Chapter 18 - THE FLIGHT DANIEL ALMOST CANCELED
After the hearing, Daniel asked Ava to walk with him across the parade field.
She used one crutch now.
The wheelchair remained nearby for longer distances.
Rain had stopped.
The grass still showed marks where the Black Hawk landed.
Daniel looked toward them.
“I almost canceled the inspection.”
Ava frowned.
“Why?”
“Your mother called me the night before.”
Ava’s mother had died years earlier.
She realized he meant the anniversary recording Daniel listened to every year.
“I was going through old messages,” he explained.
“One was about you.”
Her mother’s voice had said:
Let Ava become whoever she is without making her carry your rank.
Daniel listened to it after learning Ava had been injured.
He considered postponing the inspection to avoid appearing at her base while she recovered.
Then the restricted equipment losses became urgent.
He came anyway.
“If I had canceled, I wouldn’t have entered the dining hall.”
“Someone else would have investigated.”
“Eventually.”
Ava looked toward the building.
She thought of the extinguisher powder.
The rolling wheelchair.
Jonah’s hand catching the wheel.
Daniel continued.
“When I saw you, I wanted to forget every regulation in the Army.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked me your entire life not to use my power to fight your battles.”
Ava stopped walking.
“You still helped.”
“I made sure the system moved. The evidence did the rest.”
For the first time, she understood the balance he had tried to maintain.
He was not ashamed to be her father.
He was learning not to make fatherhood another command.
Ava touched his arm.
“I’m glad you came.”
Daniel nodded.
May you like
“So am I.”
👉 Braddock and Vance were removed from power—but Ava’s final victory would happen in the same dining hall where they tried to break her.
