Author: CuongG Mr

PART 2 The silence in that arena didn’t feel like victory. It felt like the moment the world holds its breath before a storm. I stood in the center of the dirt floor, every nerve in my body screaming. The blood from the cut above my cheekbone had dripped down to my jaw, mixing with…

PART 2 I didn’t hesitate. That was the first thing. The moment Captain Brody asked the question, my mind had already moved past the asking and into the answer. “We push blood now,” I said. “Two units, wide open, right here on the roof before we move him an inch. Then we take him downstairs,…

PART 2 I pressed down on the crutch’s rubber handle and pushed the door open. The metal was cold, but I barely felt it anymore. The bandages on my fingers were a dull, distant pressure, like wearing winter gloves that didn’t quite fit. Every ounce of my attention funneled into the room ahead. Colonel Weiss…

PART 2 I stood in that red-tinted corridor, feeling the weight of the weapon I’d taken from the man now zip-tied to the supply rack behind me. The emergency lights buzzed faintly, casting long shadows that twisted familiar hallways into something menacing. Every instinct I’d spent eight months trying to bury was screaming at me…

PART 2 I didn’t move. The bar stayed silent. It was the kind of silence that has weight, the kind that presses on your collarbone and makes you aware of every breath. I could feel Hagen behind me, still frozen, and I could feel Boyer’s eyes on the back of my head, steady and recognizing….

PART 2 I stood frozen in my doorway, the morning sun cold on my face, unable to process what I was seeing. A four-star general. At my apartment. Asking about my grandfather’s broken watch. The words “Have you opened the back yet?” echoed in my head like a shell casing hitting concrete. For several seconds,…

PART 2 The courtroom erupted the moment the admiral’s whisper cut through the silence. “She has Caroline’s eyes.” Three words, barely more than a breath, and yet every single person in that room heard them as clearly as if he’d shouted into a microphone. For a long, suspended second, nobody moved. It was like the…

PART 2 The room remained frozen, every man holding his breath. Colonel Bryce Tanner’s mouth opened and closed like a fish pulled onto dry land. The arrogance that had filled his face just seconds earlier had drained completely, replaced by something I hadn’t seen on him in over a decade — genuine fear. Admiral Monroe…

PART 2 I didn’t move. The judge’s question hung in the air like smoke from a candle just snuffed out. “So they really don’t know, do they?” He wasn’t looking at my father’s lawyer. He wasn’t looking at Patricia. He was looking straight at me, and the kindness buried inside that question cut deeper than…

PART 2 The word *colonel* went across that range like cold water thrown across a formation of sixty-one frozen men. I stood at the head of that formation with Dalton Vickers’ hand still clamped around my upper arm—his fingers had dug deep into the gray sleeve of my range clothes—and I watched the single star…