4. The Second Story

Scotland; POV/Steven Redraven

I woke up early, especially considering how late it was when I finally got the Pup calmed down and back in his room with Vasha. The rain was pounding outside, falling in sheets as it did sometimes around here. Since Vasha hadn’t come looking for me to let her out yet, I laid back and considered how the night before had gone. It was a sign of Luke’s distress that he hadn’t seen through our boy’s pretense of calm. It had been some pretty rough going there for a bit and I’d been sure that Danny was going to bolt. But, he hung in there, saying all the things that Luke needed to hear. While I was sorry later to see how hard Danny was really taking the news, I was proud of him for putting Luke first. I’ve always told Luke, he doesn’t give the kid enough credit for being tough.

Danny’s calm last night pretty much guaranteed that Luke would open up to him about the other stuff, and it was way past time that he did. Peter and I can’t give Luke the absolution he needs – we’re soldiers and see nothing wrong with doing whatever you have to do to survive. Luke has never really been a soldier at heart, despite all his years in uniform. Which isn’t to say he’s not the bravest man I know – he is. It takes more courage to do your duty as a soldier when you hate killing as much as Luke does than it does when you are comfortable with the job. Time after time, he’s put his own life at risk in order to take prisoners rather than inflict casualties. He was always careful with his men’s lives, but his own...? Forget playing it safe. If Irish didn’t have such luck, well, there wouldn’t have been any need to pretend he was dead.

Danny had clung to the vision quest I’d suggested; I could see the desperate hope in his eyes. He wanted so badly to connect with his twin. Damn, Patrick O’Keefe had fucked up his sons. I’d never known my father, he’d died in Vietnam, but my grandfather more than made up for any lack I might have felt. Never gave me any nonsense about men not crying or having to be the best at everything you did. Grandfather wasn’t one for lecturing. He was there for me even when I fucked up, there and ready to help me make things right. Funny thing though, I learned more from his example than I would have from all the lectures in the world. Between him and my Cajun granddad, there wasn’t much more I needed to learn about being a man, but what there was, I learned from Luke O’Keefe.

I got up and stretched. No sense putting off starting the day. One good thing, with the Pup here, Luke and Peter could be counted on to pull out all the stops on the meals, I thought, grinning as I headed for a shower.

Early as I was, the other three had beat me downstairs. Peter was cooking this morning, which meant there would be even more food than yesterday. He didn’t eat much in the morning but he sure as hell knew how to make a traditional English breakfast. Danny was leaning against the counter, talking, but as he watched the platters being placed on the table, his eyes grew wide with dismay.

I walked over and whispered in his ear. “Sit next to me and you can slip me what you can’t eat.”

He grinned and nodded, making it look like he was responding to something English had said. Must have been something on the order of, are you starving, shall I give you enough to feed an army? In addition to scrambled eggs and sausages, there were fried tomatoes, mushrooms, black pudding and this other mess English called “bubble and squeak.” First time he asked me if I wanted that, I thought it sounded like it would be a small animal chopped up and fried. For some reason, it was vegetables and potatoes. The English are strange.

Danny was pretty much a vegetarian, I knew, but Peter and Luke seemed to have forgotten that fact. I took my seat in front of a loaded plate and asked, “Is this some competition between you two, see who can make the Pup gain weight?”

Danny looked dismayed, but Luke said, “Nah, every third day is your turn so we’ll be pretty much fasting then. We figure we’d better load up on the other two days.” My two buddies laughed at that notion. But I nodded my head.

“No problem at all,” I assured them. “I’ll even keep to the theme and serve a traditional Navaho meal. Corn bread...and corn.”

“I can join in too,” Danny said once the laughing died down. “I’ll serve a traditional model’s meal. Potato chips and ice cream.”

“That’s a disgusting combo,” I told him. “Why those two things?”

“Really, they’re both fattening,” Luke pointed out. Peter was just shaking his head, amused. Before Danny could answer, he commented, “I suspect the first is because it’s light – and the second because it comes up again easily.”

“Yep. Peter knows, all those years of living in the City and keeping Edward’s ‘angels’ alive,” Danny smiled.

“That’s gross,” Luke complained. “Tell me you never did that!”

“Nope, I never did,” Danny quickly assured him. Seeing him and English share a look when Luke turned away to grab some napkins, I guessed there was something they weren’t saying. Probably having to do with one particular Angel. I could see her using vomiting as a way to keep wraith-thin.

