“Where is the other half, Dad?”
He looked at my left wrist. At the scratched, battered silver watch Lucas had given me the night before we deployed. I had never taken it off.
“Inside the backplate,” he whispered. “They know you have it now. And they want it.”
My phone buzzed again. A text message. Building 32. South Annex. 45 minutes.
Building 32 was a decommissioned training structure on the far side of the base. Isolated. Perfect for a quiet execution.
I looked at my father. The man who had built my life on a foundation of corpses. “Get up.”
“Emily, we can’t go there, they’ll kill us both—”
“Get up!” I roared, drawing the attention of Commander Hayes and Senior Chief Jonah Mercer, who were rapidly approaching our alcove.
Mercer, the man whose life I had saved in that same valley six years ago. The man who had, in turn, pulled my brother Ryan from a pool when he nearly drowned during training three months ago.
