Page 82 of The Fourth Option
“Spill it.”
“She was my foster mom, and she was dying.”
“What?”
“The doctors gave her a year to live. She never told me. She took me out of school, and we traveled the country in the van. She didn’t want our last trip together to be overshadowed by her diagnosis.”
“How old were you?”
“Eleven. We were on the road for two years before going back to Oregon. She made it until I was sixteen. The doctors couldn’t believe she survived as long as she did. Then I was on my own.”
“Chris, I am so sorry.”
“I didn’t know any different.”
“And your dad?”
“I’m adopted, but the guy who would have been my dad split early on. I don’t even remember him.”
“So, you joined the military to find a family?”
“You are perceptive, aren’t you?”
“It’s not a big leap, Chris. Well, did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Did you find the family you were looking for?”
Walker thought of the SEAL Teams, the CIA, and the man who bridged them both: John Staub.
“I guess I did,” he said, feeling the alcohol warm his system.
“Then why did you leave? I mean, you areold, but not that old.” She smiled.
“Afghanistan. I lost Connor’s dad and then we lost the country. Abandoned so many people who helped us fight a lost cause over all those years.”
“So, it’s about abandonment?”
“What?”
“For a philosopher you are not very observant. You have abandonment issues. So do I, so cheers.”
She leaned forward and touched Walker’s cup with hers.
“Every generation thinks the next one’s doomed,” she continued. “That they’re soft. Lost. Hopeless. You think the world’s gone to hell and that we’re all just dancing on the ashes. But you’ve got it backward.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Enlighten me.”
She tilted her head, studying him by the firelight, petting Paladin, who had taken a liking to her.
“You got screwed,” she said, slicing through him with surgical precision.“You were told to fight for a country, and instead of finishing it, they let you wallow in shitholes around the world while defense contractors got rich and you got hollowed out. And now you think the whole thing’s beyond saving so you want to leave it behind.”
Who is this girl?
She sipped her whiskey, eyes on the water. “But it’s not. You don’t see the ones who are still trying. People like Connor. People like me.”
Paladin shifted beside her. She reached down and ran her fingers behind his ears.