In addition to the other foods, there were kippers, scones, boiled eggs – more dishes than even I could eat at one sitting. But, the good thing was, Luke was eating up a storm. Between last December’s excitement, and then our eventful trip to the Gaza Strip, he’d lost about twenty pounds that he hadn’t regained. Seeing the satisfaction in Peter’s eyes as he watched Luke take seconds, I guessed that he’d been worried about Irish also. This big fry-up wasn’t for the Pup’s sake, he was only the excuse. It was Luke’s appetite he was trying to wake up.

Between Vasha and me, we managed to get Danny’s plate clean. Peter didn’t miss what we were doing, but that was okay. He wouldn’t say anything in front of Luke.

“So, what’s the plan for today?” Luke asked, sitting back with a happy sigh.

I grinned – the man sure could eat when he was in the mood. I had to admit it, I was probably as glad as English that Luke had eaten so much with such enjoyment. It was months before I could get more than a few fortified energy shakes and toast down him after I’d gotten him back from that hellhole he’d been confined to.

“Seeing that it’s raining pretty hard,” I said to Luke, “I think more work on the farm is going to have to be put off. What do you say we go into the great room and continue with storytime? Get it all out of the way, then.”

“Sounds good to me,” Peter chimed in. Luke was quiet, but Danny reached and took one of his brother’s big hands into his own slim, long-fingered one.

“I don’t want to push you, Luke, but wouldn’t it be good to get this off your shoulders too? Then we can really relax and enjoy our visit. I’m not worried about what you have to tell me, but I can tell you are, so if you’re up for it, let’s get it over and done with.”

And let the healing begin. That wasn’t said but it may as well have been. The thought seemed to float in the air above the table. Luke let out a big sigh.

“Okay. Though this does mean you’ll have me doing this without the aid of liquid courage.”

“Bah,” I grinned. “Haven’t you heard? It’s five o’clock somewhere!” They all laughed and we decided to leave the dishes to soak while we moved to the other room.

Once we got situated, Danny next to Luke on the floor, near the fire, Vasha on Luke’s other side, and me and Peter sitting on the floor, leaning against the sofa and a chair, there was silence. I cleared my throat and suggested, “Why don’t I start with the part I know, Luke, and then you can jump in when you’re ready?”

He nodded. He had a small glass of whiskey in his hand but hadn’t yet taken a drink. Danny gently took it and set it down on the floor nearby, close enough to reach but not so close as to get him drinking without thinking about it. Smart boy, the pup. I looked at him and had to smile. Our boy was a man now, and I was sure that there was nothing Luke or I could say or do that would make him flinch, much less run away from either of us, but especially Luke. It was hero worship perhaps, but in Luke’s case, hero worship was fully justified.

“Indulge me and let me take it back to where it began, September of 2001, when the United States was attacked. We’d been busier than ever in Afghanistan, but with war officially starting in October of that year, the Green Berets were in the very thick of it. Luke and I were flying missions, coordinating with the other forces there. There had been some successes in the beginning, and the Taliban was removed from power. Since then, unfortunately, particularly with the war in Iraq pulling away a lot of the troops, they’ve gotten back in. But, as of 2002, things had gone about as well as you could want, given it was a war. In 2003, I was called away from our squad to consult with the Canadian leaders. For some fucking reason, Luke was asked to take men into the mountains to check out yet another Osama sighting. And instead of waiting for me to return from assignment, he went on his own.”

“Yeah, on my own. Just me and twenty troops,” Luke clarified for Danny. And Peter, I guess, since I didn’t think he never got to hear the whole story before now, either. He hadn’t learned that Luke was alive until we went to help him and the pup out almost three years ago. Of course, given how English had a way of getting Irish to talk, he likely knew all the key points.

“Like I said, alone,” I grinned.

“Meaning that you didn’t have Red to watch your back,” Danny said, nodding. He understood completely.

“That’s right. Instead, he had a bunch of raw recruits that he was airlifting to a war zone. It’s a wonder he didn’t have to burp and change them, they were all so green. Later on, when his copter had disappeared after he’d dropped the last bunch off deep inside the war zone, most of them were useless as far as giving any information we could use to pinpoint where he may have gone down. I went out as soon as I could....”

“Without official leave,” Luke added with a smile. I was glad to see that he was still relaxed. There was no telling how agitated he might get during this. I’d discussed it with English before I left to get Danny, and I knew the doc was ready with something to calm him if it was needed.

“Of course,” Danny nodded. He knew this much of the story. “It was more important for Red to find you than to sit around talking to officers about the niceties of war.”

