Chapter 1 - Don't Shoot Him
"Shoot the dog!"
The order cracked across the training yard just as ninety-five pounds of Belgian Malinois came flying over the yellow safety barrier. Two military police officers reached for their weapons. A dozen soldiers scrambled backward.
I dropped to one knee.
"Atlas," I said. "Eyes."
The dog stopped so fast his claws carved lines through the dirt. His chest heaved. For one terrible second he looked at me as though he couldn't trust what his nose was telling him.
Then he made a sound I hadn't heard in eleven months.
Not a bark. Not a growl.
A broken little cry.
He crossed the final six feet and buried his muzzle beneath my chin. I wrapped both arms around him as the impact knocked me onto my heels. "Hey, buddy," I whispered. "I came back."
Across the yard, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Rourke stood speechless.
"Who is she?" a soldier asked.
Rourke's face went white. "Staff Sergeant Nora Hayes."
Eleven months earlier, an Army investigation had blamed me for sending a convoy into an ambush at Kharif Pass. Two Americans died. One of them was my partner, Sergeant Eli Mercer. I came home with a shattered ankle, a head injury, and a reputation that couldn't survive the word traitor. I had been medically separated while the findings remained unresolved. Atlas came home in a crate, marked unstable. The Army hadn't let me see him again.
This morning, an anonymous message had reached my phone: ATLAS IS SCHEDULED FOR EUTHANASIA AT 1600. IF YOU EVER LOVED HIM, COME NOW.
So I had come.
A black SUV rolled to a stop beside the fence. Colonel Victor Sloane stepped out, buttoning his coat. His eyes landed on Atlas and then on my face.
"Get that woman away from the animal," he said.
"He isn't hurting anyone," I answered.
Sloane didn't even look at me. "Sergeant Major, put the dog down if he moves."
Atlas shifted his body in front of mine. His lips lifted, just enough to show his teeth.
Rourke looked from the dog to his commanding officer. "Sir, she just stopped an incident."
"She's trespassing on a restricted installation. Detain her."
Two MPs approached. I raised my empty hands, but Atlas didn't move. I touched the white scar behind his left ear, the one I'd cleaned after his first deployment.
"Down. Stay. Love you."
He obeyed. Sloane watched with a strange, frightened kind of anger.
As an MP took my wrist, Atlas lifted his head. In his teeth was a torn strip of orange webbing that hadn't been there when he started running.
May you like
I recognized it instantly.
It came from the harness Eli Mercer had strapped onto Atlas the morning he died.
