Chapter 1: The Silence Before the Storm

It’s funny how your gut knows something is wrong before your brain even registers it. That “spidey sense”—or whatever you want to call it—is what kept me alive in Kandahar. It’s a tightening in the back of the neck. A metallic taste in the mouth. It’s the body’s way of saying: weapon up.
That morning, the taste was strong. Too strong for a Tuesday in suburbia.

My daughter, Ava, was sitting at the kitchen island. She’s fifteen. Smart. Too smart for her own good sometimes, and definitely too kind for a world that likes to chew people up and spit them out. Usually, our mornings are a chaotic symphony of burning toast, me looking for my keys, and her rambling about AP History or whatever new indie band she’s obsessed with.

But today? Silence.

She was pushing her cereal around the bowl with a spoon, creating little whirlpools of milk. She hadn’t taken a single bite. Her shoulders were hunched, trying to make herself small. I know that posture. I’ve seen it on rookies before their first patrol. It’s the posture of someone bracing for impact.

“Lil,” I said, pouring my third cup of black coffee. “You okay? You’ve been staring at that Cheerio for ten minutes like it owes you money.”

She jumped. Actually jumped. Her spoon clattered against the ceramic bowl.

“I’m fine, Dad,” she said. Her voice was thin. Brittle. “Just tired. Big test today.”

She was lying. I knew it. She knew I knew it.

I didn’t push it. I should have. That’s the regret that eats at you later—the moment you chose to be a “cool dad” instead of a paranoid protector. I wanted her to have a normal life. I wanted her to worry about prom dates and geometry, not the things I worry about. I didn’t want my PTSD to become her prison. So, I pretended to believe her.

“Alright,” I said, grabbing my truck keys. “Let’s roll. Don’t want to be late.”

The drive to Oak Creek High was quiet. Usually, she controls the radio, blasting pop music that makes my ears bleed. Today, she stared out the window, watching the suburban sprawl of Virginia flash by. The manicured lawns, the white picket fences—the illusion of safety.

When we pulled up to the curb, I unlocked the doors. She didn’t move immediately. She sat there, gripping the strap of her backpack until her knuckles turned white.

“Dad?” she whispered.

“Yeah, kiddo?” I turned, looking at her profile.

She turned to look at me. Her eyes were glassy. For a split second, I saw pure terror. Not test-anxiety nervousness. Terror. The kind of look a hostage gives the camera.

Then, the mask slid back into place. She forced a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Nothing. Love you. Be safe.”

“Love you too, Lil. Go crush it.”

I watched her walk up the concrete steps, merging into the sea of teenagers. I watched until she disappeared through the double doors.

I put the truck in drive and pulled away. But that metallic taste? It was getting worse. It tasted like blood.

Chapter 2: The Tomb

[Ava’s Perspective]

The hallway smelled like floor wax and cheap body spray. It was the smell of anxiety.

I kept my head down. That was the rule. If you don’t make eye contact, you don’t exist. If you don’t exist, they can’t hurt you. That’s what I told myself. But Logan and his crew—they didn’t play by the rules. They didn’t want me to exist; they wanted me to suffer.

They were waiting by the science wing. Of course.

Logan was the quarterback. The golden boy of Oak Creek High. He had that smile that teachers loved and students feared. Beside him was heavy-set Brandon and a girl named Kayla who used to be my best friend in fourth grade. That hurt the most.

“Hey, Army Brat,” Logan called out.

My stomach dropped to the floor. Just keep walking. Just keep walking. Don’t engage.

“I heard your dad killed people,” Brandon laughed, stepping in front of me. He was like a wall of denim and aggression. “That true? He a psycho? Maybe that’s why your mom died, huh?”

The air left my lungs. “Move, Brandon,” I said, my voice shaking.

“Ooh, she speaks,” Kayla sneered, blowing a bubble with her gum. “I think she needs a timeout, Ty. She looks stressed.”

It happened so fast. I tried to pivot, to run back toward the cafeteria where the teachers were on duty. But Brandon grabbed my backpack. The force spun me around like a ragdoll.

“Let go!” I screamed.

Nobody looked. That’s the thing about high school. When the predators are feeding, the herd looks away. Kids were walking right past us, staring at their phones, pretending not to see the assault happening three feet away.

