Max POV
Nobody warns you that the hardest part of a war isn't the fighting.
It's the paperwork that comes after, the names that turn into line items, the families you have to call because you were the one closest to the operations board when the casualty reports started coming in.
"Kowalski," I read aloud, mostly to myself, checking the name against the roster. "Twenty-six. Two years with the strike division."
"You knew him?" Mark asked, leaning against the doorframe of the ops room, a bandage still taped along his cheekbone.
"Not well. He ran comms for the north perimeter during the safehouse extraction back when Reyes was taken." I set the tablet down. "He asked me once if I thought this job would ever feel less like waiting to die."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him it gets easier to compartmentalize. I don't think that's the same as it actually getting easier." I rubbed my eyes. "I should've told him the truth."
