Chapter 7: Midnight Vigil
The concrete was bone-cold through his fatigues. Dante sat on a wooden ammo crate, his back against the rough timber of the range’s target-retrieval mechanism, staring into the middle distance where the floodlight’s beam dissolved into the swallowing fog. A near-empty bottle of rye dangled from his fingers, tipping occasionally, each small gesture sending a warm, toxic carve through the chill in his gut.
He wasn’t shooting. The Sig lay on the crate next to him, a dead weight. He was just sitting. The silence out here was a different animal than the barracks silence—vast, impersonal, broken only by the drip of condensation from a rusted pipe. He took a final swallow, letting the burn eclipse everything else for a three-second eternity.
Scuffling footsteps on gravel. Whispered voices, trying and failing to be stealthy.
He didn’t turn his head. His senses, always half- primed for ambush, tracked them: three sets of boots, light, untrained. Recruits.
Through the fog, he saw their shadows coalesce. Steve, Bucky, and Reddit, hunched as they moved past the range’s entrance, likely cutting from the barracks to somewhere they shouldn’t be. Steve peered through the gloom, his eyes widening as they landed on the solitary figure on the crate.
“Shit,” Steve whispered, grabbing Bucky’s arm. “It’s Marcus. Go the other way. He doesn’t see us, he can’t nail us.”
They hesitated, a trio of silhouettes. Reddit squinted, his expression shifting from panic to concern. “Man, he doesn’t seem like he’s been doing great. Should we check on him?”
Bucky looked almost anxious, his gaze fixed on Dante’s still form. “Should we risk that?”
Reddit’s jaw set. “You guys don’t have to. I will.” He stepped onto the cracked concrete of the range proper. Steve hissed a protest, but after a second’s hesitation, he and Bucky followed, moving like men crossing a minefield.
Dante heard the tentative footsteps approaching. He slowly turned his head. He looked at them—three kids looking like they’d been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, freezing under his gaze. A strange, dry sound escaped him. A chuckle. It was brief, more an exhalation than true laughter, but it baffled them. Their faces were pictures of confusion. They’d never seen him smile.
Bucky felt a little warmth, a quick, startling jolt in his chest. He liked Dante’s smile. It transformed his face, made the icy eyes seem human for a fractured second before the mask slid back.
“Y’know,” Dante said, his voice rough from disuse and the liquor. “Any other higher up catches you, it’ll be your asses.”
Reddit swallowed, standing a little straighter. “We just wanted to check on you, sir. You’ve seemed kind of off the last couple of days.”
Dante looked at them, his eyes moving from Reddit’s earnest face to Steve’s cautious one, finally landing on Bucky’s, which held a strange, open curiosity. He was studying them, weighing them. The bottle was empty. He set it down carefully beside the pistol.
“I’m going to tell you guys something,” he said, the words measured and clear despite the drink. “If the shit gets back to me that you told everyone, or magically the entire platoon knows, you’re going to hate me.”
The three men nodded, a quick, serious motion.
Dante picked up the Sig, not threateningly, but thoughtfully, his finger running along the slide. “I wasn’t trying to harp on you for helping Yepez out. That’s always a good trait to have.” He looked up, pinning them with that unnerving blue stare. “But personally, doing that fucked me over. And I lost a lot. Fucking twice.”
The admission hung in the foggy air. He saw Reddit’s eyes flick to the tattoo on his knuckles, the dark rose.
“So, if you choose to do that,” Dante continued, his voice dropping, becoming more intense. “Make sure you know what you’re doing. If you aren’t sure, do not take that fuckin’ risk. Because believe me when I tell you, those deaths you’re responsible for will haunt you. Constantly.”
He wasn’t talking about Yepez anymore. He was talking about the ridge. He was talking about the green shag carpet. He was talking about the lockbox under his bed.
Reddit, to his credit, didn’t look away. He gave a slow, solemn nod. “I understand, sir.”
Dante held his gaze for a moment longer, then broke it, looking back into the fog. The moment of openness was over, sealed shut. “Get out of here. And if you’re sneaking out to meet those nurses from Brooklyn, tell Connie she still owes me twenty bucks.”
The sudden shift to casual, specific knowledge stunned them. Steve’s mouth fell open. Bucky felt a weird spike of jealousy, sharp and stupid. How did he know—
Bucky’s jaw tightened. The name ‘Connie’ felt like a small, personal violation. He stared at the dark rose on Dante’s knuckles, the ink seeming to pulse in the low light.
Dante watched the understanding dawn on their faces, his own expression flattening back to its usual granite. He let the silence stretch, letting them marinate in the realization that he saw far more than they ever guessed. The fog curled around his boots.
“The point is,” he said, his voice losing any trace of warmth, “whatever I’m teaching you guys or yelling at you about is to help you guys out and not do the stupid shit I did.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the weight of the confession bowing his shoulders. “I’m not trying to be a dick.”