“Timeout time,” Logan said.

They shoved me. Hard. I stumbled backward, tripping over my own feet, and crashed into the open locker—Locker 304. It wasn’t even my locker. It was an empty one near the janitor’s closet.

I hit the back metal wall with a thud that knocked the wind out of me. Before I could inhale, before I could scream, the door slammed shut.

CLICK.

Darkness. Instant, suffocating darkness.

“Let me out!” I pounded on the door. “This isn’t funny! Logan! Kayla!”

“Enjoy the silence, freak,” Logan’s muffled voice came through the vents.

Then, laughter. And then, the sound of footsteps walking away.

I waited. Surely, they were just scaring me. They’d open it in ten seconds. It was a prank. Just a stupid prank.

Ten seconds passed. Thirty seconds. A minute.

The bell rang for the second period.

The hallway flooded with noise—shouting, laughing, lockers slamming. I screamed. I hammered my fists against the metal until my skin broke.

“HELP! I’M IN HERE! HELP ME!”

Thousands of footsteps thundered past. But the vents were too small. The noise outside was too loud. Or maybe… maybe they heard me and just didn’t care.

The bell rang again. Silence fell over the hallway.

I was alone.

The air in the locker was already getting hot. It was a vertical coffin. I couldn’t sit down; it was too narrow. I could only stand, pressed against the cold metal, breathing in the smell of rust and old dust.

My phone. I fumbled in my pocket, my hands trembling so bad I almost dropped it. I pulled it out. The screen lit up the darkness, casting a ghostly blue glow on the metal walls.

No Service.

The school had installed signal blockers in the academic wings to stop cheating.

I stared at the bars. Zero.

A sob ripped out of my throat. The panic attack started then. My chest tightened. The walls felt like they were shrinking, closing in on me. I couldn’t breathe. I was gasping for air, hyperventilating in the dark.

One hour passed. My legs were shaking uncontrollably. The heat was unbearable.

The bell rang for the third period. More noise. More screaming for help. More being ignored.

I slumped against the door, sliding down until my knees hit the floor, curling into a ball as best I could in the tiny space.

Dad, I thought, tears streaming down my face. Daddy, please. I know I said I was fine. I lied. Please come get me.

Chapter 3: The Ghost Protocol

It was 11:15 AM when the feeling came back.

I was at the job site—I run a small contracting crew renovating old colonials in Alexandria. I was looking at a blueprint, but the lines were swimming. The metallic taste in my mouth had turned into bile.

My phone sat on a stack of drywall. Silent.

Ava and I have a rule. Protocol. At 11:10 AM, her lunch period starts. She sends a text. Usually, it’s an emoji. A slice of pizza. A zombie face if the math test was hard. Just a “ping” to let me know she’s on the grid.

11:15 AM. Nothing.

11:20 AM. Still nothing.

I picked up the phone. My thumb hovered over her name. I called.

“Hi, you’ve reached Ava! I’m probably studying or listening to music. Leave a message.”

Voicemail.

I tried again immediately. Voicemail.

My heart rate didn’t speed up. It slowed down. That’s what happens when the adrenaline dump hits your system if you’ve been trained the way I have. The world gets slower. Sharper.

I called the school’s main office.

“Oak Creek High, this is Mrs. Higgins,” a bored voice answered.

“This is Ethan Carter. I need to check on my daughter, Ava Carter. She’s not answering her phone.”

The sound of typing. Slow, agonizingly slow typing.

“Mr. Carter,” she sighed, like I was interrupting her coffee break. “Ava isn’t in class. She’s marked absent for second and third period.”

The world stopped.

“That’s impossible,” I said, my voice dropping an octave. “I dropped her off at the front door at 7:45 AM. I watched her walk in.”

“Well, teenagers skip, Mr. Carter. It happens. She’s probably at the mall or—”

“My daughter doesn’t skip,” I cut her off. The edge in my voice made the line go silent for a second. “If she’s not in class, and she’s not answering her phone, she is missing. You need to find her. Now.”

“Sir, we can’t just go looking for every student who cuts class. I can put a note in her file and—”

I hung up.

I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t argue. I walked to my truck.

“Boss?” one of my guys asked. “Where you going?”

“Emergency,” I said. “Cancel the afternoon. Everyone go home.”

