For years prior to her tour in Iraq, she’d spent months coming to Kurt once a week for therapy, to work out shit with her family and her own ambitions. But it had been over two years since she’d been back. And even before she’d left for the Middle East she’d never revealed to him, or anyone, her thoughts of a deeper belief in her destiny—that she could change the world. Not some platitude, but a transformation that accepted evolution as an endless occurring. Not only toward where we may be going, but where we have come from. She wasn’t sure what all that meant, but it wouldn’t leave her alone. Transformation. Birthing what wasn’t before.

The experience in the warehouse, and her implausible connection to Hashim had opened a door to the possibility of being connected to something beyond what she knew. It was something she didn’t dare say out loud to him.

Kurt’s singular focus drew her deep into that expanse. A connection to something being birthed that wasn’t there before.

She glanced at her briefcase on the floor. The stone, a fragment of an ancient cuneiform, was inside. She’d hidden it among her packed things on the army transport plane from Baghdad to Andrews. The writing etched in it she’d been unable to decipher.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Kurt said.

She laughed.

“What?”

“So, that’s what they’re worth?”

Kurt leaned back and smiled. His confidence and gentleness, as well as the mystery surrounding his past, intrigued her and heightened the value and curiosity with which she’d always felt in his presence.

“It must be weird to be back, huh?” he asked.

“A little,” she said, meaning a lot. She heard the gentle rush of air from the vent, and the soft tick of the clock. She’d forgotten how much it comforted her. This room. This quiet. That had become rare. Hushes made her bristle in war zones. She’d come to embrace the sound of helicopters whooshing against the sky. The clusterfuck of firefights she’d rushed toward, a wild scribe addicted to tracers and phosphorous glow. And that addictive tang of gunpowder. The gifts of living in a war zone. Silence had kept her on pins and needles, not sound. But she allowed the silence to comfort her here.

“How about your friends and folks? How are you doing with them in all this?” Kurt asked.

It was hard to open up the first time back with him, but she needed to talk. That’s why she’d forced herself to make the appointment and keep it, despite the scratching of her haunted self to bury it all in an iron clad room of denial.

“I haven’t seen my folks yet. Haven’t connected with any friends. I told them I need time, they seem good with that.”