ZERO mercy

— LOCATION: MILITARY BASE, SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES —

— TIMESTAMP: 2 YEARS BEFORE PRESENT —

The fire crackles, burning low as embers shift and collapse against the wood, the scent of charred logs thick in the cool night air. The wind carries the distant hum of insects, the occasional rustling of branches in the treeline beyond the barracks. A rare moment of peace. A fragile, fleeting thing. We know better than to trust it.

We don’t get nights like this often.

Bhai is perched on a worn-out wooden chair, grinning as he nudges Raja’s arm, motioning toward the tiny bundle swaddled in soft fabric against his chest. Raja’s daughter, barely two months old, her small fingers curled around the edge of his jacket. She sleeps soundly, undisturbed by the laughter, by the way Bhai gestures dramatically.

“A king,” Bhai muses, shaking his head. “And now you bow to that?”

Raja huffs, but there’s no bite in it. He shifts the baby closer, his large hands protective, cradling her tiny frame with instinctual ease.

“Say that again when she wakes you up screaming at three a.m.,” he mutters, voice low but warm, the barest trace of amusement lining the words.

Bhai leans back, arms crossed. “Brother, I’m not stupid enough to have one of those.”

The group laughs. Joker, perched on an overturned crate, tips his beer toward Raja in mock sympathy, the condensation dripping down his fingers.

Lucky balances his chair on two legs beside him, his boot tapping against the dirt as he shakes his head. “Yeah, man. That’s your problem now.”

It’s easy, this. The rhythm, the teasing, the way the camaraderie settles into something deeper.

Pat sits on my other side, silent as always, rolling a cigar between his fingers before bringing it to his lips. His wife leans into him, eyes half-lidded with quiet contentment, the kind of presence that doesn’t demand attention but still commands it.

Across from me, Titan and Cerberus sit just beyond the fire’s glow, murmuring to each other in low voices. They don’t trust the quiet. Never have.

And then there’s him.

Karim sits beside me, his arm resting across the back of my chair, his fingers brushing the curve of my knee in slow, absent circles. The touch is casual, almost lazy, but there’s an intent behind it, a quiet assertion of presence. His deep brown eyes crinkle slightly at the edges as he listens to the conversation, the flickering firelight casting warm shadows over his sharp features. He laughs at something Joker says, the sound smooth and easy, the kind that melts into a space rather than demands it.

His grip tightens—just barely—as I shift beneath his touch. A subtle, grounding reminder.

I exhale slowly, rolling the neck of my beer bottle between my palms, letting my eyes move across the faces around me, soaking in the moment.

And then my gaze catches on another.

Amos sits opposite me, just beyond the firelight, his posture relaxed but still. Always still. His bottle is untouched beside him, fingers curled around the neck of it, knuckles pale where they rest against the glass. His expression gives nothing away, but his eyes—dark, unreadable—are fixed on me.

I force myself not to react.

But I feel it. That weight. That pull. That thing that shouldn’t be there but always is.

A flicker of movement—his thumb tapping against the bottle.

Tap, tap, pause. Tap.

A steady, practiced rhythm.

I know it. I know it too well.

A humid night, the scent of rain in the air, walls damp with condensation, his fingers against my throat, his breath against my skin, the sharp crackle of a radio barely functioning between us. His voice, hoarse against my ear.

“You need to focus.”

“I am.”

I wasn’t.

I inhale sharply, forcing the memory back, pressing my fingers into the glass of my bottle until they ache.

Across from me, Amos doesn’t move. He doesn’t break his stare.

But he knows. He always knows.

Joker’s voice breaks the silence, his grin sharp as he leans forward.

“You know, Zero once took a shot from eight hundred meters that went straight through a guy’s radio and into his skull. Poor bastard heard his own death coming.”

Laughter ripples through the group, easy and unrestrained.

I shake my head, exhaling through my nose. “Six hundred,” I correct.

Joker winks. “Eight hundred sounds better.”

More laughter. The kind that should feel normal. The kind that almost does.

Karim shifts beside me, his hand sliding up my thigh—not far, not inappropriate, but enough to make a point. A slow stroke of his thumb against the fabric. “Something wrong, habibti?” he murmurs, his voice smooth, gentle, a note of amusement beneath it.

I smile, shaking my head. “Just tired.”

The words come too easily.

Across the fire, Amos finally moves, lifting his beer to his lips, taking a slow sip. His eyes never leave mine.

The tapping against the bottle stops.

And I wonder if he’s remembering, too.

