Chapter 1 - The Survivor
The silence on the training yard felt heavy enough to crush a man.
Every cadet and instructor stared at Olivia’s exposed back.
The dark lines of the Task Unit Grey Lantern symbol seemed to burn in the midday sun.
Colonel Marcus Hale did not lower his hand from his salute.
His eyes remained fixed on the three vertical scars positioned perfectly beneath the ink.
"I asked you a question, Mitchell," Hale said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
"Why does your back match the only survivor’s classified medical file?"
The cadet who had torn her shirt, a hulking boy named Vance, scoffed nervously.
"Sir, she's just a twenty-two-year-old girl," Vance interrupted.
"She probably got that tattoo in some cheap parlor to look tough."
Hale did not even look at Vance when he drew his sidearm.
He pointed the weapon directly at Vance’s chest.
"If you speak again, I will shoot you for compromising classified military intelligence," Hale stated coldly.
Vance turned completely pale and took three frantic steps backward.
Hale holstered his weapon and turned his full attention back to Olivia.
Olivia finally reached back and tied the shredded ends of her shirt together.
"The sole survivor of Grey Lantern was a forty-year-old man," Hale continued.
"He sustained those exact three claw marks during a hostile extraction in a subterranean bunker."
"So how did they end up on you?"
Olivia looked directly into the eyes of the most feared officer on the base.
"Because he did not survive the bunker, Colonel," Olivia replied softly.
"He made it out, but he was infected with something the government wanted to keep buried."
Hale frowned, a look of profound confusion crossing his weathered face.
"The official report says he lived," Hale argued.
"The report is a lie designed to hide the fact that he went violently insane," Olivia said.
"He came home and tried to slaughter our entire family."
A collective gasp swept through the gathered cadets.
"I got these scars when I was thirteen years old," Olivia confessed.
"I did not get them by surviving the bunker with him."
May you like
She took a slow, deliberate step toward the Colonel.
"I got them from him when I drove a kitchen knife through his throat to save my little sister."
