Chapter 2 - The Day the Fabric Tore
Maya stared at Sergeant Major Vance as though the ground beneath her had disappeared.
“You signed a report saying I was dead?”
Vance didn't answer immediately.
Miller had backed several feet away. Even he seemed to understand that whatever had begun as bullying had uncovered something far larger.
Drill Sergeant Hayes removed his overshirt and offered it to Maya.
She wrapped it around herself.
Vance finally spoke.
“Everybody else, clear the pit.”
Nobody moved quickly enough.
“NOW.”
The platoon scattered.
“Miller stays.”
Miller swallowed.
“Yes, Sergeant Major.”
Vance turned to Hayes.
“Take Miller to command. Document everything that happened here.”
Miller tried speaking.
“Sergeant Major, I didn't know—”
“You didn't need to know.”
Vance's voice became ice.
“She told you to stop.”
Miller lowered his head.
Hayes escorted him away.
Soon only Maya and Vance remained.
Maya folded her arms.
“You knew my father.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Vance stared toward the empty training field.
“We served together.”
“You said he saved your life.”
“He did.”
Maya waited.
Vance seemed to search for words he had avoided for eleven years.
“Your father was attached to a team operating overseas. I was on that team.”
Maya's pulse quickened.
“My mother told me Dad died in an accident.”
Vance looked at her sharply.
“Your mother?”
“Laura Brooks.”
Another strange expression crossed his face.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn't nothing.”
Vance exhaled.
“Maya, there are things about that night I don't understand.”
“Then tell me what you do understand.”
He studied her.
“You deserve that.”
They moved into an empty briefing room.
Vance closed the door.
Maya remained standing.
“So?”
Vance sat.
“Eleven years ago, your father was working with us during an operation involving a weapons-smuggling network.”
Maya frowned.
“My father was logistics.”
“Officially.”
Her stomach tightened.
Vance continued.
“He had discovered that someone was leaking information. Routes. Names. Safe locations.”
“Someone in the military?”
“We suspected it.”
“And you?”
“I was trying to identify them.”
Vance paused.
“Ethan found the evidence first.”
Maya felt suddenly cold.
“What happened?”
“He called me one night. Said he'd found something that could expose the entire network.”
Vance's eyes became distant.
“He told me to meet him at a safe house.”
Maya's fingers tightened.
“What safe house?”
Vance looked directly at her.
“The house where you got those scars.”
The room became silent.
Fragments returned.
A hallway.
Her father's voice.
A stuffed rabbit on the floor.
Smoke crawling beneath a door.
“Why was I there?”
“I don't know.”
“Was my mother there?”
Vance hesitated.
“I never saw her.”
Maya noticed the careful wording.
“What happened when you arrived?”
“The building was already burning.”
Vance's voice lowered.
“I heard gunfire inside.”
Maya's breathing changed.
“I went in.”
Images flickered behind her eyes.
Flames.
A collapsing ceiling.
Someone carrying her.
Vance continued.
“I found Ethan badly wounded.”
Maya's eyes filled.
“Was he alive?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Vance looked down.
“He told me there was a child inside.”
Maya couldn't speak.
“I found you near the rear room. Part of the ceiling had collapsed. Your arm was trapped beneath burning debris.”
Maya instinctively touched her scars.
“You pulled me out?”
Vance nodded slowly.
“But those marks near your shoulder weren't caused by the fire.”
Maya looked at him.
“What?”
“The three curved scars.”
He pointed without touching her.
“They were already there.”
Maya felt dizzy.
“What caused them?”
“I don't know.”
“But you recognized them.”
“Yes.”
“From where?”
Vance stood.
He walked to the window.
For several seconds he said nothing.
Then:
“Your father had the same marks.”
Maya's breath caught.
“Where?”
“On his chest.”
Silence.
“He told me they weren't scars.”
Maya frowned.
“What were they?”
“A message.”
Vance turned.
“Something created deliberately so it couldn't be stolen, erased, or destroyed.”
Maya stared at him.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“It didn't make sense to me either.”
“Then why did you react like you'd seen a ghost?”
Vance's jaw tightened.
“Because after I carried you outside, someone attacked me.”
Maya froze.
“I woke up two days later.”
“And me?”
“You were gone.”
“Gone?”
“The official report said there had been no surviving child.”
Maya shook her head.
“But you saw me.”
“I argued exactly that.”
“What happened?”
“My commanding officer told me I'd been disoriented from smoke inhalation and a head injury.”
“You believed him?”
“No.”
“Then why sign the report?”
The question hit him hard.
Vance looked ashamed.
“Because I was thirty-seven, injured, angry, and being threatened with removal from service. I convinced myself there had to be an explanation.”
Maya's eyes hardened.
“So you gave up.”
“Yes.”
He didn't defend himself.
That made her anger harder to hold.
Vance reached into a locked cabinet.
He removed an old notebook.
“I didn't completely give up.”
He opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Maya took it.
Four soldiers stood beside a vehicle.
One was younger Vance.
Beside him stood a smiling man.
Maya recognized him immediately.
Her father.
She hadn't seen that face since childhood.
Her hand trembled.
Vance pointed toward Ethan's collar.
Something metallic was visible beneath it.
A pendant.
Maya touched her neck unconsciously.
She wore a small metal pendant she'd owned for as long as she could remember.
Slowly, she pulled it from beneath her shirt.
Vance turned pale again.
“Where did you get that?”
“My mother said Dad gave it to me.”
“May I?”
Maya handed it over.
Vance examined the back.
There were tiny grooves engraved into the metal.
Three curves.
A line.
A sequence of numbers.
Vance whispered, “My God.”
“What?”
He looked up.
“This is what Ethan was protecting.”
“What is it?”
“I don't know.”
A knock interrupted them.
Hayes entered.
“Sergeant Major?”
Vance immediately covered the pendant.
“What?”
“There are two men at the front gate asking for Recruit Brooks.”
Maya frowned.
“Who?”
Hayes looked uncomfortable.
“They showed federal credentials.”
Vance's expression changed.
“Did anyone tell them what happened today?”
“No.”
“Then how do they know she's here?”
Nobody answered.
Vance closed his fist around the pendant.
And for the first time, Maya understood something terrifying.
May you like
The secret hidden beneath her sleeve hadn't merely survived eleven years.
Someone had been waiting for it to reappear.
