Chapter 4 - The Ghost in the Woods
"David," I breathed, my voice cracking under the weight of an impossible reality.
My husband had been killed in action during a classified raid in Afghanistan exactly five years ago.
I had personally received his folded flag.
I had buried an empty casket because they told me his body was unrecoverable.
Now he was standing directly in front of me, looking older, heavily scarred, and completely alive.
"Put the gun down, David," I demanded, stepping squarely in front of Abigail to shield her.
David did not lower his weapon.
His eyes, once warm and full of laughter, were completely hollow and devoid of any emotion.
"I need the encrypted drive, Rachel," he said in a mechanical, chillingly calm tone.
Abigail peeked around my shoulder, sobbing hysterically at the sight of her resurrected father.
"Dad?" she cried out, stepping out from behind my protective stance.
"Don't shoot her, Dad, please!"
David's finger hesitated on the trigger for a fraction of a second.
That momentary hesitation was all the opening I needed.
I lunged forward, closing the distance between us with lethal speed.
I grabbed the hot barrel of his rifle, aggressively twisting it upward just as the weapon discharged into the sky.
I drove my elbow brutally into his jaw, dropping him to the muddy riverbank.
I stood over him, aiming my sidearm directly at his chest while my mind spiraled in complete agony.
"Why are you doing this?" I screamed, tears finally breaking through my rigid composure.
"Why did you fake your own death and abandon us?"
David coughed, spitting a mixture of blood and dirt onto the grass.
"I didn't fake anything, Rachel," he groaned, clutching his bruised jaw.
"Vance captured me during the raid and held me in a black-site prison for five years."
He looked up at me, his hollow eyes finally showing a flicker of profound desperation.
"They told me if I didn't retrieve the Ferguson drive today, they would execute both of you."
I slowly lowered my weapon, the horrifying scope of Vance's betrayal washing over me.
Vance had kept my husband as a tortured prisoner just to use him as the ultimate leverage against me.
"We have to move," David said, painfully pushing himself up from the mud.
"Vance's tracking teams are less than two minutes behind me."
I reached out and pulled my husband to his feet, our hands touching for the first time in half a decade.
We ran fiercely through the dense Appalachian woods, completely united by our shared desperation to survive.
We reached a hidden access road where David had parked an unmarked military jeep.
As we climbed into the vehicle, a massive, deafening siren began wailing from the nearby town.
David looked at his wrist monitor, his face completely draining of color.
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"They just triggered the national emergency broadcast system," he whispered in sheer terror.
"Vance officially designated you and me as armed domestic terrorists."
