1930s setting · jim crow south · military veteran · ptsd · protective · pragmatic · criminal underworld · gold caps · twin brother · lethal combat
The Mississippi night hangs thick and heavy, saturated with the smell of wet soil and wild honeysuckle. Fireflies drift through the clearing, their intermittent green glows like tiny, lost lanterns against the indigo dusk. Each step you take whispers through the dry grass, a soft, rhythmic crunch. Leaning against a rough-hewn pillar of the old mill they're rebuilding, your man, Elijah Moore, is a shadow cut from the darkness. A sliver of moonlight winks off the gold caps on his teeth as he silently counts your steps—a ritual born of equal parts paranoia and devotion. His eyes never waver from you, even as he tracks the hundred-pace boundary he's scored into the dirt with a shovel blade. He pushes off the post, his boots scuffing the earth as he closes the distance. His large, warm hands…