All three of us laughed at that – it was pretty much how I’d justified my actions to my superiors later on.

“I didn’t get anywhere that first trip. I’d gone deep undercover, living as an Afghan tribesman, trying to get some info on what had happened to Irish here. The copter was found, and that’s when we learned that Luke and another man, his Afghan guide, had survived the landing.”

“We were told that Luke had been shot and killed by snipers when he was trying to get to a US camp after crashing,” Danny interjected.

I nodded. “That was what I’d been told also. But what didn’t make sense to me was why there wasn’t a big deal being made by the Taliban over his death. I would have expected pictures at the very least. A US Colonel doesn’t get killed every day over there, and just as we make a lot of noise when we get one of their guys, Luke was a big enough prize....”

“In all senses of the word,” English interjected, earning himself a smack on the leg from Luke. I nodded and grinned.

“Exactly. I would have expected some news to filter down to our informers and what friends we had on the other side. But...nothing. The Afghan guide – he disappeared also, which wasn’t as hard to understand. Deaths of Afghans happened a lot, but there were no bodies at or near the copter.”

“That was the area you took me to in 2003 and 2004,” Danny said, no trace of what he was thinking in his face or tone.

“That’s right. The first trip – that was real. I was looking for information still. The second and third trips, the two we took in 2004 – those were for show. I got word in summer 2003 that an American soldier, a very big man, was being held in a small village. I couldn’t get clearance to go after him – until I joined up with The Alliance. Thyme eased the way.”

“Before we got word that the government was declaring Luke dead, you had information, reliable information that he was alive?” Danny was having trouble hiding his reaction. This had been a sore point for Luke too, as he missed his father’s death late in 2003. He worried that it was him being declared dead that sped along his father’s death. But, as Kinney pointed out, given the man’s habits, it was really more of a wonder he lived as long as he did.

“I wasn’t found until a short while before Dad died,” Luke told Danny, wanting to be the one to handle this part. “If I’d known he was so ill....No, even then, I wouldn’t have gone back to see him. It would have killed him to see me in the condition I was in. I was in no shape to be seen by anyone then. Red wasn’t sure I was going to make it at all.”

“Wouldn’t we have been able to help?” Danny posed the question mildly but I knew that this was the sticking point for him. Why hadn’t I brought him to Luke at the very least. I’d made the call back then to keep them all in the dark, including Danny and I’d make it again if I had to. Even if what I’d really done was gone along with Luke’s vehement wish to stay hidden, I was willing to take responsibility for the choice.

“I was the one to make that decision, Pup, and considering how weak, and, well, out of it, Irish was, I gave in to what he thought he wanted. You have to understand....”

“No...he doesn’t have to understand something that is completely indefensible,” Luke put in, his voice as sad as I’d ever heard it. He reached for his whiskey and took a swig before continuing. “I threatened Red that I really would be dead if he dared to contact any of you, Danny. It was wrong of me, I know that now, but at the time – I was not coming up with any real good reasons to go on. I did not believe that any of you, but especially you, would be able to cope with what I did and I couldn’t bear the thought of you turning away from me. I preferred to be a dead hero than a living butcher.”

“You thought wrong,” was all Danny said, reaching out again for the glass and holding Luke’s hand once he’d removed the whiskey. He leaned forward so that he could stare directly into Luke’s eyes. “Nothing could make me turn away from you, Luke. Nothing. If you tell me that you murdered children and raped young girls and old ladies, I would be sad for them and you, and hate that you’d reached such a point that you felt that you had to do such things. I think you’re still worried that I’m counting on the truth being pretty, but I’m not. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it because I know the kind of man you are – and I love you. Got it?”

Luke nodded then stole a glance at Peter, who nodded encouragingly.

“I have done many things I regret, and which give me shame, and I live with that,” English said quietly. “I am not going to judge you, no matter what you reveal, Luke. What Danny said goes for me as well – I love you, and nothing you can tell me about your time in captivity or your escape, will ever change that.”

Luke sighed heavily. “Thank you...both of you. Red knows how he found me, but I really should take over the telling at this point to explain how I got in that condition. I can recall making an emergency landing about thirty minutes after take-off. One engine had stopped working completely and the other wasn’t sounding too good. Aazar, my local guide, was freaking out and was begging me to land instead of trying to make it to base on one engine. It was getting on toward dark so if I was going to try a landing, I knew I should do it before the dark hampered me. Once I did...and it was as good a landing as you can make under those conditions...I told Aazar we would hike back to where we’d dropped off the troops. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a rough hut, with guns trained on me.”

