“One hundred,” Nathan said.
No one moved.
Connor looked at Odin.
Odin looked back.
Not calmly.
Not hopefully.
But directly.
For a second, the warehouse seemed to shrink to the space between a wounded man and a wounded dog.
Connor’s scars pulled tight beneath his shirt.
His right leg burned under him.
His discharge papers were folded in the glove box of his old Ford Bronco outside, as if a stack of official pages could explain what it meant to lose the only version of yourself you knew how to be.
Nathan lowered the microphone slightly.
“Fifty dollars.”
The man two rows below Connor snorted.
“That one’s done,” he said.
Connor knew that word.
Done.
People used it when they had already decided a living thing was easier to discard than understand.
His hand rose from the railing.
Nathan saw him instantly.
“Fifty dollars to the gentleman in the back.”