I got into my Ford F-150. I didn’t speed. Speeding attracts cops, and cops mean delays. I drove with surgical precision, weaving through traffic, running two red lights that had just turned, calculating the fastest route.

My brain was running scenarios. Scenario A: She ran away. Unlikely. We watched a movie last night; she was happy. Scenario B: Abduction outside the school. Possible. But she’s smart. She carries pepper spray. Scenario C: Something inside the perimeter.

That was the one that made my blood run cold.

I pulled up to the school fifteen minutes later. I parked in the “Principal Only” spot right in front. I didn’t care.

I walked up the steps. The same steps I watched her climb three hours ago.

The security guard at the front desk was a guy named Rick. Retired mall cop type. He looked up from his crossword puzzle.

“Mr. Carter? You can’t park there. And you need a visitor pass if you want to—”

I didn’t stop walking. I moved through the scanner. It beeped because of my steel-toed boots and the multitool on my belt.

“Sir! Stop!” Rick stood up, reaching for his radio.

I turned on him. I didn’t touch him. I just looked at him. I gave him the look I used to give local warlords when they tried to lie about weapon caches. It’s a look that says: I am not a civilian. I am a catastrophe waiting to happen.

“My daughter is missing inside this building, Rick,” I said quietly. “You can call the police if you want. But if you try to stop me from finding her, you’re going to need a medic, not a backup.”

Rick froze. He swallowed hard. His hand dropped from the radio.

“I… I’ll check the cameras, Mr. Carter,” he stammered.

“Do that.”

I pushed through the double doors into the main hallway.

Chapter 4: The Breach

The school was in session. Fourth period. The hallways were empty, stretching out like long, polished tunnels.

It was too quiet.

I walked down the main corridor. My boots squeaked on the linoleum. I closed my eyes for a second, tuning out the hum of the HVAC system, tuning out the distant drone of a teacher lecturing about the Civil War.

I was hunting.

I needed to get into Ava’s head. If she was skipping, where would she go? The library? The art room?

No. She was scared this morning. She was terrified.

I walked past the cafeteria. Nothing. I walked past the gym. Nothing.

Then I turned the corner toward the Science Wing.

The air changed here. It felt heavier.

I saw a group of students coming out of the bathroom. Three boys. They were laughing, high-fiving each other. They walked with that swagger—that arrogance that only teenage boys with too much testosterone and too little discipline have.

One of them was wearing a varsity jacket. Logan. I knew him. Ava had mentioned him. The “Golden Boy.”

He was laughing about something. “… muffled like a crying puppy, dude. It was hilarious.”

I stopped.

They walked right past me. They didn’t even see me. To them, I was just some random adult, part of the furniture.

I froze. Muffled like a crying puppy.

I looked at the row of lockers lining the wall. There were hundreds of them. Blue, metal, identical.

I started walking down the line.

“Ava?” I called out.

Silence.

I walked faster. “Ava!”

I hit the middle of the hallway. I stopped. I listened.

The school was old. The pipes groaned. The vents rattled. But underneath that… I heard something.

It was a rhythm. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Faint. Weak. Like a heartbeat struggling to survive.

It wasn’t coming from the classrooms. It was coming from the wall.

I moved toward Locker 300. Thump… thump.

Locker 302. Thump.

Locker 304.

I pressed my ear against the cold blue metal.

“Daddy?”

The voice was so small, so broken, it nearly brought me to my knees. It sounded like she was underwater.

“Ava!” I slammed my hand against the door. “I’m here! I’m right here!”

“I can’t breathe,” she whimpered. “It’s hot. Daddy, I can’t breathe.”

Panic, cold and sharp, pierced my chest. The vents were tiny. It had been nearly three hours. The heat in that small metal box would be stifling. She was running out of oxygen.

I grabbed the handle. Locked. A heavy-duty combination lock.

“Ava, back away from the door,” I commanded. My voice shifted into Operator mode. Calm. Authoritative. “Curl into a ball at the bottom. Cover your head. Do it now.”

“Okay,” she wheezed.

I stepped back. I didn’t have bolt cutters. I didn’t have a crowbar.

I had rage. And I had a size 12 steel-toed boot.

I took a breath, focusing all my energy, all my anger, into my right leg. I visualized the latch mechanism inside the metal.

I kicked.

