PART 2
Earlier that morning, Holt had been joking.
“You know there’s a pool going around,” he said in the Humvee while fog rolled across the road.
Ava checked the magazine on her rifle without looking at him.
“About what?”
“Whether today’s the day Staff Sergeant Stroud remembers she’s a sniper.”
The Rangers in the back laughed.
Not cruelly.
Not really.
It was the laughter of men trying to make fear feel normal.
Ava closed the pouch with one quiet motion.
“Maybe today’s the day you remember you’re a spotter.”
That earned louder laughter.
Holt grinned like he had won something.
But Sergeant Mason Rudd looked back once.
His eyes met Ava’s for less than a second.
He knew pieces of her past.
Not enough to explain her.
Enough to know the jokes were circling something dangerous.
Black Veil Forest stood twenty-three miles beyond the outpost.
A dark mass of old trees, broken ground, and dead radio zones.
Command called the mission simple.
Walk in.
Observe.
Confirm enemy movement.
Leave before anyone knew the Rangers had been there.
But Ava knew better before they crossed the first ridge.
The forest was too still.
Birds lifted in the wrong direction.
Brush moved after the wind had died.
Holt whispered, “What is it?”
Ava stared at the slope.
“Nothing yet.”
That answer annoyed him.
But to Ava, nothing yet meant something had started.
The forest was holding its breath.
By 0947, that breath broke.
The first shot hit a tree beside Private Noah Grant’s head.
The second struck Specialist Jonah Cruz’s medical pack.
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The third came from another direction entirely.
Then the forest erupted.
