Chapter 2
The laughter thinned.
Torres’ smile tightened.
He stepped closer, angry now because she had not flinched the way he wanted.
“Or what?”
The woman did not answer.
She only looked down at the tattoo on her arm.
The black lines were sharp and strange.
Not decoration.
Not random ink.
A pattern of angles and broken circles wrapped around a small symbol near her wrist.
One of the older soldiers in the back stopped laughing first.
Then another.
Torres pointed at it.
“What is that? Some kind of cult mark?”
Before the woman could speak, a voice cut across the yard.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Commander Daniel Harris pushed through the watching soldiers, ready to tear Torres apart.
But then he saw her face.
He stopped.
The color drained from him.
His eyes dropped to the tattoo on her arm.
His mouth opened.
But no command came out.
For a moment, the entire base seemed to disappear around him.
Then Harris whispered the words that turned every laugh into silence.
“I carried her body out three years ago.”
No one moved.
Torres slowly turned.
May you like
His smirk was gone.
Read Part 3 to find out why the commander believed she had been dead for three years.