BAM!

The sound echoed through the hallway like a gunshot. The metal dented, but the lock held.

“Daddy!” she screamed inside.

“I’m coming, baby. Stay down!”

I kicked again. Harder. I put my hip into it, driving my heel right next to the lock mechanism.

CRUNCH.

The metal buckled. The door frame twisted.

One more. For every tear she cried. For every second she sat in the dark.

CRAAAACK!

The lock shattered. The door flew open, swinging wildly on bent hinges.

And there she was.

My little girl. She was crumpled at the bottom of the locker, her knees pulled to her chest. Her face was soaked in sweat and tears. Her mascara had run down her cheeks in black streaks. Her skin was pale, clammy.

She looked up at me, blinking against the sudden harsh light of the hallway. Her eyes were wide, dilated with trauma.

“Dad?” she choked out.

I reached in and scooped her up. She was limp, dead weight in my arms. I pulled her out of that metal coffin and held her against my chest. She buried her face in my shirt, sobbing uncontrollably.

“I got you,” I whispered, burying my face in her sweaty hair. “I got you. You’re safe.”

Doors to the classrooms started opening. Teachers were poking their heads out, alarmed by the noise.

“Hey! What’s going on out here?” a male teacher shouted, stepping into the hall. “You broke school property! Who are you?”

I didn’t answer him. I was checking Ava’s vitals. Her pulse was racing. She was hyperventilating.

“Is she okay?” the teacher asked, his tone changing when he saw the girl in my arms.

I stood up, holding Ava effortlessly. I turned to face the teacher. I turned to face the gathering crowd of students who were peeking out.

I saw Logan down the hall. He had stopped. He was looking back, his face pale. He knew.

I looked at the teacher. My eyes felt dry, burning.

“Call 911,” I said. My voice was low, but it carried down the entire hallway. “And then call the Principal. Tell him I’m not leaving.”

I looked down the hall at Logan. I locked eyes with him.

“And tell that boy,” I nodded toward the quarterback, “not to run. Because I’m faster.”

Chapter 5: Zero Tolerance

The Principal’s office was designed to intimidate students. Big mahogany desk, leather chairs, framed degrees on the wall.

It didn’t work on me.

I sat in one of the guest chairs, Ava clinging to my side. She had stopped crying, but she was shivering, shock setting in. The school nurse had given her a blanket and a bottle of water, but I wouldn’t let them take her to the infirmary. She wasn’t leaving my sight. Not again.

Principal Harper walked in. He was a small man with a comb-over and a tie that was too wide. He looked flustered. Sweaty.

“Mr. Carter,” he began, sitting down and folding his hands. “First, let me say how relieved we are that Ava is… safe. But we need to discuss your behavior in the hallway. Destroying school property, threatening students—”

I stared at him. I didn’t blink.

“My daughter was locked in a metal box for two hours, Harper. In your hallway. Under your cameras. While your teachers walked by.”

“We are investigating the incident,” Harper said quickly. “But we have a zero-tolerance policy for violence. You kicked down a door. You threatened a student.”

I leaned forward. The leather of the chair creaked.

“Let’s talk about definitions, Principal. ‘Bullying’ is name-calling. ‘Pranking’ is a whoopee cushion. Locking a human being in a confined space without ventilation is False Imprisonment. It is Kidnapping. And given the heat in there, it is Reckless Endangerment.”

Harper swallowed hard. “Now, let’s not be dramatic. It was a prank gone wrong. Logan comes from a good family. We can handle this internally. A suspension, perhaps.”

“A suspension?” I laughed. It was a dry, humorless sound. “You think this ends with a three-day vacation for the Golden Boy?”

I pulled out my phone. I placed it on his desk.

“I called the police on my way into this office. They are five minutes out.”

Harper’s face went pale. “You involved the police? Mr. Carter, that is unnecessary. Think about Logan’s future. One mistake shouldn’t ruin a young man’s life.”

I stood up. My shadow fell over his desk.

“My daughter couldn’t breathe, Harper. She was scratching the metal until her fingers bled. She was praying for me to save her. And you’re worried about his future?”

I leaned down, placing my hands on his desk.

“I spent fifteen years in the Army Rangers. I’ve seen bad men do bad things. But I have never seen cowardice like this. You aren’t protecting my daughter. You’re protecting your school’s reputation.”

