Ryan heard her. He didn’t step forward. He didn’t defend me. He simply looked away, his jaw clenching.
“Ma’am, if you’ll come with us,” the guard said.
“My seat is row A, seat four,” I said evenly.
“Emily, stop making a scene,” my father, Richard, muttered, stepping up behind my mother. “Just go where they tell you. This is Ryan’s day.”
The guard didn’t wait for my compliance. He clamped a heavy hand onto my bicep. The physical contact was unexpected, jarring. My training flared in my muscles—a dozen ways to break his grip flashed through my mind—but I forced my body to go limp. I let him physically pull me out of the VIP section.
Whispers rippled through the crowd. I was being escorted out like a trespasser. My mother turned her back to me, her shoulders relaxing now that the blemish on her perfect family portrait had been removed.
The security guards dragged me toward the outer perimeter just as the loudspeakers crackled to life. Commander Nathaniel Hayes took the podium.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Hayes’s voice boomed, deep and resonant. “Today we celebrate the forge. The fire that makes the blade.”
I was fifty yards away now, standing behind a metal barricade with the general public. The guards let go of my arms.
Then, Commander Hayes stopped speaking.
He didn’t just pause. He went completely silent. The microphone picked up the rustle of the wind.
On the stage, Hayes’s eyes scanned the VIP section. He frowned. He looked at the empty chair in Row A. Then, his gaze swept the perimeter until he found me, standing behind the steel gates, flanked by the two contractors.
Hayes leaned away from the microphone. He gestured to the communications officer beside the stage. “Cancel the flyover,” I saw his lips mouth.
A murmur of confusion swept the crowd. The distant roar of F-18s, timed perfectly for this moment, abruptly banked away, leaving the sky hollow.
Commander Hayes stepped off the stage. He didn’t walk; he marched. The senior chiefs fell in step behind him. The entire ceremony ground to a halt as this procession of highly decorated officers headed straight for the perimeter fence.
