Chapter 1 - The Yellow-and-Black Patch
My name is Sarah Mitchell.
I was thirty-four years old when a twenty-two-year-old Navy recruit picked up my breakfast with his bare hand, took a bite, and threw it onto the floor.
The dining hall was crowded.
Stainless-steel tables.
Fluorescent lights.
Trays sliding.
Coffee.
Conversation.
Boots against tile.
I was eating alone.
That was deliberate.
My blonde hair was secured in a regulation bun.
My uniform was clean.
Shoes polished.
On my sleeve was a yellow-and-black patch issued to members of a temporary training-evaluation team assigned to the command.
It was not a rank insignia.
It was not a special-forces badge.
It meant something much less glamorous and much more inconvenient to badly run training units.
Observation.
Standards.
Evaluation.
Noah Parker knew that.
Jake Thompson did not.
Or did not care.
Jake approached my table with Ethan Carter and two other recruits.
All around twenty-two.
Muscular.
Confident.
Loud in the way young men sometimes become when surrounded by other young men they want to impress.
Jake carried his breakfast tray.
He stopped beside me.
“Mind if we sit with you?”
I continued eating.
Not because I was trying to provoke him.
Because there were dozens of open seats.
And because I wanted to know what he did when he believed a woman owed him social attention.
Jake looked toward Ethan.
Smirked.
Then reached across my tray.
Picked up my chicken leg.
Took a bite.
That finally earned my eyes.
“Put it down.”
He smiled.
Then dropped the chicken onto the floor.
Not onto my tray.
The floor.
“Pick it up and eat it.”
Several recruits laughed.
Ethan moved behind me.
Then put both hands on my shoulders.
I went completely still.
Jake was enjoying himself now.
Noah was not.
He had been standing slightly behind the others.
Slender.
Dark-blond hair.
More observant than loud.
His eyes moved from Jake to me.
Then to my sleeve.
The yellow-and-black patch.
His face changed.
He caught Jake’s arm.
“Jake… stop. Right now.”
Jake pulled away.
“What?”
Noah whispered something I could not hear.
I placed both hands on the table.
Then stood.
Slowly.
Perfect military posture.
No anger.
No raised voice.
The laughter around us faded.
Someone recognized me.
Then someone else.
Jake’s smile disappeared.
May you like
Ethan’s hands came off my shoulders.
And suddenly the entire building erupted with the sound of an alarm.
