They led her out, and the heavy doors sighed shut behind them, and the quiet came back down over the room.

Chapter 14 — Home From the War

I turned to Sarge. He was leaning against the wall with his head tipped back and his eyes closed, and now that the watch was over and the last threat was gone, the adrenaline had finally burned all the way out of him and left nothing behind but a bone-deep, twenty-year exhaustion.

He reached up with trembling fingers and touched the tarnished dog tag against his collarbone, once, the way another man might touch a photograph.

“You did good, Sarge,” I said, walking over to him. “You saved them both tonight. The baby and her mother. Both of them.”

He opened his eyes and looked at the isolette, where the little girl slept on, breathing easy.

“She’s a fighter,” he said.