I still remember the smell of that hangar in Chicago. It was a mix of jet fuel, polished steel, and the industrial bleach I used to scrub the floors. But mostly, I remember the sound of laughter. Not the warm, family kind—the sharp, metallic kind that sticks to your skin and burns.
My name is Ethan Cole. To the people at Hail Aviation, I was just “The Janitor.” I was the guy in the faded blue uniform, the one who cleaned up the coffee spills in the breakroom and mopped the oil off the epoxy floors near the landing pads. I was invisible. And honestly? I preferred it that way.
Invisibility was safe. Invisibility meant I could do my shift, collect my paycheck, and rush home to my little girl, Lily.
Lily was seven, and she was my whole world. Since my wife passed away three years ago, it had just been the two of us against a mountain of medical bills and a world that didn’t seem to care much about bad luck. Lily was sick—the kind of sick that requires specialists, expensive medications, and a dad who is home every night, not deployed overseas.
