Vince's Shadow

Chapter One - The Quiet Before

Vince had never trusted quiet.

It wasn’t in his nature. Quiet meant someone was waiting. Quiet meant the knife was still hidden, the gun still c****d. A man didn’t live as long as he had by believing in peace.

Yet here he was, leaning against the hood of a battered truck in the courtyard of Eastgate’s community center, cigarette smoldering between two scarred fingers, while the sounds of laughter spilled from the hall behind him. Children’s laughter. Women’s chatter. The rhythm of music played not for mourning but for joy.

It unsettled him.

Vince drew in a long drag and exhaled slow, watching the smoke curl into the night. The city was glowing, streetlights humming steadily, rooftops lit by the faint reflection of Julian’s new grid system. The streets were alive with people instead of corpses. Peace, they called it. Restoration. But Vince’s bones—bones that had been broken too many times in too many countries—told him peace was just the eye of a storm.

His gaze shifted to the training ground where two young men sparred under the floodlights. Antonio and Ben.

Antonio moved with control, his blade angled in perfect textbook form. Feet steady, guard high, his every movement a reflection of the lessons drilled into him by Jerry, Lucy, and every rule Eastgate could muster. He was sharp, disciplined, his jaw clenched with that familiar weight of expectation. Vince could see Jerry in him—the posture, the restraint, even the silent demand in his eyes that screamed do it right or don’t do it at all.

Ben was the opposite.

Reckless. Fast. Dangerous in a way Antonio would never be. Where Antonio followed drills, Ben bent them, broke them, laughed in their face. His sword cracked against Antonio’s guard with brute force, no finesse, just raw instinct. He fought like fire, like the rules were just kindling for him to burn.

And Vince—against every damned instinct he’d tried to bury—liked him for it.

“Little bastard’s gonna break his brother’s nose one of these days,” he muttered.

Beside him, the nurse—dark hair tied back, eyes soft in a way that always made him uncomfortable—glanced up. She was the one who had patched him back together too many times, the one who still stood here even though he had told her, more than once, to stay away.

“And whose fault will that be?” she asked quietly, her voice even but sharp. “You train him like a mercenary, not a knight.”

Vince smirked, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Mercenary, knight, soldier… call it what you want. Only thing that matters is if the kid survives.”

Her brow furrowed. “Survival isn’t living, Vince.”

He didn’t answer. He never did. She didn’t know what he knew—that living was a privilege, but survival was a necessity. Men like him, boys like Ben, didn’t get both.

On the field, Antonio’s patience finally snapped. He shoved Ben back with a frustrated growl, his voice ringing out across the courtyard. “You never listen! Do it right for once, Ben!”

Ben grinned, cocky and defiant, a streak of blood trickling from his lip where Antonio had landed a strike. “Do it your way, and you’ll be dead before the fight’s over.”

Antonio lunged again, furious, his blade catching Ben’s shoulder in a move that should have ended the bout. But Ben twisted free, wild and unpredictable, nearly taking Antonio’s ear off in the counter.

Lucy’s voice cracked like a whip from the sideline. “Enough!”

Both boys froze, panting, chests heaving. Lucy strode forward, her presence commanding even without a weapon in hand. “Discipline,” she snapped at Ben, “isn’t a chain, it’s protection. You think you’re clever because you improvise, but one day, that arrogance will get you killed.”

Ben’s grin only widened. “Or it’ll get me through when rules fail.”

Antonio glared, sweat dripping down his temple. “You’re impossible.”

“You’re boring,” Ben shot back.

The courtyard filled with muffled laughter from the rookies watching, but Jerry stepped in then, tall and imposing, his voice booming with authority. “Enough.” His eyes cut to Ben with a weight only a father could carry. “You carry my name, boy. You’ll respect it, or you’ll answer to me.”

Ben’s smirk faltered for a heartbeat before hardening again. “Respect doesn’t win fights, Dad. Skill does.”

The silence that followed was heavy. Antonio shifted uneasily, caught between siding with his brother or his father. Lucy crossed her arms, eyes narrowing, disappointment radiating off her like heat.

Vince dropped his cigarette and crushed it under his boot. “He’s right,” he said flatly.