The intercom buzzed.

“Mr. Harper? The police are here. And… Logan’s parents.”

I smiled. A cold, wolfish smile.

“Good,” I said. “Send them in.”

Chapter 6: The Paper Tiger

The room got crowded fast.

Two police officers—Sheriff’s deputies—walked in. Behind them came Logan, looking small and terrified, and his father.

Mr. Sullivan was exactly what I expected. Expensive suit, Rolex, and an attitude that screamed I own this town.

“This is ridiculous!” Sullivan shouted before the door even closed. “My son is a minor! You can’t question him without a lawyer! And this man—” he pointed a manicured finger at me “—threatened my son! I want him arrested for assault!”

The deputies looked at me. They looked at the broken lock on the table—evidence the janitor had brought in. They looked at Ava, huddled in the blanket, her eyes red and swollen.

One of the deputies, an older guy with salt-and-pepper hair, stepped forward. He looked at me, then at my arm. I have a tattoo on my inner forearm. A specific unit crest.

The deputy’s eyes widened slightly. He recognized it.

“Sir,” the deputy nodded to me respectfully. Then he turned to the rich dad. “Calm down, Mr. Sullivan.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down! This lunatic broke school property!” Sullivan yelled. “It was just a locker! A joke! My son is the quarterback, for God’s sake!”

I stepped away from Ava, gently squeezing her shoulder first. I walked into the center of the room.

I didn’t yell. I didn’t posture. I spoke with the quiet calm of a man who knows exactly what he is capable of.

“Mr. Sullivan,” I said.

He stopped yelling.

“Your son didn’t just play a joke. He trapped a claustrophobic girl in a dark, unventilated box for one hundred and twenty minutes. Do you know what happens to the human brain in solitary confinement? Do you know what happens to the heart rate when oxygen levels drop?”

I took a step closer. He took a step back.

“I tracked terrorists in caves who treated hostages better than your son treated my daughter today.”

“You… you can’t talk to me like that,” Sullivan stammered, his bravado crumbling. “I’ll sue you. I’ll sue this school!”

“Go ahead,” I said. “But while you’re filing paperwork, I’m pressing criminal charges. Kidnapping. Assault. Intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

I turned to the deputy. “Officer, I want to file a formal report. And I want a restraining order filed immediately.”

The deputy nodded. “Understood, sir. We’ll need to take statements. But based on the physical evidence…” He looked at Logan. “Son, you’re going to need to come with us.”

Logan started crying. “Dad! Do something!”

Mr. Sullivan looked at the deputies, then at me. He saw the resolve in my eyes. He saw a father who would burn the world down to ash to protect his child.

He realized his money couldn’t buy his way out of this room.

“Officers,” I said, turning my back on them to return to Ava. “Get them out of my sight before I forget that I’m a civilian.”

As they led Logan out in handcuffs—not real ones, just for show, but enough to shatter his ego—I sat back down next to Ava.

She looked up at me. “Dad?”

“Yeah, honey?”

“Did you really kick the door down?”

“Yeah.”

“Was it… cool?”

I cracked a smile. The first real one all day. “Yeah. It was pretty cool.”

But it wasn’t over. The school had failed her. The system had failed her. And I was just getting started.

Chapter 7: The Court of Public Opinion

News travels fast. Bad news travels faster. But a video of a 220-pound ex-Ranger kicking a steel door off its hinges to save his crying daughter? That travels at the speed of light.

By the time we got home that evening, the video was everywhere.

Apparently, a kid in the science wing had filmed the whole thing through the crack of a classroom door. He uploaded it to TikTok with the caption: “POV: When the quiet kid’s dad is John Wick.”

It had 4.5 million views in six hours.

I sat at the kitchen table, watching the footage on my phone. I saw myself—a blur of grey t-shirt and rage—decimating that locker. I heard Ava’s scream. I saw the way I held her.

The comments were a mix of hero worship and outrage. “Father of the year.” “Why did no one help her sooner?” “Fire the principal.” “This made me cry. Go get ’em, dad.”

But the internet is one thing. Reality is another.

Two days later, the School Board held an emergency meeting. The rumor was that Sullivan—Logan’s dad—was calling in favors. He was a donor. He wanted the narrative changed. He wanted to paint me as “unstable” and “dangerous,” a PTSD-riddled vet who overreacted to a “harmless high school prank.”

