He ignored her.
His eyes locked on me.
“You’re telling me,” he said, “that my sister, who works in logistics—”
“I never said logistics,” I said.
“You literally told Mom you coordinate aviation systems.”
“I do.”
Tyler scoffed. “That means paperwork.”
“Sometimes.”
Maddox’s face tightened at that word.
Sometimes.
Sometimes paperwork was a fuel manifest.
Sometimes it was a flight plan.
Sometimes it was a kill chain reviewed by six people in a windowless room while a convoy burned on a road outside Marib.
Sometimes it was a name moved from red to green because a pilot trusted your voice in the dark.
Tyler shoved his chair back.
“Say what you do, then.”
I looked at him.
Across the table sat the boy who once threw my science fair project into the creek because his football coach had called me “the gifted one.”
The boy who told me I was selfish for leaving home, then used my enlistment bonus to get his truck repaired because Mom said family helps family.
The man who brought a Gunnery Sergeant to dinner like a hunting dog, hoping he would smell weakness on me.
“I can’t,” I said.
Tyler laughed again, but nobody joined him.
He pointed at me.
“There it is. There’s the dodge. You can’t because it’s fake.”
Maddox turned his head slowly.
“Staff Sergeant Hale.”
Two words.
Low.
Controlled.
Loaded.
Tyler froze.
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