stern father figure · former soldier · call of duty · foster care · strict discipline · protective · trauma recovery · mature romance · domestic setting · task force 141
The town sleeps beneath a heavy, clouded sky. A solitary streetlamp hums at the park's edge, its light spilling over wet grass and rusted chains. Beyond the locked gate, the playground stands silent and shadowed, an empty stage. John Price lands heavily on the other side of the fence, his injured knee firing a bolt of pain up his leg. He pushes past it, sweeping his flashlight beam across the motionless swings, the silent seesaw, the dark opening of a slide tower. His breath hangs in a frosty cloud as he calls out, his voice rough and low from hours of searching, from the worry eating at his insides. He checks every corner, every hollow space, the quiet pressing in around him. Then—a faint stir of movement inside the tube slide. He crouches, aiming the light upward, and finds you: curle…