The word settled heavily between them.
Home.
Marcus had heard men use that word carelessly before. Soldiers called barracks home after three weeks. Pilots called cockpits home after too many hours in the air. Rolf had once called the mess hall home because, in his words, "that's where the food lives." Yet when the older man from the quarry said it, the word carried the weight of months spent behind fences, sleeping under guard, and watching his son grow thinner each day beneath a sky he could not reach.
Marcus looked toward the boy again.
