Silence. Jason felt an acid shudder in his gut, like he'd put away a pot of coffee. He had no idea what to say to an eight-year-old who'd lost his father. Hell, he had no idea what to say to an eight-year-old at all. He thought of Michael, could almost conjure him up amidst the dancing dust motes, his brother shaking his head. Jason sighed inwardly, thought, Couldn't I just go back and break into the Disciples drug house again?

But Washington was right. He had to be more than just a soldier.

If only he knew how.

"Are you mad at me?" Jason spoke softly. "It's okay if you are."

Billy hunched further over his drawing.

"I know how things must seem to you right now. How…" He faltered. "Confused you must be. And sad, too. It's okay if you feel like that. It's normal." He tried to do what Washington had said, put himself in the boy's shoes. At that age, how did you conceive of death? Did he understand he'd never see his father again? Or was that too big an idea?

Michael.

They would never again sit at the kitchen table drinking coffee through till dawn. Michael would never again greet him with a smile and a nod and a pint of beer. And Jason would never get to apologize for the way they'd left things, or to thank his brother for always being there, even during the times they wanted to tear each other's heads off. Loss was a cold stone aching in the center of his chest.

How much worse, then, must this be for Billy?

Jason squatted in the sunlight beside his nephew. A neat terminator divided his forearm into sunlight and shadow as he reached out, touched Billy's shoulder. Set his hand there, feeling the warmth of the skin, the motion of his breathing. Just held the moment, the connection, trying to put into it what comfort he had.

"What's going to happen?" Billy spoke to the floor.

Jason sighed. I don't know. "Things are going to be okay."

"How?" The boy whirled, jerked back from his hand. "How?"

"Well…" The truth was that he had no idea. The truth was that all he'd done so far was make things worse. The truth was that there were people out there who wanted them both dead, and Jason didn't have the first clue how to stop them. But what he said was, "I'm going to find the guys who hurt your dad, and I'm going to make sure that they can't hurt you."

"Then what?" Billy's eyes were wide and wet. "What happens after that? Where will I live? Do I go to school? What happens?"

Jason stared at him. Right, he thought. Sure. The boy was eight. He wasn't concerned about gangsters. If an adult told him he was going to take care of something, Billy'd believe it. His grief would manifest other ways: anger, depression, fear of abandonment. With his father gone, the world he knew had ended. Of course Billy was wondering where he would live.

And it was a pretty good question.

Panic flashed through Jason, quick and hot as lightning. The thought had occurred to him a hundred times in the last few days, and every time he'd shoved it away, told himself he needed to focus on action, on finding out what was happening. But now it couldn't be denied any longer.

He was the only family Billy had left, and like it or not, he was responsible for the boy.

Jason felt his chest tighten. He wasn't ready. Not for anything like it. He could hardly take care of himself. To promise Billy anything would mean giving up everything. He'd have to make choices about his own life, stick to them. Pretend he was a sensible adult with his shit buttoned up, instead of a lost child nursing wounds only he could see, feeding the Worm he claimed to hate.

He cast about for something to say. Looked at the wall, the window, the sun, his eyes dancing. Coming to rest on the drawing in front of Billy.

"Can I see?" He reached for the paper bag, hoping for something to distract him, to distract them both.

The drawing had started simply: A door with a four-panel window on either side, and in front, a lumpy, out-of-scale tree. The same house drawn by generations of children, the lines rough and hesitant, a kid's clumsy attempt to conjure something from his mind.

But darker lines grew out of it. Horizontal and vertical slashes that framed boxes. Each connected, spouting from one another. Doors between them, and windows. A series of rooms, he realized, like a twisted mansion. Space piling on space, higher and further. An impossible, unwieldy labyrinth. A sorcerer's lair. And in the smallest room in a forgotten corner, lost in the maze, stood a stick figure with big hands and wide eyes.

Jason stared at the drawing, his fingers trembling. Stared at the red world Billy saw himself in. Not just lost.

Alone.

"I'll tell you the truth, kiddo." He passed the drawing back, then swung his legs out to lay on his belly beside Billy. "I don't know yet. There will be a lot of things we have to figure out. But everything will be okay. I promise." Realizing, as he said the words, that he meant them. That he would do whatever it took to make them true.

Billy wiped his nose with the back of one hand, unconvinced. "I was scared last night. You didn't come back."

"I know. I'm sorry." He reached out and picked up the crayon Billy had abandoned, twiddled it idly between his fingertips. "I was… well, I was trying to get the bad guys. If I could have, I'd rather have stayed here with you."

"You would?"

"Definitely." He nudged Billy with his shoulder. "You're my man."

They lay there in a silence a moment. The crayon's tip had been worn to a broad spade, and Jason sharpened it with the edge of his thumb. The red wax jammed under his nail like blood.

"Uncle Jason?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you need to go to the hospital?"

"Huh?" He cocked his eyebrows. "Why do you say that, buddy?"

"My dad said that you were sick."

"Sick?"

Billy nodded. "He said that when you went to war you were okay, but that you came back sick." His eyes were egg whites sizzling in a pan. "I don't want you to be sick. I don't want you to die, too."

Jason stared at him. Opened his mouth, closed it. He could feel the Worm tensing inside of him, like it hoped to burst through his chest. When he spoke, his voice came out soft and measured. "Your dad's a smart man. I guess I did come back sick. But it's not the kind I can die from."

"What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure how to explain." He blew air through his mouth. "You know how sometimes you make a mistake and it's not a big deal? It's wrong, but nobody gets hurt. Like when you screw up a homework problem."

Billy nodded.

"Well, sometimes you can make a small mistake that is a very big deal. It can be something really simple," seeing the stranded ambulance, a target under skies of flame, "something that seems like the right thing to do. Except if things don't go the way you expect, something bad can happen. When it does, it's easy to feel like you're to blame."

"Something went wrong?" Billy's voice was just a little louder than a whisper.

Martinez clutching his throat, blood squeezing through clenched knuckles.

"Yeah."

"It was your fault?"

"Well, what went wrong wasn't my fault."

"I don't understand." Billy stared at him. "It wasn't your fault?"

"Sort of. I made a mistake that let somebody else do something bad."

Billy wrinkled his brow. "But you said you were doing the right thing."

"I thought it was." Seeing the wounded Iraqi child in the back, his eyes wide and scared. "I was trying to save people's lives."

"Did you?"

You killed Martinez, the Worm hissed in his belly. You took a twenty-year-old kid off mission against explicit orders, in an area you knew was full of insurgents and snipers. You killed him.

"I think we might have," he said. "But my friend died, too."