The fire burns lower, the logs shifting as embers pulse like dying stars, flickering between deep reds and smoldering orange. The air is thick with the scent of burnt wood and old sweat, of beer and cigar smoke, of something that lingers beneath the surface—something unsaid, unspoken, but never truly absent. It’s the kind of night that feels stretched thin, the silence between conversations carrying more weight than the words themselves, the kind of night where you notice the way people sit, the way they hold their drinks, the way their eyes linger too long on places they shouldn’t.

I don’t need to look to know he’s still watching.

I feel it like an itch beneath my skin, a thread of static running down my spine, a slow-building hum in the back of my mind. Amos. He hasn’t spoken, hasn’t moved, but he’s there, just beyond the fire’s glow, just past the edge of the moment where I can pretend none of this means anything.

Karim’s fingers stroke idly against my knee, a lazy, absentminded gesture, as if he’s forgotten he’s doing it, as if it’s nothing more than habit. But there’s a slight pressure there, the kind of touch that lingers just a little too long, the kind that isn’t just for me but for the room, a silent I know who she belongs to that doesn’t need to be spoken aloud.

And maybe I should be grateful for it.

Maybe I should lean into the warmth of his hand, the solid weight of his presence beside me, the unwavering affection in the way he glances down at me when he thinks I’m not paying attention.

But my pulse thrums, just a fraction too fast, and I don’t know if it’s the heat of the fire or the alcohol or the way Amos still hasn’t looked away.

I shift slightly in my seat, a movement so subtle no one should notice, but Karim does. His grip tightens, his thumb smoothing over the fabric of my cargo pants, a slow, grounding motion. Steady. Reassuring. Possessive.

“You’re too quiet,” he murmurs, voice meant only for me, low enough that it doesn’t carry over the chatter.

I force a small smile, tipping my beer to my lips. “Just listening.”

A lie. A well-practiced one.

Because the truth is that I can’t stop thinking about the way Amos’s fingers are tapping against his bottle again.

Tap. Tap. Pause. Tap.

A slow, deliberate rhythm. The same rhythm he used to trace against my skin when he thought I was asleep. The same rhythm he drummed against my thigh the last time we were alone together, when the world outside the walls of our makeshift hideout had ceased to exist, when the space between us had burned hotter than any battlefield we’d ever stood on.

I force my gaze away from him, but my mind betrays me.

A mission. A cramped surveillance post. The scent of sweat and dust and gun oil thick in the air.

“We shouldn’t.”

“No, we shouldn’t.”

But his breath was warm against my collarbone, his fingers tangled in my shirt, and neither of us moved away.

I inhale sharply, pressing the memory back into the recesses of my mind where it belongs. Buried. Forgotten. Useless.

But Amos knows.

I see it in the slight tilt of his head, in the way his jaw flexes as he finally—finally—takes a sip from his beer, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.

And then he speaks, his voice breaking through the din, calm, steady, cutting through the thick tension that no one else seems to notice.

“You remember Syria?”

The words are directed at the group, not at me, but I feel them like a scalpel against my ribs, sharp, precise, deliberate.

Titan snorts, dragging his gaze up from the fire. “Which time?”

“The time Zero strangled a man with her bare hands,” Amos replies smoothly, voice even, giving nothing away.

Laughter ripples through the team, easy, familiar, but I don’t take my eyes off him.

He’s not looking at me, not anymore, but he doesn’t have to.

I know exactly what he’s doing.

Joker smirks, shaking his head. “That poor bastard had no idea who he was dealing with.”

Lucky snickers. “Thought he could take her, what was it? Two hundred pounds of muscle?”

“Two twenty,” Pat corrects, taking a slow drag from his cigar.

“And she was what? Hundred and twelve, soaking wet?” Bhai throws his hands up. “Goddamn.”

Titan’s lips twitch, his usual stoicism cracking just enough for a rare, amused huff. “Took him down in under ten seconds.”

Karim squeezes my thigh gently, his tone laced with pride when he speaks. “That’s my wife.”

The words should make me feel something.

Something warm, something safe, something real.

I smile, let my fingers drift up his forearm, tracing lazy circles against his skin. I let the moment settle around us, let the conversation shift away, let the night fold in on itself like an old photograph curling at the edges.

But Amos still isn’t laughing. And I still can’t breathe.

Because I know what this is. I know him.

This isn’t reminiscing. This isn’t nostalgia. This is a warning.

A reminder. A silent don’t forget what you are.

Don’t forget who you are when no one else is watching.

Don’t forget what we were.

I swallow against the weight pressing against my sternum, against the phantom heat of his hands, against the fire burning in places no one can see.

Karim leans in, pressing a kiss to my temple, his lips soft against my skin, his breath warm as he whispers, “You’re mine, Eileen.”

