Chapter 1 - The Patch Jake Didn’t Recognize
The chicken drumstick hit the mess hall floor before I had decided whether Jake Thompson was stupid or simply cruel.
I had been eating alone at the end of a stainless-steel table, enjoying what should have been fifteen quiet minutes before my morning briefing, when he walked over with three other recruits.
“Mind if we sit with you?”
I kept eating.
That should have been enough.
Instead, Jake reached across my tray, picked up my chicken leg, and took a bite.
“Put it down.”
I didn’t raise my voice.
I rarely did.
Something about that seemed to irritate him.
Jake grinned and dropped the drumstick onto the floor.
Then Ethan Carter stepped behind me.
His hands came down hard on my shoulders.
Before I could turn, he slapped me across the face.
The force knocked me sideways from the bench.
My hip struck the tile.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then Jake pointed at the chicken lying beside my boot.
“Pick it up and eat it.”
Someone laughed.
Not the whole mess hall.
Just enough people to make the moment uglier.
I looked at Jake from the floor.
He was twenty-two, strong, confident, and still young enough to mistake an audience for authority.
Ethan stood beside him smiling.
The third recruit, Noah Parker, wasn’t smiling anymore.
His eyes had dropped to my left sleeve.
To the yellow-and-black patch.
He stared at it for half a second.
Then he grabbed Jake’s forearm.
“Jake.”
Jake pulled away.
“What?”
Noah’s voice changed.
“Stop. Right now.”
Jake finally looked where Noah was looking.
His smile weakened.
I stood.
Slowly.
I straightened my uniform.
My cheek burned.
My breathing stayed even.
Jake’s expression shifted from amusement to uncertainty.
He still didn’t understand.
Noah did.
Then the installation alarm exploded through the building.
Every conversation stopped.
Chairs scraped.
Sailors rose almost simultaneously.
A voice came over the public-address system ordering designated personnel to report immediately to emergency stations.
Jake looked toward the doors.
Then back at me.
I picked up my cover from the table.
“Recruit Thompson.”
He straightened instinctively.
For the first time that morning, he looked afraid.
May you like
“Come with me.”
And Noah’s face told me he already knew why Jake should have been more worried about those four words than the alarm.
