I stood in the hallway of a physical therapy center, watching through a glass window as Callie worked with a trainer. The scars on her face had faded, and the light in her eyes had returned with a fierce intensity.
She stood between the parallel bars, her knuckles white as she gripped the metal. She took a step, then another, her face set in a grimace of pure determination.
She reached the end of the bars and looked up, seeing me standing there. A wide, beautiful smile broke across her face, and she let go of the support to walk toward me on her own.
I stepped forward and caught her, pulling her into a hug that felt like the closing of a long, dark chapter.
“I told you I’d be here,” I whispered into her hair.
The satellite phone was buried in a box in my garage, and the man named Nomad had gone back into the shadows. I was just a father again, and for the first time in a long time, the world was quiet.
THE END.