I wasn’t going to let that happen.

The gymnasium was packed. Parents, teachers, reporters. The air was thick with tension.

When I walked in, the room went silent. Ava wasn’t with me; she was at home with her aunt. She didn’t need to see this. This was my battlefield.

I sat in the back until my name was called. I walked to the microphone in the center of the basketball court. The School Board members sat at a long table, looking down at me like judges at a tribunal.

“Mr. Carter,” the Board President said, adjusting her glasses. “We are reviewing the incident. However, we must address your destruction of school property and the trauma caused to the other students by your… violent entry.”

I gripped the podium. I looked at the parents in the bleachers.

“Violence?” I repeated, my voice steady, amplified by the speakers.

“My daughter was locked in a box. For two hours. She scratched her fingers raw trying to claw her way out. No teacher helped. No administrator intervened. The only ‘violence’ that occurred was the indifference of this institution.”

I pointed at the Board.

“You call me dangerous because I kicked down a door? You should be thanking God that I only kicked down a door. You hold drills for active shooters. You prepare for fires. But you don’t prepare for the cruelty that happens in your hallways every single day.”

I turned to look directly at where Mr. Sullivan was sitting in the front row. He looked small now, stripped of his power by the glare of the public eye.

“Mr. Sullivan says it was a prank. He says boys will be boys.”

I paused. The silence was deafening.

“I have buried men who were ‘boys.’ I have held friends as they died in the dirt for this country. I know the difference between a boy and a predator. And if you let that predator walk back into these hallways… if you fail to protect these children… then you are not educators. You are accomplices.”

The applause started slowly. One set of hands. Then another. Then the whole gymnasium erupted. Parents stood up. They were cheering. They were angry. They were tired of being told to be quiet.

The Board President looked at the crowd, then at Sullivan, then at me. She realized she had lost control. The court of public opinion had reached a verdict.

Chapter 8: The Watchman

The fallout was swift.

Logan was expelled. Not suspended—expelled. The police charged him and his two friends with felony unlawful restraint. Because of his age and no prior record, he wouldn’t go to prison, but he would do community service and probation until he was eighteen. His scholarship offers evaporated overnight.

Principal Harper “retired early” the following week.

But justice on paper doesn’t heal the mind.

Three weeks later, I was in the garage. I had cleared out the old storage boxes and laid down blue puzzle mats.

“Okay,” I said, holding up the striking pads. “Again.”

Ava stood in front of me. She was wearing gym clothes, her hair tied back in a tight ponytail. She looked different. The fear was still there, buried deep, but something else was growing over it. Resilience.

She threw a jab-cross combo. Pop-Pop.

“Harder,” I said. “Drive through the target.”

POP-POP.

“Good. Now, someone grabs you from behind. Go.”

She dropped her weight, stomped on my imaginary foot, and drove an elbow back toward where my ribs would be. It was fluid. Violent. Effective.

“Break!” I called out.

She stopped, breathing hard, sweat dripping down her forehead. She looked at her hands.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, Ava?”

“Do you think they’ll ever stop? People like Logan?”

I lowered the pads. I walked over and handed her a water bottle. I thought about lying to her. I thought about telling her the world is safe and fair. But I promised myself I wouldn’t lie to her anymore.

“No,” I said softly. “They won’t stop. There will always be bullies. There will always be bad people who mistake kindness for weakness.”

I put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at me, her eyes clear.

“But that’s why we train,” I told her. “We don’t train because we’re scared. We train so we don’t have to be. You are not a victim, Ava. You survived. And next time? You won’t need me to kick the door down. You’ll kick it down yourself.”

She smiled. It was a real smile this time. A smile with teeth.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Anytime, kiddo. Now, twenty pushups. Let’s go.”

She groaned, but she dropped to the mat and started counting.

I walked to the garage door and looked out at the street. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the driveway. The metallic taste in my mouth was gone. The tension in my neck had faded.

I’m not a soldier anymore. I don’t carry a rifle. I don’t kick down doors in foreign lands.

But I am a father. And in a world like this, that’s the most important mission I’ll ever have.

I watched my daughter get stronger with every pushup.

Let them come, I thought. We’re ready.