He turned to Tyler, whose hands were now shaking uncontrollably. The Colonel didn’t yell. He just pointed to the office Tyler had been occupying for three months. “Lieutenant,” the Colonel said, his voice ice cold. “Do you know why she’s standing here?” Tyler shook his head, too scared to speak. The Colonel smiled a dangerous smile and whispered… “Because the desk you’re sitting at? It actually belongs to…“Because the desk you’re sitting at? It actually belongs to her.”

The Colonel’s voice strikes like a hammer. No yelling, no theatrics—just a pointed truth that slices the air cleaner than any blade. The silence is suffocating. All eyes shift from Tyler to me and then back again. The young lieutenant’s mouth opens and closes like a fish gasping for oxygen.

“I–I didn’t know,” he stammers, voice cracking.

“No,” the Colonel says, stepping closer, “you didn’t. Because you don’t read history, do you, son?”

I don’t move. I just stand there, still breathing, still dust-covered, still alive—and that alone unsettles everyone in this room. They’ve heard the stories. Ghost stories wrapped in military reports. They know about Black Ridge. They know about what was left behind. They just never thought they’d come face to face with the woman who crawled out of that inferno.

“Captain West,” the Colonel turns to me, his voice soft now. “We never stopped hoping. Sitrep?”

“Recovered,” I say simply. “Mostly.”

The Colonel nods, then gestures toward the desk. “It’s yours if you want it.”

I glance at it. Cherry wood. Too polished. Too clean. Too untouched. My skin crawls at the thought of paperwork and ceremony. That’s not why I came.

“I didn’t return for a desk,” I say, locking eyes with him. “I came back for the file. Operation Silent Prophet. Where is it?”

His face tightens. The room stiffens. Tyler looks like he’s about to pass out.

“I knew you’d ask,” the Colonel mutters. He pivots, strides back into his office, and returns with a locked black briefcase. He places it gently on the center table like it’s a live explosive.

“This never officially existed,” he warns. “And you didn’t come back to retrieve it.”

“Understood,” I say.

He enters a long code and scans his iris. With a click, the locks disengage. Inside, beneath the top folder, I see them—photos, maps, field reports. And a patch.

The wrong patch.

I pluck it out. Blood-red embroidery. Not ours. Not anyone’s that ever served above board.

“They’re still active?” I ask, my voice sharper now.

The Colonel looks down. “We thought we buried them.”

I inhale slowly, trying to keep my pulse steady. “You didn’t.”

He exhales. “You think they’re coming back?”

“They never left,” I whisper.

I turn to leave with the briefcase, but Tyler stumbles forward.

“You—you can’t go rogue,” he protests weakly. “There are protocols, chains of command—”

“I am the protocol,” I snap.

He flinches.

And then I walk out.

The Arizona sun hits hard as I step into the light. The desert hasn’t changed. The scent of sand, sweat, and distant danger still clings to the wind. I open the back of the beat-up Jeep I drove here in and stash the case under a torn tarp.

I slide into the driver’s seat, and for a moment, I hesitate.

Can I do this again?

No backup. No intel. Just me, a half-healed body, and a head full of ghosts.

But I have to. Because the tattoo on my arm isn’t just a mark of survival. It’s a warning. A promise. A line drawn in blood and fire.

I turn the key. The Jeep sputters, then roars to life.

Three hours later, I’m at a crumbling gas station a hundred miles east. The kind of place that doesn’t show up on GPS. I park behind a dumpster and kill the engine.

He’s already waiting.

An older man in a worn-out cowboy hat, chewing the same toothpick he’s had since ‘99. Jack Morris. Former sniper. My old recon partner. Disappeared after the mission. Now I know why.

“Thought you were dead,” he says without looking at me.

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” I reply.

We sit in silence. The cicadas scream in the distance. Finally, I open the briefcase and show him the patch.

He spits the toothpick out. “Son of a bitch.”

“You recognize it?”

“Damn right I do. They used to call themselves The Harrow. Mercenaries with a God complex. Took dirty jobs no one else would touch. But this—” he taps the patch “—this wasn’t on them before. This is new.”

I nod. “Looks like someone bought their loyalty.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know yet. But I plan to find out.”

He hesitates, then looks at me with eyes that still burn like coals.

“You’re not going alone.”

I smirk. “Didn’t think you’d let me.”