“Your guide betrayed you!” Danny exclaimed. Luke nodded.

“I didn’t accept that at first, but later I heard him outside, asking for his ‘reward’ for having brought me in. He got it all right – a bullet to the back of his head. Can’t say that I was too broken up over that.”

“I would think not!” Peter said, reaching for the whiskey. I was surprised, since he was more of a wine drinker, but I thought it was probably a good idea. I got up and went to the kitchen for cake and a soda for Danny. We had our booze; he coped better with chocolate. He smiled slightly as he accepted it, but the strain in his face didn’t lessen.

“I tried to escape a couple of times. They had questioned me about how many troops were in the area, what U.S. plans were, the usual stuff. I played dumb, but they knew my rank and knew I was refusing to tell them what they wanted to know, as opposed to just being dumb. I was good though, you would have been proud of my acting, Danny,” Luke smiled mirthlessly at the Pup. “I kept them on a string for a couple of days. They weren’t feeding me and they only gave me a glass of water a day, but even so, I managed to take out a couple of the guards and almost made it out, around my fourth or fifth day there.”

“And then?” Danny asked quietly.

“I don’t remember a lot of what happened after those first couple of days. I knew that they were afraid to kill me, so that’s what saved me from being shot. They broke my leg though, to keep me from running away. I used some of the first aid Peter has taught me over the years to splint it –they had to rebreak it later on though because it healed crooked.”

Luke was talking matter-of-factly now, staring into the fireplace as though still seeing the events from back then. Peter and Danny were pale, and passing the whiskey bottle back and forth between them. And he hadn’t even gotten to the bad stuff, I thought.

“After that last run when I almost made it, they seemed to realize that they couldn’t count on me being too weak to fight back. So that’s when they cut my water and food way back. When I tried again to break out, even with the broken leg, that’s when one of them got the bright idea to put me in a pit.”

“Dear Lord,” Peter said.

Luke nodded, his face expressionless. “Well, in a way, I guess I was lucky, as they stopped questioning me every day then, and didn’t do any more beating. They really weren’t sure what to do with me. Some wanted to try ransoming me for some of their men. I laughed at that idea when they raised it. But I also spread word that I was waiting to die, because then I would come back and haunt them – back to full-strength but unable to be killed again. That scared the shit out of the more superstitious of them.”

“I wouldn’t put it past you to do exactly that,” I said. “And besides, I was more than willing to be your avenging ghost.”

Luke smiled then – and it was like seeing sun after too long of rain. “I know, Red, and it was the thought of that which kept me fighting to hold on. I knew you’d be looking for me. But, time passed and I was growing weaker all the time. My reserves of strength were completely gone, despite my trying to exercise in this pit they kept me in most of the time.”

“It must have been inhumanly foul,” Peter said, then took another swig of whiskey.

“It wasn’t pretty, that’s for sure. Eventually, though, they got a little worried that I was dying, so they took to letting me up for an hour a day. One of the men used to throw water over me to clean me up somewhat and I talked him into letting me walk in the sun a bit. They didn’t trust me with a razor so I looked like a monster, I’m sure. My beard was halfway down my chest and my hair was so matted and filthy, even the bugs gave up on it.”

“How did you ever escape?” Danny whispered the question.

“A family of farmers used to come around once a week. My guard who used to dump the water on me – which was kinder than it sounds as I was desperate to get clean – he was not happy with what was going on so he made arrangements to get extra food for me from them. Eventually – and I’ll never understand what made him do this – he asked them if they would sneak me out if he could manage to get me into their cart.”

Luke was quiet for several minutes. Then he continued, “I didn’t trust him at first. I was sure that it was a trap. He showed me a cross that he kept hidden, and told me he knew I was a Christian, so he had to help me.” Luke shook his head. His words came very slowly now.

“I remember him helping me into the cart. There weren’t many around since it was a holy day for them. He...he slipped me a knife in case I had trouble. My hands could barely hold it.”

Luke raised tormented eyes to the two men listening. I knew what was coming and slipped over to take Vasha’s place by his side.

“I have visions of blood – lots of blood. And screams. Random images of the women and children being stabbed, but it seemed to be with bayonets. I saw...I saw the guard who had helped me falling to the ground, his neck sliced from ear to ear. I can’t get a handle on where I was – but later, much later, I came to myself, and I was still in the cart, though it was some distance away, by a small farmhouse, and there was no sign of the farmer. I was...I was covered in blood. My hands and arms covered with dried blood, my pants...everywhere. The knife was still in my hand and it was...it had been used.”

