[November 16, 2009 – 9:13 AM]
Chloe Price woke up with a grin still stuck to her face.
Last night had been epic—just her, Justin, Trevor, and a few others turning some abandoned storage unit into their personal party zone. Cigarettes, shitty beer, and the kind of reckless laughter that made her forget, just for a few hours, how much everything sucked.
She stretched, her muscles sore from dancing on top of a rusty shipping container, and stumbled out of bed. The hallway was quiet as she shuffled to the bathroom, yawning through her morning routine—brush teeth, splash water on her face, glare at the dark circles under her eyes.
Whatever. Worth it.
Downstairs, Joyce was at the stove, humming softly as she flipped pancakes. The smell of coffee and syrup wrapped around Chloe like a lazy hug.
"Morning, baby," Joyce said without turning around. "Hungry?"
Chloe slumped into a chair, grabbing the orange juice carton and taking a swig straight from it. "Starving."
Joyce shot her a look but didn't scold her. Just slid a plate of pancakes across the table.
They ate in comfortable silence—or at least, Chloe thought it was comfortable. Joyce kept glancing toward the stairs like she was waiting for something.
Then—
Click. Thump. Click. Thump.
Footsteps. But not normal ones. Something… off.
Chloe frowned, her fork hovering mid-bite. "Who's here?"
Joyce sipped her coffee, eyes twinkling. "You'd know if you hadn't snuck out last night."
Chloe rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, Mom, just—"
The footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs.
Chloe turned.
And froze.
There, leaning on a cane, stood Jay.
Her brother.
Her fucking brother.
He looked different. Older. Harder. A jagged scar cut across his cheekbone, another peeking out from the collar of his tank top. His right leg—oh God, his leg—was just… gone below the knee, the sweatpants hem pinned neatly above a metal prosthetic.
But the worst part?
His eyes.
They were the same shade of blue as hers, but hollow. Tired. Like he'd seen things he couldn't unsee.
For a heartbeat, neither moved.
Then—
"Hey, shitbird," Jay said, his voice rough but soft.
Chloe's chest tightened. Three years. Three years of radio silence. Three years of screaming into her pillow, of wondering if he was even alive, of pretending she didn't care.
And now he just… appeared?
"You." Her voice cracked. "You asshole."
She launched herself at him.
Joyce gasped, but Chloe didn't care. She punched his arm—hard—before yanking him into a hug so tight she heard his breath leave his lungs.
Jay staggered but caught himself, his cane clattering to the floor as his arms wrapped around her.
"Missed you too," he muttered into her hair.
Chloe squeezed harder, her nails digging into his back. "You don't get to disappear like that," she hissed, her voice thick. "Not again."
Jay didn't let go. "I know."
And for the first time in years—Chloe believed him.
******
The front door clicked shut behind Chloe and Joyce, leaving the house in heavy silence.
Jay stood in the kitchen, the rhythmic tap-tap of his cane against the linoleum the only sound. The coffeemaker gurgled its last drops into his mug—black, no sugar, just like he'd taken it since boot camp.
His gaze drifted.
There, half-hidden behind a stack of mail on the counter, was a bottle of Old Crow Kentucky Whiskey—cheap, burn-your-throat stuff, the kind you drank when you didn't care about taste, just the numb.
He stared at it.
Just a sip. Just to take the edge off.
His fingers twitched.
Before he could second-guess himself, he snatched the bottle, uncorked it with his teeth, and dumped a generous glug into his coffee. The whiskey swirled, darkening the brew like poison. He shoved the bottle back before he could pour more.
First sip.
The heat hit his throat—part caffeine, part alcohol, all escape.
Jay sank into the couch, the TV flickering to life with some daytime talk show he didn't care about. A perky host laughed at something stupid. The audience clapped on cue.
Normal people. Normal problems.
His leg ached.
He took another swig of spiked coffee.
In Afghanistan, there was no boredom. There was always movement—patrols, firefights, the constant hum of adrenaline. Even in the lulls, there was purpose.
Now?
Now he was just a crippled Marine sitting on his mom's couch, watching bad TV with whiskey on his breath.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
The coffee was gone too fast. His fingers drummed against the mug.
The bottle on the counter taunted him.
Jay clenched his jaw.
This wasn't him. At least, it wasn't supposed to be. He was Jason Price—the guy who led fire teams, who kept his squad alive, who fucking survived losing a leg.
But here, in this quiet house with its peeling wallpaper and ticking clock, he felt…
Useless.
He grabbed his cane, pushing himself up with a grunt. The TV kept chattering, some couple arguing about cheating. Jay turned it off.
Silence.
He limped to the window, staring out at the empty street.
Somewhere, Chloe was at school, Joyce at the diner.
Somewhere, D-Block and the others were still over there, still fighting.
And Jay?
Jay was here.
Alone.
With a bottle of whiskey and a head full of ghosts.
———
The mug sat empty in Jay's hands, the last traces of whiskey-streaked coffee clinging to the ceramic. He stared at it for a long moment before pushing himself up with a grunt, the cane taking his weight as he limped to the sink. The water ran hot, steam fogging the window above the counter as he scrubbed the cup clean.
Normal thing. Civilian thing.
It felt stupid how something so small could feel so foreign.
Back on the couch, he pulled out his phone, thumbing open Facebook out of sheer boredom. The feed loaded—D-Block flexing in the gym, Snark posting some sarcastic meme about chain-of-command, a blurry video of Chico attempting (and failing) to do a backflip off a Humvee.
Then—Victoria Chase.
A selfie, perfectly angled, her smirk sharp enough to cut glass. Caption: "Blackwell's fashion police strike again. Try keeping up."
Jay huffed a quiet laugh. Why not? He tapped Like, then sent a friend request before he could overthink it.
But then—
A video auto-played.
"—the Iraq War was built on lies!" A woman's voice, shrill with conviction. "No WMDs, just oil and blood! And for what? So our soldiers could play terrorists in someone else's country?"
Jay's thumb froze.
The comments rolled in beneath:
"American soldiers are just government-trained killers."
"Hope they all come home with PTSD. Maybe then they'll understand what they've done."
"They deserve worse."
His breath came too fast. The phone creaked in his grip.
These people—safe in their coffee shops and college campuses, typing on devices paid for by the very freedoms he'd bled for—spat on his brothers like they were monsters. Like Merwin's body in a bag was some kind of justice.
The cane clattered to the floor as he stood abruptly, his prosthetic knee locking awkwardly.
They don't know.
They didn't know the weight of a tourniquet in shaking hands. The sound of a kid screaming for his mother in a language you didn't understand. The way a comrade's blood had felt, slick between his fingers as he tried—failed—to stop the bleeding.
They didn't know shit.
Jay snatched the whiskey bottle off the counter.
This time, he didn't bother with the coffee.