And I wonder if he realizes how much I wish that was enough.

The fire is dying, the embers settling into a slow-burning glow, fading heat stretching thin into the night. The air is thick with the scent of charred wood, lingering cigar smoke, the stale tang of beer. The conversations have quieted, the raucous laughter tapering off into murmurs, into the soft hum of private words exchanged between those still lingering. The night is winding down, but no one wants to say it, no one wants to be the first to pull away from the warmth, from the illusion that we’re not who we are, that we’re not killers sitting around a fire pretending to be something close to human.

I should feel content. The way Karim’s fingers are tracing slow patterns against my knee, the way his presence is steady beside me, the way he looks at me with something like reverence every time someone brings up my name in a story, the way he says my wife like it’s a title I should be proud of, like it’s something that makes me belong somewhere outside of war.

But my pulse is unsteady, and I can’t blame the cold, because it’s not cold, it’s never cold here, not with the heat of the fire, not with the weight of too many bodies close together, not when Amos is still looking at me.

I should turn away. I should let myself lean into Karim’s warmth, let myself melt into the feeling of being wanted in a way that’s simple, in a way that doesn’t come with collateral damage, in a way that doesn’t demand something sharp and brutal in return.

But I don’t. Because he doesn’t.

Amos is still sitting there, his posture unchanged, but his eyes haven’t left mine in the last ten minutes, and I know it, I can feel it, like a hand wrapped around my throat, like a weight pressing against my sternum, like a ghost slipping into my bones. He’s drinking slower now, his fingers curling loosely around the neck of his bottle, his expression unreadable, but I know better than to be fooled by that.

He’s thinking. He’s waiting.

For what, I don’t know.

But I know him. I know the way his mind works, I know the way he watches, the way he picks things apart until he finds the loose thread, until he pulls, until the whole thing unravels, until there’s nothing left but truth and ruin and the aftermath of a war neither of us knows how to stop fighting.

And I know that if I let myself meet his gaze for too long, I won’t look away. So I don’t.

Instead, I focus on Raja, who is gently rocking his now-sleeping daughter in his arms, his wife already having gone inside, trusting that her husband will follow. Bhai has finally stopped teasing him, leaning back against his chair, arms crossed, a lazy grin still playing at the edges of his mouth. Joker and Lucky are exchanging quiet words, something about a stupid bet that doesn’t matter, something about a memory that has nothing to do with now.

Titan and Cerberus are still apart from the rest, the quietest of them all, but their eyes never stop moving, their hands never fully relaxed, their minds never settled. They don’t trust peace. They don’t trust silence.

I don’t either.

Pat stretches beside me, groaning as he pushes to his feet, cigar dangling from his fingers as he exhales a slow stream of smoke into the night. He looks at me, nods, like he always does before he leaves, like it’s a silent promise that he’ll be there if I need him, even if I never ask. His wife tugs him toward the barracks, murmuring something under her breath that makes him chuckle.

One by one, the team begins to scatter, peeling off into the darkness, their footsteps crunching against dry dirt as they disappear into the barracks, into their temporary homes, into something quieter than this moment.

And then it’s just a few of us left.

Joker, Lucky, still lingering, but the conversation has dwindled, and they’ll be gone soon.

Raja, rocking his daughter, but I know he won’t be far behind.

And Amos. Still there. Still waiting. Still watching.

And Karim, who doesn’t look away from him this time.

His grip on my leg shifts, fingers tightening, but his expression is unreadable, carefully neutral, the way it always is when he doesn’t want to give something away.

He finally glances at me, voice low. “We should sleep, habibti.”

His hand slides up, warm against my skin, his touch meant to be comforting, meant to be grounding, meant to remind me that he’s here, that he’s real, that this—we—are real.

I swallow, nod, let him guide me to my feet.

Amos takes a slow sip of his beer, his expression unmoving, but I don’t miss the way his grip tightens just slightly around the bottle, the way his jaw tics just enough to be noticeable.

Karim’s hand ghosts over the small of my back, his thumb pressing lightly into my spine as he starts to guide me away from the fire.

And that’s when Amos moves.

It’s small, barely a shift, but it’s enough.

He tilts his head. Barely.

A simple, almost lazy motion.

To anyone else, it would mean nothing.

To me, it’s everything.

A warning. A message. A reminder. And maybe a question.

I feel my pulse quicken, my breath stutter, my chest tighten as I force myself to keep walking, to keep moving, to let Karim lead me away, to pretend I didn’t just see what I saw, to pretend it doesn’t matter.

But it does. Because I know what he’s saying.

I see you. I remember. Do you?