“Looks like it’s just us, General,” I had said, glancing at the cat by the window.
Patton hadn’t moved. He rarely did anything he didn’t consider necessary.
Now, lying on that floor, I wondered if that had been the moment I should have understood something—that the house was already emptier than I wanted to admit.
Time dissolved into something shapeless as the cold worked its way deeper into my body, each shiver sending sharp waves of pain through my broken hip, until even breathing felt like effort I might not be able to sustain. I remember closing my eyes at one point, thinking how easy it would be to just let go, to let the silence take over completely.
Then I felt it.
A weight.
Warm. Solid. Alive.
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