Every head turned toward him. Jerry’s brow furrowed. “You’re not helping, Vince.”

“I’m not here to help,” Vince replied, voice low, dangerous. “I’m here to tell you the truth. Out there—” he jerked his chin toward the city beyond the walls—“the rules don’t matter. Ask me how many men I buried because they thought discipline alone would save them.”

Ben’s grin returned, sharp and satisfied, but Vince wasn’t finished. He strode forward, his shadow stretching across the dirt. “But you—” he jabbed a finger at Ben—“you think instinct is enough. It’s not. Instinct without control is just chaos. You’ll burn yourself out before the fight even starts.”

Ben’s grin faltered.

Antonio, for once, looked almost grateful.

Vince turned away, his coat swaying with the movement, and lit another cigarette with a flick of his lighter. “Both of you have pieces of it. But neither of you are ready. Not yet.”

The boys exchanged a look—rivalry and brotherhood tangled into one.

The nurse shifted closer, her voice soft but insistent. “You sound like a man still fighting wars that ended years ago.”

Vince blew smoke into the night, his gaze fixed on the horizon. “Wars don’t end. They just wait for you to forget they exist.”

And in the silence that followed, his chest tightened. Because deep down, he knew the truth: his war wasn’t over. It was coming. And when it did, it wouldn’t knock on Capol’s door or Antonio’s tidy room. It would come for him. Vince Marrow. The shadow Eastgate could never quite wash away.

And this time, he wasn’t sure he could face it alone.

________________________________________

The laughter inside the community center shifted, children spilling out in groups, their wooden practice swords clattering at their sides. Among them, Antonio and Ben walked shoulder to shoulder—still glaring, still too proud to apologize.

Vince watched them, eyes narrowing, and for a flicker of a moment the courtyard blurred into memory.

He saw them smaller, younger. Antonio’s rounder cheeks, Ben’s restless eyes. He saw Lucy’s hand trembling when she’d been told they were gone—snatched in broad daylight, Eastgate still bleeding from its wounds. He remembered the night raid that followed, Jerry cutting down men with quiet fury, And Vince, learning the hard way how not to leave your charge unprotected.

He could still feel Ben’s tiny fists clutching his shirt, Antonio’s silent tears soaking his neck.

That was the day Vince stopped being just Lucy’s bodyguard. He had become their shield, too.

Lucy’s voice carried across the courtyard, pulling him back to the present. She stood before the boys now, not with a blade but with that quiet authority Vince had learned to respect years ago. Her words weren’t about strikes or stances—they never were. Lucy taught a different fight: the one inside.

“You two forget,” she said firmly, looking between them, “strength without love is just violence. And discipline without heart is just obedience. What we build here isn’t soldiers—it’s guardians. You protect more than walls. You protect people. You protect hope.”

Antonio nodded at once, his jaw tight, as if he carried those words like commandments. Ben shuffled his feet, eyes darting away, the rebel in him unwilling to admit her words sank deeper than he wanted.

Capol and Pat emerged then, drawn by the sound of sparring and raised voices. Capol’s presence was still formidable, his hair grayer now but his shoulders broad, his eyes sharp as the first day Vince met him. He clapped a hand on Antonio’s back, pride radiating from him. “Form’s good,” he said, before his gaze shifted knowingly to Ben. “But heart—that’s what decides the man you’ll become.”

Pat stepped forward, softer but no less powerful, resting a hand on Ben’s cheek. “And heart, Ben, isn’t weakness. It’s the only thing that kept this city alive when everything else was gone.”

Ben stiffened, caught between pride and the tenderness he couldn’t quite reject.

Vince looked away, jaw tightening. They were all building legacies now—teaching, guiding, planting seeds. But his own past didn’t fit so neatly into legacies or lessons. His history was filled with shadows, mercenary scars, choices he could never scrub clean. He wasn’t sure if he belonged in their sunlight.

The nurse brushed past him then, her hand brushing his arm as she went to gather the younger children. For a moment, her touch lingered, grounding him. He hated how much he needed that.

Wars don’t end, he told himself again. But maybe—just maybe—new ones could be fought for something more than survival.