The Way Home

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Unknown faces, unknown names, far from home on Christmas Day, protect us with unwavering vigilance so we can gather with our families around tables laden with holiday goodness and hearths warming us in the chill of winter.

This book is dedicated to them and to the families who miss them. And to the ones who return the same yet forever changed. You have my unending gratitude.

Afghanistan, July

IT WASN’T THE MEMORY HE would have chosen—not when he couldn’t even remember his own name—but he knew that he used to have nightmares about vampires. Hiding under his bed and in the dark closet. Swooping down on their Dracula wings, sinking their fangs into his neck, and sucking out his blood.

How ironic, then, that he’d become a vampire of sorts: a creature who lived in the night, hid from the light, and sucked sustenance as if it were blood from a young Afghan woman, who despised him but wouldn’t let him die. She brought him food, water, and medicine. And opiates that she liberally laced in all three.

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