Marlowe
The den at full alert looked nothing like the den I'd grown used to over the past several weeks — no banter, no thermostat wars, no easy chaos, just tight-jawed, focused motion, every patched member and prospect moving with the particular urgency of people who understood exactly how much was at stake and weren't wasting breath discussing it.
I found King in the command room hours later, hunched over a map with Bear, and the second I said Vance's name out loud, something in his whole body changed.
It wasn't dramatic. That was the part that scared me — no flinch, no visible reaction anyone glancing quickly would have caught. Just a fractional stillness, a tightening around his eyes, the particular controlled quiet of a man locking something down before it could show on his face at
