; they’d watch a funny movie together, or he’d drive her out to the cape and they’d walk in the woods, the stillness of the rain forest a salve on the wounds she carried inside her. Ty still knew her better than anyone else in the world, still loved her, and she supposed she’d still loved him, too, and still did.

But she’d reenlisted anyway, and gone back over, and he’d gone and gotten himself drowned.

The corps, too; she’d always known she’d be a leatherneck. Her dad had fought in Iraq with the First Marines, Operation Desert Storm, and growing up, Jess had wanted nothing more than to emulate her father, impress him. So she’d enlisted after graduation, joined a female engagement team, and found out pretty quickly that she was just as good a marine as she’d ever hoped she would be.

It wasn’t just the fighting, though she was plenty good at that part too. Working with Afia was less about shooting M4s and more about talking to people, listening, mediating. Gathering information and assessing its value, helping your team leaders make tactical decisions. And Jess, who’d never been much of a student, realized she was good at the engagement stuff. Working with Afia, she’d been better than good.

But Afia was gone, and Jess was too fucked up in the head to fight anymore, a medical discharge and some combat ribbons and a never-ending barrage of nightmares her only souvenirs of a four-year engagement she’d hoped might become a career.

Her dad was dead, Ty was dead, Lucy was gone; for the first time in years, maybe even a decade, Jess Winslow had no idea where she was going, what she was supposed to do. No path to guide her but her memories of the valley, and the blessed relief offered by the shotgun that lay before her.

And she might have done it too. She might have eaten that barrel, put an end to the guilt and the horrible thoughts, the hopelessness and aimlessness and apathy. She might have welcomed the silence, the sudden end.

But damn it, every time she looked at the gun, Jess saw Lucy’s lead on its hook in the background. And every time she saw that lead, she saw Lucy, languishing somewhere, terrified and alone. She saw Mason Burke and the look in his eyes, and she knew there was still a path she could follow, if she could only find the starting point.