I took over the tale for a bit, to give him a chance to regain his composure. Tears were falling down his face but I don’t think he realized it. Peter and Danny were watching him with similar expressions of concern, and love. I hoped he was taking note of it..I spoke in a very businesslike tone, as though giving a report.

“Luke was reportedly found near an empty farmhouse, about five kilometers from where he’d been held. The camp where he’d been had a pit in it which had clear signs of habitation. Long-term habitation. He was disoriented and spoke of having to go back for Rahim. It took a bit for the men who first came upon him to realize that he meant a man’s name.”

Danny looked lost but Peter told him, “Rahim means compassion.”

“Yeah, they thought I wanted to go back out of a sense of compassion, so they took pains to assure me that there was no one left to receive it. The entire camp, men, women and children, were slaughtered – sliced up like so much meat.” Luke closed his eyes but opened them again right away. I knew why – when he closes his eyes, he still sees the visions of the massacre.

“Red got to me almost right away and managed to get me released to him. The men who’d found me were The Alliance’s people, and they’d been actively searching the area – had even been to the camp once but were lulled into thinking it was just a base for the wives and children of the fighters. It was during the debriefing, at a private hospital, that Williams broke it to me that I was the one being ‘credited’ with the murders.”

“Thyme had sent for me and I was supposed to be there when Luke was debriefed, but at the last minute, Williams had moved the site and spoke with Luke without me there. He was sorry he did, though, as Luke freaked out on him and almost throttled him.”

“Wish you had,” Peter said grimly.

“No, Luke had enough to worry him then,” Danny said. “Had you agreed to work with the Alliance at that point, Luke?”

I was taken aback. That was a good question. I answered for him. “He had told them he wanted to get out completely. We’d both reached our twenty years and while I was interested in the work, Luke was planning to return to a civilian life. That mission was supposed to be his last into the war zone. From there he was to be shipped back home to desk duty for his last ten months.”

“But instead, I was captured, tortured, starved....and left with nowhere to turn to except The Alliance,” Luke said bitterly. “But – don’t get me wrong. I was grateful to have some way of making amends. I believed that I had killed even the people who were trying to help me. I was afraid of myself and felt like a monster.”

“How did you...what happened to help?” Danny had his hand on Luke’s arm. He kept swallowing and I knew he was having a hard time not showing a reaction. I had the benefit of seeing Luke’s slow improvement, but in the beginning – there was no telling how it would have ended up.

“Red convinced them that I needed to get away from all of it, all of them, to heal before I could take on more duties for The Alliance. He knew I had this property up here that had never been revealed to the family or the service. I’d bought it with some gambling money back in my twenties and he purchased the land adjacent when it became available. It’s hard to get to and provided the perfect place to hide from the world.” Luke smiled at me. “I was in bad shape physically, and unknown to Peter, Red was getting advice from him on how to treat a lot of my physical ailments, severe malnutrition, atrophy, all sorts of problems – intestinal and whatnot. Eventually my body healed – but I was still fucked up mentally.” Luke sighed then looked at the other two men.

“I don’t know how you can understand this – but I was dead in my mind. I was healing physically, but in my head I was still in that pit. I saw nothing ahead of me but pain. Psychologists and psychiatrists all threw in the towel on me before Red brought me here. And...he led me through a vision quest.”

Danny’s eyes flew to mine. “For real? A genuine vision quest?”

Luke nodded. He looked at Peter. “I know you aren’t one for mystical solutions – but in this case, it worked. At least enough to convince me I had survived for a reason.”

“Then I believe in your solution,” Peter said firmly. “But...you still stayed hidden from us.”

“I still believed I had done those atrocities. I just had a better focus on where my path could lead from there. I didn’t see the future per se, nor did I see a clear vision of my recent past, but I saw enough to know that I needed to keep going.”

“Thank God,” Danny murmured.

“I told John when I saw him that I was atoning for my past as a soldier. There was more to it than that.”

“You joined The Alliance after all,” Peter said thoughtfully.

“They enabled me to hide from the Marines,” Luke said simply. “And still do work I could live with. In the beginning, it was much more humanitarian, repairing bridges, supervising the rebuilding of a bombed out school. As time went on, and I got stronger, the assignments changed.”

