Owen glared at the laptop screen, refusing to accept what it represented. Despite the fact that he’d seen Paul Norris vaporize into proverbial pink mist by the side of a godforsaken road in the even more godforsaken desert, he simply couldn’t process the reality of his lifelong friend’s memorial service back home in Kentucky.

He leaned forward and pressed his aching forehead on the scarred-up table in front of the computer. He pressed so hard that, when he sat back up at the sound of a familiar voice coming from the speaker, he had a big, red mark above his eyes that didn’t fade for an hour.

Another of his childhood friends stood at the podium. Antony Love was talking about Paul and Owen and their lives growing up together, running the streets of Lucasville, Kentucky, practically from their cradles. Owen narrowed his eyes at the sight of Antony’s sleep-deprived, gaunt visage.

Random sobs could be heard through the crackly speaker. The images wobbled now and then when the internet service blipped. The distinct sound of a newborn baby’s wail sliced through Owen like a ten blade. He squeezed his eyes shut, reached over and turned the thing off.

It should have been him.

It would have been him if Paul hadn’t run past him that day on the road, joking around about keeping in shape so he could manage being a new father when he got home in a couple of weeks. Something like five seconds before his foot landed on the improvised explosive device.

Owen groaned and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. The sounds of his platoon prepping for personnel changeover filled his ears, replacing the horrific crying of Paul’s baby, born a few weeks after his evaporation. The baby Paul would never see, or hold, or play with. The baby Rosalee—Paul’s high school sweetheart—would now raise alone.

Owen leaned back in the chair, ignoring all the other grunts around him engaged in their own video chats with loved ones. The ever-present anger flared in his chest, crawled into his throat, and filled his sinuses with acid. His aching brain sent ‘get some sleep, already’ signals he ignored as he watched half his platoon board a plane headed stateside. He could have gone. They were willing to send him in time for Paul’s memorial service, but the thought of experiencing that live and in person made him want to puke.

With a sigh, he hit the power button on the computer and dialed back into Antony’s Skype feed. It was the least he could do now for one of his oldest friends, considering the fact that it would have been him, Owen, floating in the dessert ether in microscopic bits of blood, bone, and muscle. It should have been him. If Paul had only stayed behind him in formation.

Owen gnawed on the inside of his cheek when he caught sight of Rosalee standing at the podium, tears pouring down her face, her lips moving with words his ears refused to hear. Rosie had been one of the cool chicks in high school, the kind who liked to flirt and giggle about boys but who could also hunt, fish, camp and hike as well as anyone. She and Paul had been perfect together.

When she got shaky and had to grip the edges of the lectern to keep from falling over, Owen reached out as if he could grab her and prop her up. Antony appeared at her side and put his arm around her. She turned into his chest and sobbed while he led her back to her seat. Owen flicked off the sound so he couldn’t hear the baby cry again.

Paul’s baby. The son he’d never know and who would never experience the pleasure of having Paul Norris as a father.

“Motherfuckers,” he muttered as he clenched his fingers together and watched with the sound off as people stood in a line and placed flowers in front of Paul’s enlistment photo and his and Rosie’s wedding picture.

There hadn’t even been a scrap of his uniform to send home.

Pink mist was just that. Pink. Fucking. Mist.

Owen leapt up and started to pace, ignoring the stares of his fellow Marines engaged in happier visits with loved ones back home. When he saw Antony’s face filling the screen, he turned up the sound and stuck earbuds in his ears.

“Hey,” he said in a rough voice. “You all right?”

“What do you think?” Antony Love was a tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed man with a square jaw and chiseled face. He’d endured his own fair share of tragedy, losing his young wife in a car accident when their daughter was only a toddler. But he had a huge family to rely on, the lucky bastard.

Owen knew the Love family well. They’d practically raised him since his own parents were boozehound, meth-head losers. “Jesus, that sucked.” Owen watched his friend run a shaking hand across his lips and look around.

Other faces filled the screen, saying hi to Owen long distance with the same haunted expression on their faces. Lindsay Love, Antony’s mother, dabbed her face with a tissue as she approached. “Is that Owen? There? On the computer?”

