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He paused and I could guess as cohter--and you really cannot understand until it happens to you--if you hurt her in this, and break her heart, I aotten ere ever friends"

I grinned in lad that this conversation was out of the way "Fair enough, Tom Bennett I can live with those terot the full backstory on the Oakleys of San Francisco I arranged for us to talk again soon, to keep him abreast of any new developments, and ended the call

I stayed at my desk for a bit, wrote up so down ht, Si behindout to the balcony to sit for a while

I passed the bedroo but silence I wanted Brynne to sleep well No h for a lifetiht It wasn’t often they were so sparkly and I realized it’d been a long ti This one was a throay though If I smoked outside then nobody had to know about it I shouldn’t smoke inside with Brynne here anyway

I crossed er I let hts of today and all that had happened I thought about Brynne’s tragic story and just how things had altered now For both of us Yeah…our times of darkness had been like a parallel universe She’d been seventeen and I’d been twenty-five Both of us in a very bad place I felt ing spiced tobacco into s

I used to smoke Dunhills It was s so they were no surprise But that all changed after Afghanistan Lots of things changed after that place I absorbed the nicotineoverhead

…Every guard s rebel had one of those lovely, i off his lips as they went about their tasks of beatings and mind fks And the smell? Like pure ambrosia I dreamed in smokes in the first days of my capture I dreamed about the sweet scent of clove mixed with tobacco until I was sure I would die before I ever tasted one The beatings and interrogations started later I don’t think they knehat they had captured at the first All in good tihans wanted to use ot thatWas totally out of otiation with terrorists so I knew they would be disappointed And I knew they would take out their frustrations on me Which they did I often wondered if they kne close I’d couilt for knowing the truth, and felt great relief I’d never had to choose, but there were soations (if you could call the like a canary in a coal mine if they’d offered me one of those beautiful, sweet, clove handrolleds to s I asked for when I walked out of that rubble pile The US Marine who got to me first, said I was in shock I was…and I wasn’t, I suppose I think he was in shock that anyone alive came out of as left of my prison after they bombed it to shit (which I thanked him nicely for) But really I was in shock because I knew in that instant that the fates had changed for me I had finally found some luck Or luck had finally found me Ethan Blackstone was a lucky, lucky ht my attention I turned my head My heart lurched insidejust on the other side of the sliding glass watching me We stared at each other for a beat or two until she slid open the door and stepped out

"You’re up," I said

"You’re out here sie in the ashtray and held ht over, looking decadently tousled froht blue t-shirt and a pair of ed her down to s on either side ofmy face in her two hands

"You are so busted, Blackstone" Her eyesto readand I so wished I could knohat she was really thinking Just the fact that she had crawled up onher relaxed and happy after waking in the night, pleased me more

"Mmmmm, I kno you can punish ainstabout? You looked very far away, sneaking your cigarette out here in the dark"

I spoke into her hair andabout…luck Being lucky Having some" It was the truth and the reason I still breathed even if I couldn’t share that part with her yet I wanted to, but didn’t kno to even begin that journey with Brynne She didn’t need more painful shit piled on top of what she already had to carry around

"And are you? Lucky?"

"I didn’t used to be But then ift handedcards"

She traced over ers very softly, probably unaware of how ot to me

"You won a lot of tournaainst her head, my lips still on her hair "I liked your dad very ht"

Her hand on my chest stilled for a o?"

"It went just about like I iot down to brass tacks He knows about us I told him He wants the same as me--to keep you safe and happy"

"I do feel safe with you…I always have And I know my dad respects you very much He told ainst ht over otwith you" She paused and then whispered longingly, "I have to knohat’s going on, Ethan I can’t ever go back to being the unaware victim Secrets will destroy me--I just can’t handle the up like that and findingwho or what--I can’t--"