Chapter 4 - Noah Parker
Noah found me after the alarm was cleared.
He asked permission to approach.
I gave it.
“Chief, I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
“I knew what your patch meant.”
“I noticed.”
“I should have stopped them earlier.”
That was not the answer I expected.
“Earlier today?”
“No.”
That got my attention.
“How much earlier?”
He swallowed.
“Weeks.”
I did not interrogate him in the parking lot.
I brought him to the evaluation office.
Two other staff members present.
No dramatic secret interview.
He described a pattern.
Jake took food from other recruits.
Not every day.
Enough.
Ethan shoved people during locker-room arguments.
A recruit named Mason had been forced to redo his bunk repeatedly while others laughed.
Another had his dessert thrown away because Jake said:
“You haven’t earned sugar.”
Petty things.
Individually easy to dismiss.
Collectively:
A hierarchy developing where none had been authorized.
“Did instructors know?”
“Some.”
“What happened?”
“They’d tell Jake to knock it off.”
“Then?”
“He would.”
“For how long?”
May you like
“Until they left.”
That was exactly what our team had been sent to investigate.