“Yeah, Mama. Here, say hello to him.” Antony turned the computer. At the sight of one of his childhood surrogate mothers—Paul’s mother had been his other one—Owen had to consciously quash the urge to scream, or cry, or punch his fist through the fucking laptop screen.

“Hey, hon,” Lindsay said. Her red hair had a few strands of gray in it, but her green eyes were the same as he remembered. Her freckled face and hands exactly the ones he recalled fixing him dinners, tucking him in on the cot between Antony and Kieran in a matter-of-fact, what’s-one-more-boy-in-the-house-anyway fashion. He’d been damn lucky to have her and Janice Norris around to raise him, and he knew it.

“I’m so, so sorry, Mrs. Love,” he croaked out. His hands were balled into fists on either side of the laptop. “It should have been me. It was me. But Paul ran ahead of me, actin’ a fool, and I—”

“You stop that nonsense right now.” Lindsay’s face was set, her lips pressed together in a thin line. “Stop it this instant. And if you call me ‘Missus Love’ one more time, I’m gonna reach through this screen and snatch you bald headed.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, feeling like he’d been transported straight back to his pre-teen self and was standing beside Antony and Paul in Lindsay’s kitchen, receiving a piece of her mind regarding their latest ill-considered escapade. They got in a lot of trouble. That much was true. But Lindsay never seemed to hold it against him, mainly because she knew her own son was likely the instigator—which he had been ninety-five percent of the time.

Lindsay closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, they were bright and tear-free. “This is a horrible day for a lot of folks, Owen. I wish you could have been here so you’d know that no one blames you. Not one person.”

“I blame me, Missus Love—I mean, Mama. That’s plenty of blame right there.” The brutal headache was back and had his entire skull in its evil grip. “I’m sorry I didn’t come home. I need to stay here. I have to . . . to . . .” He stopped, unwilling to tell this lovely, polite, hard-as-nails mother of four rowdy boys and a daughter, who equaled all four of the Love brothers in the trouble department, that he wanted to frack some mother fuckers. That he was staying behind to slay some goddamned, heathen jackasses. As many of them as he could manage, in any way, shape or form he could concoct. It was all he knew to do so he could somehow avenge his friend Paul.

“Mama,” Antony said off camera. “Daddy’s waiting for you at the car. Go on. I’ll meet y’all at the Norris’s in a few minutes.”

Lindsay’s eyes filled with tears. She touched the screen. “Please be safe, Owen. I won’t be able to take it if something happens to you, too.”

Owen nodded stiffly and pressed his fingertips to the image of hers before balling his hand into a fist again. Antony turned the screen back so only his face could be seen.

“How’s . . .” Owen’s throat closed up around Rosie’s name.

“About like you’d imagine, considering. The baby came early, but not too early. Thank the Lord. I . . . uh, I was there. It was shitty.”

“Well, I’m glad she had you. I’m sure it helped.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Antony said, wiping his lips again. “Listen, dude, don’t take chances over there. Do this tour and get your ass home in one piece. Do ya hear me? Daddy says he’ll hire you back at the brewery, no problem.” His friend’s dark eyes flashed in a familiar way. Owen had been on the receiving end of Antony Love’s anger plenty in his life. Some said that he, Owen, was the only real match for Antony in the temper department.

He managed a smile, but he knew it must look weak and fake. “I’ll be fine. I’m gonna go now. I have assholes to kill.”

“Owen,” Antony began. Then he stopped. “Take care of yourself.”

“Yeah, I plan on it. Tell Rosie . . . tell her I’m . . . I’m sorry.” His throat was closing up again. His eyes burned hot with tears he refused to shed. Crying wasted energy. Energy he was going to need if he were going to fulfill his stated goal—kill every towel-headed unfriendly he came across.

Shoot first. Ask questions eventually. His new motto.

“I’ll see you soon, okay? Two years, right?”

“Yeah, something like that,” he muttered, unwilling to admit that he’d doubled that and wouldn’t be home again for a solid four years. “Thanks.”

“For what?” Antony said.

“For being my family.”

He ended the chat. He was done chatting for a while.