The soldier forgot how to breathe.
For a moment, the world narrowed to the thin square of paper trembling between her metal fingers and her living hand. The restaurant dissolved into a blur of candlelight, glassware, faces, and suspended whispers. All she could see was the man in the photograph. Captain Daniel Voss.
Younger than she remembered him in her nightmares. Older than he had looked on the worst day of her life. His dark hair was wind-tossed, his grin crooked and careless, one arm slung around the shoulders of a boy who could only be Ethan.
But there was something else in the picture.
Something impossible.
Daniel was wearing the black field jacket he had died in.
The same one she had held in her arms while the desert burned around them.
The same one that had been soaked through with blood.
