Chapter 1 - The Mark Under Her Collar
“PULL IT DOWN, REED! LET EVERYBODY SEE WHAT SHE'S HIDING!”
The shout cracked across the gravel parade ground. Before Olivia Reed could turn, Corporal Ethan Briggs caught the back of her olive-green T-shirt and yanked. The collar tore. Cold air struck her shoulders. A black symbol appeared beneath her neck: an angular shape over three narrow lines.
A few trainees laughed. Olivia didn't move.
“What's that?” Briggs said. “Some secret club for girls who can't pass selection?”
“Let go,” Olivia said quietly.
“Or what?” He pulled harder. “You'll report me?”
A voice cut through the formation. “Corporal. Step away.”
Colonel Nathaniel Hale had come out of the barracks with a folder tucked under one arm. His silver hair lifted in the wind. He glanced at the torn shirt—and stopped so suddenly the folder slipped from his hand.
He knew that mark. Nine years earlier he'd watched a medic draw it on the wrist of a woman declared dead.
“Who gave you that tattoo?” he asked.
Briggs snorted. “Sir, I was trying to—”
“Not you.” Hale walked toward Olivia as if every step hurt. “Soldier. Look at me.”
Olivia turned her head. Her eyes were steady, almost sad.
“Who gave it to you?” he repeated.
“Somebody who asked me to live long enough to tell the truth.”
Hale's hand rose into a salute. The training ground went still. A colonel didn't salute a recruit. Not like this.
Briggs let go of the shirt. His face drained of color.
“Everyone dismissed except Reed,” Hale ordered. “And Corporal Briggs, you will surrender your phone.”
“Sir?”
“Now.”
Hale bent to retrieve the folder. A grainy photograph had escaped between its pages. Olivia saw a burning helicopter, five silhouettes, and a date that made her pulse kick.
She whispered, “You were there.”
Hale looked at her. “I buried you.”
Then Olivia saw the name printed beneath the photograph. It wasn't hers. It belonged to the man standing beside the colonel at the far edge of the training ground.
May you like
And that man was already reaching for his radio.
THE MARK THEY TRIED TO ERASE •