He tosses a duffel into the back of my Jeep. “I’ve been waiting for this day for thirteen years.”

We drive in silence. Past barbed wire fences and cracked highways. By nightfall, we reach a storage unit behind an abandoned military airstrip. Inside, beneath dusty tarps, are weapons. Old. Reliable. Illegal.

Jack opens a crate and lifts out a suppressed M4. “Still remember how to shoot?”

“Point and click,” I say, loading a mag.

Then I see it. A file buried beneath a bundle of maps. My name is on the cover. A full dossier. Photos from satellites, time-stamped. One from just two weeks ago.

It shows a figure stepping out of a helicopter in the middle of the desert.

It’s him.

“Commander Strayhorn,” I whisper. “He’s alive.”

Jack looks over my shoulder. “I thought he died in the explosion.”

“So did I. So did everyone. But he’s walking free.”

I stare at the coordinates on the photo. They’re not far. A weapons depot. Unmarked. Not on any record.

We gear up.

Two hours later, we’re watching the compound through night vision from a rocky ledge. Dozens of men. Armed. Efficient. No insignia. But I spot the tattoo on one of them. Same winged cross. Only red.

“He stole our symbol,” I hiss.

“No,” Jack says grimly. “He corrupted it.”

A truck pulls in. Strayhorn steps out. Still wearing the same smug grin. My stomach turns.

“He saw all of us as disposable,” I growl. “Used us. Sacrificed us.”

“Then let’s return the favor,” Jack mutters.

We move like shadows. Silent. Precise. Years may have passed, but muscle memory is a stubborn thing. We take out two perimeter guards and slip through the wire.

Inside the depot, I spot it: crates marked with biohazard symbols. Not just weapons. Pathogens.

“They’re planning something big,” I whisper. “This isn’t a militia. This is biowarfare.”

Jack nods grimly. “Then we end it here.”

I plant C4 at the foundation points while he watches the door. We don’t speak. We don’t need to.

Suddenly, footsteps. Then voices.

They’re headed straight for us.

Jack pulls me behind a stack of crates. We’re cornered, no time to escape. He raises his rifle. I raise mine.

Then the door opens.

And in walks Strayhorn.

Alone.

He stares right at me. Smiles. Like he knew I’d be here.

“I wondered how long it would take,” he says.

I step forward. “Why? Why all of it?”

He shrugs. “Because peace is profitable, but fear is lucrative.”

“You killed our team.”

He laughs. “You were tools. Effective ones. Until you weren’t.”

I level my rifle at his chest.

He doesn’t flinch.

“Go ahead,” he says. “Shoot me. But it won’t stop what’s coming.”

I squeeze the trigger.

Nothing.

My gun clicks.

Jack’s voice crackles in my earpiece: “They jammed us. Fall back, now.”

But it’s too late. The lights explode to life. Dozens of armed guards flood the room.

Strayhorn steps aside.

“You won’t die today, West,” he says. “You’re far too valuable.”

I raise my hands slowly. My mind racing.

Then Jack’s voice again. “Plan B. Now.”

I drop to the floor.

A massive explosion rips through the compound from the north wing. Jack’s C4—triggered manually.

Smoke, fire, chaos.

I roll behind a crate, grab a sidearm off a fallen guard, and return fire. Jack bursts through the smoke, bleeding from his shoulder but grinning like a madman.

“Remind me to never retire again,” he shouts.

We move. Swift and brutal. Years of fury unleashed in seconds.

By the time the fire reaches the bio-crates, we’re out the back and running for the Jeep.

The whole facility detonates behind us in a thunderous roar, lighting up the desert like a second sun.

We don’t stop driving until dawn.

As the sun peeks over the horizon, we pull into a gas station on the edge of nowhere.

Jack rips off a piece of his shirt and ties it around his bleeding arm.

I stare at the mirror. At the tattoo. The one I thought was a curse.

But maybe it’s not.

Maybe it’s a call.

“You think he made it out?” Jack asks.

I shake my head. “Doesn’t matter. If he did, he’s running now. And we’re not done.”

He grins. “So what now, Captain?”

I look out at the road stretching ahead.

“Now,” I say, “we hunt the rest of The Harrow. And we burn them down.”

Because the tattoo wasn’t just something to fear.

It was a warning:

You can bury us. But we don’t stay dead.