Page 4 of Searching for Valor

Zak turned away, once again staring out over the jagged tops of the pine trees. “It shouldn’t be personal. I should be able to compartmentalize. To focus on the job without getting… tangled up in old shit. Bella and Poppy are fine. Poppy is safe at home with Anna. Bella is safe at college. I know that…”

“But?”

Zak didn’t respond.

Rylan finished for him, “But sometimes the old shit comes back whether we want it to or not.”

“Yeah, well, the old shit needs to stay buried where it belongs. I can’t afford to lose it now. The team needs me to keep it together.”

Jesus. Was the guy inside his head? Rylan studied his friend’s profile, noting the tension lines around his eyes and the tight set of his mouth. “The team needs you to be human. To show them it’s okay to struggle sometimes.”

You’re a hypocrite, a voice whispered in the back of his mind.

“You don’t struggle,” Zak said.

He let out a humorless laugh. “Pal, if you think I don’t struggle, then I must be a better actor than I give myself credit for.”

Zak turned to face him fully then, his brows raised in apparent surprise. “What are you talking about? You’re the steadiest, most put-together one out of all of us. Nothing rattles you.”

“I’m a good counselor, Zak. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have demons to fight. Trust me, I’m plenty rattled. Every damn day.”

Something flickered in Zak’s eyes— a hint of relief. “You never show it.”

“Yeah, well. That’s the job, isn’t it? To be everyone else’s rock.” He glanced back toward the fire, where the rest of the team still sat in heavy silence. “But some days… some days it’s like I’m drowning right alongside them.”

Zak was quiet for a long moment. “So what do you do? When it feels like that?”

Rylan thought of his most recent coping mechanism. No, he couldn’t tell Zak that he’d fallen off the wagon repeatedly over the last few weeks, or about all the bottles of bourbon he’d burned through. That wouldn’t accomplish anything.

He took a deep breath, the cool night air filling his lungs but doing nothing to ease the burn of shame. “You remind yourself that it’s okay not to be okay. That even the strongest among us can crack sometimes. It doesn’t make us weak. And you lean on the people who care about you. You let them see the cracks, even when everything in you wants to hide them away.”

Fucking hypocrite!the voice screamed. It wasn’t wrong. He told it to shut the fuck up.

Zak’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “I’m not good at that. Letting people see the broken parts.”

“I know. But you have Anna. You have your girls. And you have us—this team—this family thatyoubuilt. We’re all a little broken, Zak, but we hold each other together.”

Zak nodded slowly, his eyes glistening in the moonlight with tears that he wouldn’t cry. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” He clasped Rylan’s shoulder, squeezing tight. “Thanks, man. I needed to hear that.”

Rylan returned the gesture, gripping Zak’s shoulder firmly. “Anytime. That’s what I’m here for.”

And that was when the call came in, crackling over Zak’s radio, distorted but unmistakably grim. One of the search teams had found Aiden Ellison’s body on their way back to base.

Zak’s expression darkened with every word. “Fuck,” he bit out. “We were too fucking late.” Without another word, he walked away, heading toward the fire where the others sat in silence. Grief settled over the camp like a shroud.

Rylan watched him go, his chest squeezing so tight that drawing breath became impossible.

He should say something. Offer comfort. Do the job he was here to do.

But the words wouldn’t come.

None of them wanted to stay on the mountain another night. They broke up camp as quickly as possible and Veronica ferried them all back to headquarters in the helicopter.

Rylan stared blankly out the window as the dark forest blurred beneath them. His chest was hollow, aching with a pain he didn’t care to name. The rest of the team was silent, lost in their own thoughts and grief. Even the dogs sensed the heavy mood and stayed curled up quietly at their handlers’ feet instead of their usual excited wiggling during the helicopter ride.

When they landed back at headquarters, everyone moved on autopilot, mechanically unloading gear and storing away equipment. None of the usual joking. No laughter. No one spoke beyond a few mumbled words here and there. And then everyone went home to the comfort of their significant others.

But Rylan had nobody to go home to.

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