Ava met his eyes.
“I was exactly where I needed to be.”
That seemed to settle something in him. He exhaled slowly like he’d been waiting to hear that.
In the command office, the marine commander studied a folder that looked thinner than it should have been. Half the pages were redacted. The rest read like summaries written by people who didn’t want to know the details.
Ava stood across from him, hands loose at her sides.
“They’ll ask why you were placed here,” he said. “They always do.”
“They’ll ask how you knew the smuggler’s timing, their fallback routes, their mistakes,”
she shrugged.
“Experience teaches patterns.”
“And when they ask about your past,”
Ava’s jaw tightened just enough to notice.
“Tell them I’m a nurse who doesn’t panic.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“That won’t satisfy them. It never does.”
A radio crackled on his desk. A voice reported in movement at the outer perimeter. friendly accounted for. The commander acknowledged it, then leaned back.
“You saved 12 Marines last night,” he said. “Directly, indirectly, more.”
Ava didn’t respond.
“You also killed four men.”
Her eyes flicked up. He held her gaze, not accusing, not absolving, just stating a fact.
“Smugglers,” he continued. “Armed, trained, dangerous, but still men.”
Ava’s voice was quiet.
“I don’t count kills anymore.”
The commander nodded.
“I thought you might say that.”
Outside, a transport helicopter thundered overhead, a snow swirling under its rotors. Ava felt the vibration in her bones before the sound faded into distance.
That afternoon, word came down that Higher Command was sending a delegation, not investigators officially, but observers. People who asked polite questions and wrote careful notes.
Ava didn’t wait to meet them.
She changed out of her scrubs, folded them neatly, and placed them on the bunk. The light blue fabric looked almost out of place in the austere room, like proof that this version of her existed at all.
As she stepped into the hall, the young nurse she’d worked with the night before rushed up.
“They’re looking for you,” the nurse whispered. “Men in uniforms I don’t recognize.”
Ava smiled faintly.
“They always are.”
“Are you in trouble?”
Ava considered the question. Not the kind that ends with handcuffs.
The nurse swallowed it.
“You’re not coming back, are you?”
Ava paused.
“Places like this don’t keep people like me for long.”
The nurse’s eyes shone with something like disappointment.
“I wish I was like you.”
Ava shook her head gently.
“No, you don’t. Be better. Be kinder. Be rested.”
She walked away before the nurse could respond.
At the exit, the commander waited again. Parker zipped, breath fogging the air.
“They’ve landed,” he said. “10 minutes, maybe less.”
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