Chapter 6 - An Unwelcome Guest
The voice undeniably belonged to Marcus. It was ragged, strained by pain, but unmistakably his. Before Thomas could replay the recording, the floorboards in the hallway groaned. The sound was faint, masked by the wind outside, but years of combat instincts flooded Thomas's veins with adrenaline.
He quietly rolled backward, reaching into the bottom drawer of his desk where his service sidearm remained locked in a biometric safe. His thumb pressed against the sensor, the latch clicking open with a near-silent hiss. He gripped the cold steel, racked the slide with practiced smoothness, and turned toward the open study door.
A silhouette stepped into the doorway, hands raised shoulder-high. ""Don't shoot, Captain. It's Alvarez.""
Thomas didn't lower the weapon. Elena Alvarez had been the senior corpsman attached to his company, a woman who had pulled him from the burning wreckage of his command vehicle before the medics loaded him onto the Medevac. She was wearing plain clothes, a baseball cap pulled low, her eyes hollowed by exhaustion and terror.
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""Elena,"" Thomas growled in a low whisper, his aim unwavering. ""You were reassigned to Fort Bragg two years ago. Why are you in my house?""
""Because the men who sold our unit are hunting down the survivors,"" Elena said, her voice shaking slightly as she pointed toward the driveway. ""And they followed me here.""
