Chapter 7 - What Daniel Vance Asked of Me
Medical cleared me badly enough to send me to the hospital and well enough to let me refuse until my statement was complete. My palms were torn. My shoulder burned. My temple throbbed. Nothing felt new. Pain had become an old language; I was tired of being fluent in it.
Marcus stood near the far side of the roof with two instructors between him and everyone else. He looked younger now, which made me angrier than when he had shoved me. Not because he deserved comfort. Because grief had been weaponized against him for years, and he had turned that weapon on the wrong person.
When the senior officer finally allowed him to speak to me, Marcus approached like a man walking through wreckage.
“Did he suffer?” he asked.
I could have softened it. People love soft lies when truth arrives with sharp edges. But Daniel Vance had not given his life so his son could inherit another polished story.
“Yes,” I said. “But he stayed himself.”
Marcus swallowed hard.
I continued, slower now. “He knew the route was bad before the last vehicle moved. He stayed behind to pull three wounded out and redirect the final team. He saved twelve lives. He gave me the patch because he knew someone would rewrite him if none of us came back with proof.”
Marcus looked at the training yard below, where soldiers pretended not to watch.
“He told me not to tell you until you were ready,” I said. “Tonight, you proved you weren’t. But Owen proved I couldn’t wait anymore.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
“I pushed you.”
“Yes.”
“I could have killed you.”
“Yes.”
His voice dropped. “What would my father say?”
I looked at him for a long moment.
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“He would tell you to stop mistaking anger for loyalty.”
That was when Marcus finally cried. Quietly. Without performance. Like a man whose entire life had just been unbuilt in front of him.