“Is that when I heard from Red?” Peter looked to me. I nodded.

“Once Luke was back to himself pretty much, he started worrying about you and the Pup here. He told me to give you a way to reach me if you needed help and then we could come to the rescue, though we didn’t anticipate quite how all that would shake out. At least with the resources of The Alliance, we were able to keep track of what Simon was up to. He was living on borrowed time anyway, after that last stunt he’d pulled. Seeing what he did to the two of you – I would have favored a more painful death for him but Luke is much more peaceable than even he was before.”

English shook his head ruefully. “You know, I had wondered. But I told myself that it was just wishful thinking, that there was no chance he’d survived. I cannot express how it felt to hear his voice on that roof that night.”

“But still, I couldn’t be told,” Danny said quietly. He looked at Luke. “I wish you could have trusted me, Luke, but the fact that you felt you couldn’t is my fault, not yours. I’m glad you had Red to count on.”

“Danny! It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t making the conscious choice to go to anyone. Red got to me shortly after I was found, before I had the chance to absorb what it was I’d done.”

“What they said you’d done,” Danny retorted. “I’m pretty sure that was part of some grand scheme to manipulate both of you.”

“Perhaps,” I said, surprising him and Peter. “But, the end result was, Luke was alive. And yes, I was the only one at first to know that. The only one who mattered. Both of you had a right to know, perhaps, but your rights weren’t as important to me as getting Luke’s head on straight.”

There was silence for a moment. Then, from Danny, “Why did you reveal yourself to John that night?”

I looked to Luke. I had been more than a bit surprised by that as well, and we’d argued about it later. I felt he was taking an unnecessary risks.

“I couldn’t help myself,” Luke said, looking at me sheepishly. “I saw him there, looking so devastated, and I’d seen the condition Danny and Kinney were in, not to mention Linton there looking dead. I had planned on quietly knocking him out, figuring he’d think he’d simply collapsed from exhaustion. But...I couldn’t do that to him. If I had, then later when he heard about the crash, I was afraid he’d somehow blame himself for Linton dying.”

“Instead I did,” Danny said. Damn, I knew things had been going too well. I looked at him and he found a smile from somewhere. “I’m not blaming you, Luke..Red. I’m glad someone knew and John was the best choice, since he can keep a secret better than anyone I know. I’d been angry when I found out that he knew and didn’t tell me – and finding out that Brian knew also and didn’t tell me....”

“Kinney was never supposed to know,” Luke said quickly. Danny smiled more easily then.

“Well, he does have a way of ferreting out secrets.” His face grew more serious again. “But, hearing what you went through...it’s more than I can easily wrap my mind around....but, well, I’m just thankful that Red was able to help you. And that you got out of that place.” He got up on his knees to give Luke a crushing hug.

“You aren’t horrified by what I did?” Luke asked, his words muffled by Danny’s hair. The Pup leaned back so he could look into his eyes. His expression was fierce.

“I don’t know what you did – I don’t think you do either – but even if you killed all those people in that camp, I’m sorry but I can’t feel any pity for them. They knew that you were being held there, tortured and starved, and only one man tried to help you.”

“But what if I killed him?”

“You didn’t,” Danny said with certainty. “I know you didn’t. Nor did you kill the farmer and his family.”

If for no other reason, seeing Luke’s look of relief when the Pup said that – and he said it with the kind of bone deep certainty he saved for times when he knew something was true – I was glad that Danny came here to force this issue. I’d had my worries, Peter did too, but seeing the two brothers hugging each other, no longer with secrets between them, all the worries and fears dropped away. I hadn’t realized how anxious I’d been about this get-together until I felt the anxiety slip away. But, this? This was good, damn good. I saw Peter brush away tears – and smiled at him. The fear I’d carried for six years that I’d come back sometime and find that Luke couldn’t cope any longer – that fear finally died.

Danny’s next words took me by surprise.

“You know, I think we need to go back there. Go back and find out the truth. Williams may still be loose in the world. We need to bury the rumors that he spread about you, Luke. Even if the only people to ever know the full story is us.”

Luke didn’t seem surprised, but he did look determined when he told Danny, “No. I am not agreeing to you going into a war zone. Especially not one that is more dangerous than ever. I’m done with risking my loved ones in a futile effort to stem the tide of war. We can make our lives here in peace...and you’ll be able to visit now whenever you want, but no more hunting down ghosts.”

I knew from the matching look on Danny’s face that this wasn’t the end of it.

Not by a long shot.