Homecoming

Driven out, taken in

Photo by Mikk Tõnissoo on Unsplash

The scars were what convinced her. His ursine size notwithstanding, Nessa O’Clery might have written Jake off if not for that spider web of white lines tracking across his forehead and cheekbones and vanishing into his unkempt beard. This guy was a survivor.

“Let him live,” she ordered. Her three companions, two men about equaling Jake’s proportions and a graying woman with steel…