He looked away, he looked so exhausted. The floodlight caught the sharp lines of his profile, the dark circles beneath his eyes like bruises. The bottle and the gun sat beside him, a quiet testament. “Go back to the barracks before I change my mind and put you guys to work.”
It was a clear dismissal, softened by a fatigue so profound it was almost tangible. Steve immediately snapped a crisp “Yes, sir,” already turning, grabbing Reddit’s sleeve to pull him along. Reddit offered a last, concerned glance before letting himself be steered away into the gloom.
Bucky didn’t move.
His feet were rooted to the cracked concrete. He was caught between the retreating backs of his friends and the solitary figure on the crate. Dante’s words echoed in him, clashing with the rigid, intimidating Colonel he knew. The stupid shit I did.
“Barnes.” Dante didn’t turn his head. His voice was low, a gravelly warning. “That means you too.”
Bucky took a step closer instead. The cold air bit his lungs. “Sir.” His own voice sounded strange to him. “You said… about being responsible. For deaths.”
Dante finally turned to look at him. His icy eyes were emptier than the firing range, stripped of all pretense. “What about it?”
“How…” Bucky fumbled, the question half-formed, driven by a need he didn’t understand. “How do you carry it? After.”
A faint, mirthless twist touched Dante’s mouth. He picked up the empty rye bottle, studied it. “You don’t.” He set it down again with a definitive clink. “It carries you. Or it buries you. Now get the hell out of here.”
The finality was absolute. Bucky stood for one more second, the image imprinting itself: the towering man made small by exhaustion, the weapons beside him, the enveloping fog. He saw the hollowness he’d only glimpsed before. He saw the ghost.
He turned and walked quickly, not looking back. The footsteps of Steve and Reddit were already fading ahead. His own heart thumped a hard, erratic rhythm against his ribs. He felt like he’d seen something he was never supposed to see, something raw and secret.
Back in the barren bunk room, the silence was different. Steve was already in his cot, facing the wall. Reddit sat on the edge of his own, unlacing his boots with methodical slowness.
“He’s in a real bad way,” Reddit whispered into the quiet.
Steve’s voice came back, muffled by his blanket. “Not our problem. We shouldn’t have been there.”
Bucky didn’t undress. He sat on his stiff cot, the rough wool blanket scratching his palms. He stared at the concrete floor, seeing not the grime but Dante’s profile against the light. The stupid shit I did. The jealousy was gone, replaced by a churning, deep-water unease. He thought of the lockbox he’d seen under Dante’s bed during a barracks inspection, the one Dante had subtly stepped in front of.
He thought of the gun.
“He wasn’t just sitting there,” Bucky said, his voice low.
Reddit looked up. “What?”
“He had a bottle. And his sidearm. Just… sitting out.” Bucky met Reddit’s gaze. “He wasn’t shooting.”
The meaning settled between them, cold and heavy. Reddit’s face paled. Steve turned over, his expression grim in the shadows. No one spoke. The overhead bulb flickered, casting jumping shadows that felt like accusations.
Bucky finally lay back, but sleep was a distant country. He listened to the rustling of the others, the distant hum of a generator. He kept seeing the way Dante had looked away, the profound exhaustion that seemed to bend the air around him. It carries you. Or it buries you.
Outside, on the range, Dante remained on the ammo crate. The fog grew thicker, swallowing the far targets. He picked up the Sig, his thumb resting on the slide release. He held it in both hands, just feeling its weight, its potential.
Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, he engaged the safety. The soft click was deafening in the quiet. He stood up, his joints protesting the cold and the long stillness. He slid the pistol into his belt at the small of his back.
He left the empty bottle where it was, a lone sentinel on the wood. Turning his collar up against the damp, he walked back toward the barracks, his stride long and quiet. His shadow, stretched and monstrous by the single light, was the last thing to disappear into the dark.
His shadow, stretched and monstrous by the single light, was the last thing to disappear into the dark.
The door to his barracks shut with a solid, final thunk. He turned the lock, the mechanism grinding in the quiet. Then it was just him and the four blank walls, the narrow cot, the lingering smell of his own sweat from the nightmare.
He sat heavily on the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees. He stared at the opposite wall, unseeing. His mind unraveled, a spool of barbed wire snagging on every memory it passed.
He saw Michael’s small, terrified face pressed into the green shag. He saw the grey, lifeless eyes of the men on the ridge, their dog tags cold in his palm. He saw Christian’s surprised expression, the bloody ruin behind his head. The images came sharp and serrated, one after another.
Then the last piece clicked into place, the second great anchor of his shame. The ambush. The one that wasn’t his fault, yet felt more like his failure than any other.
