Chapter 1 - The Man In The Tower Said I Wasn’t Supposed To Be There
Sergeant Mason Briggs grabbed the front of my training vest before I had both boots on the mat.
He shoved me into the center.
“Three of them. Don’t cry.”
The men around the training yard laughed.
Not all of them.
Enough.
Three trainees spread around me.
The first came forward before I could ask whether this was actually part of the evaluation.
He grabbed me.
I got free and sent him backward onto the mat.
The laughter changed.
The second man rushed from my side.
I caught him coming in, struck once, and he stumbled away holding his face.
The third hesitated.
Mason shouted at him.
“Move!”
He did.
A few seconds later he was on the mat too.
Nobody was laughing now.
Mason looked at the three men.
Then at me.
Whatever he had expected from the exercise, this wasn't it.
He stepped onto the mat himself.
“Enough.”
I backed away.
He grabbed my arm.
Not instructional contact.
Angry contact.
He pulled.
I turned with him and put him down hard enough to make the whole yard inhale at once.
Mason stared up at me.
I released him immediately.
“Are we done?”
His face went red.
Then metal struck metal above us.
CLANG.
Every head turned toward the observation tower.
A pair of combat boots appeared from the shadowed upper platform.
Slow.
Deliberate.
The man wearing them stepped to the railing.
I could not see his face from below.
Mason could.
His expression changed instantly.
Not respect.
Concern.
The man looked down at the mat.
At Mason.
At the three trainees.
Then at me.
“Who the hell are you?”
I looked up.
“Rachel Carter.”
Silence.
Mason pushed himself to one knee.
“She’s on my roster.”
The man in the tower did not look away from me.
“No.”
Mason frowned.
“What?”
The man leaned slightly over the railing.
“I know who’s on your roster.”
Then, after a pause:
“Rachel Carter was already here three weeks ago.”
Nobody moved.
I looked around the training yard I had entered for the first time that morning.
“What are you talking about?”
The man stepped back into shadow.
His next words came down from somewhere I could no longer see him.
“Briggs, nobody leaves.”
Then:
“Carter—don't touch your personnel file until I get there.”
Mason stared up at the empty railing.
I stared at him.
May you like
“What personnel file?”
For the first time since I had met Sergeant Mason Briggs, he looked like he was afraid to answer me.