He had argued for thirty minutes. A frantic, desperate half-hour in a humid command tent, maps spread under flickering lantern light. “The intel is hours old, sir,” he’d said, his voice low and tense. “The terrain is wrong. This is a funnel. They’ll be waiting.”
Major Rodriguez, a man with a desk-job paunch and impatient eyes, had waved a dismissive hand. “Your concern is noted, Captain Marcus. Now execute the order.”
“It’s rushed. It’s a goddamn death sentence,” Dante had insisted, his knuckles white on the table’s edge. “You’re asking me to lead my men into a meat grinder.”
Rodriguez’s face had hardened. He’d leaned in, his breath smelling of stale coffee. “Let me be perfectly clear. You shut the fuck up, and you go do what you’re told. That is an order.”
The silence in the tent had been absolute. Dante had looked at Jericho, who’d given a minute, helpless shake of his head. The chain of command was a cold, unbending thing. Dante had saluted, the motion robotic. “Yes, sir.”
He led them out. Thirteen men. The village was quiet, too quiet, the way a held breath is quiet. The first shot took Simmons through the throat. Then the world erupted.
Controlled chaos turned to slaughter in seconds. The expected foot patrol was a dug-in company. Dante watched Petrov get hit in the leg, then dragged behind a low wall. He saw the knife flash. He saw Mendoza try to crawl to him, only to be cut down by intersecting fire.
An RPG round hit the sandstone wall five feet from Dante. The pressure wave blew him backwards, his ribs cracking against the hard earth. Grit filled his mouth. Before his vision cleared, searing pain ripped through his shoulder, his side, his thigh. One, two, three rounds.
Through a haze of dust and agony, he saw Jericho thrown like a ragdoll, his leg bending at a sickening angle. They were pulled, dragged into the cool darkness of a low stone building. Hands bound with wire that cut to the bone.
They made them watch. The enemy fighters, their faces covered, said nothing. They just brought the men in, one by one. Some were shot quickly in the head. Others—like Petrov—took longer. The sounds were worse than the sights. Dante had stopped shouting. He just watched, his eyes dry and burning, memorizing every detail of each man’s face.
When it was done, a fighter casually raised his pistol. He shot Jericho in the gut. He shot Dante in the chest, the round deflecting off a mangled piece of his armor but punching the air from his lungs. They were left in the dark, bleeding out atop the spent brass of their own squad.
They didn’t know. The fighters didn’t know how stubborn a man could be, how a promise whispered in the blood-warm dark could fuel a crawl through hell. “We’re not dying here,” Jericho had gurgled, his own blood on his lips. It took two days. They made it back.
Dante snapped back to the present in his silent barracks. His cheeks were wet. A shuddering breath hitched in his chest. “God fucking damn it,” he whispered, the words cracking.
He put his face in his hands, the heels of his palms pressing into his eyes until colors burst in the darkness. He cried silently, his shoulders shaking, the tears hot and shameful. The PTSD was a dormant beast, quiet for months sometimes, lulling him into thinking he was clean.
But one thing—a smell, a tone of voice, a recruit’s reckless loyalty—could trip the wire. Then it all flooded back, a tidal wave of noise and blood and silence.
He lifted his head, his vision blurry. His gaze landed on the Sig, now lying on his footlocker where he’d placed it. The solution. The quiet. His whisper was a raw scrape in the room. “No.” He said it again. “No.”
A firm knock sounded at his door, three sharp raps. He didn’t answer. The lock turned from the outside—Jericho had a master key. The door opened and he stepped in, filling the doorway. He took in the scene: Dante on the bed, the tear-tracks, the pistol on the locker.
Jericho’s expression didn’t change. He just closed the door behind him. “I know you’re not doing too good,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact. He held up a six-pack of beer and a worn deck of cards. “So you’re not staying alone tonight.”
Dante wiped his face with the back of his hand, a rough, angry motion. “I’m fine, Jer. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Wasn’t asking,” Jericho said, walking over and dropping the beer on the footlocker, deliberately blocking the view of the Sig. He pulled the room’s only other chair over with a screech of wood on concrete. “You can sit there and brood, or you can lose half your pay to me at poker. Your choice.”
Dante stared at him, the automatic argument dying on his tongue. He saw the familiar resolve in Jericho’s eyes, the same look he’d had on the floor of the nice house years ago. The unspoken history hung between them—the green shag, the ridge, the stone building. It was all there.
He looked away, a defeated huff of air escaping his nose. “Cards are probably marked.”
“Only one way to find out,” Jericho said, already shuffling with a practiced flourish. The sound of the cards, a dry riffle in the quiet room, was a tangible anchor. It was the sound of not being alone.
Dante finally nodded, a short, sharp dip of his chin. He reached for a beer, the tab hissing open. He didn’t say thank you. He didn’t have to. He just accepted the company, the fragile lifeline thrown into the dark water of his own mind. For tonight, it was enough.