Chapter 2 - THE SHATTERED GLASS AND AWAKENED GHOSTS
The moment the words left my lips, the atmosphere in the ballroom mutated instantaneously.
It wasn't a gradual shift. It was as if someone had pulled a live electrical cord out of a wall. The polite chuckles died mid-breath. The soft clinking of silverware on china stopped dead.
At the far end of the head table, Colonel Marcus Reed—a legendary, battle-scarred veteran with rows of ribbons decorating his chest and silver hair cropped military-short—suddenly froze. His hand, lifting a crystal wineglass to his lips, jerked violently.
Crash.
The crystal shattered against the polished marble floor. Red wine exploded across the stone like fresh blood, soaking the hem of his trousers and pooling beneath his chair.
Colonel Reed’s face drained of color, turning an alarming, chalky white. His eyes bulged as he stared down the length of the table toward my column, looking not at Major Claire Sterling, but at a ghost he thought had been buried with full military honors a decade ago.
“Say that again,” Reed demanded, his voice dropping to a gravelly, trembling whisper that still carried into every corner of the silent room.
Vivian’s smug smile faltered. Her eyebrows drew together in sudden, irritated confusion. She turned to Reed, attempting to salvage her gala’s polished atmosphere with a light, dismissive laugh. “Oh, pay no attention to her, Marcus. She’s just making up stories to sound important—she always did love seeking attention—as I was saying about Adrian’s memorial fund—”
“Shut up!” Reed roared.
The command was absolute. It was the terrifying, instinctive bark of a senior combat commander. Vivian flinched as if she had been physically struck, her mouth snapping shut, her wineglass clattering onto the table.
I slowly turned my head toward the colonel.
“Falcon-07,” I repeated, my tone calm, steady, and laden with a chilling finality.
Colonel Reed gripped the edge of the heavy mahogany table so hard that his knuckles turned completely white, the tendons in his forearms straining against his dress uniform cuffs. For a agonizing second, his knees buckled slightly, and I thought the decorated veteran might actually collapse.
Then, sheer willpower took over. He straightened his posture, puffing out his chest, and his eyes locked onto mine with a mixture of reverence, shock, and profound disbelief.
“All of you,” Reed announced, his voice echoing off the high vaulted ceilings of the Potomac ballroom, ringing through the hidden audio feeds and television cameras broadcasting the gala live across the nation. “Stand up.”
Not a single person moved. The twenty-three other officers sat paralyzed, looking back and forth between Colonel Reed, who looked as though he had just seen a deity descend from the heavens, and my mother, whose face was rapidly losing its perfectly sculpted composure.
Reed’s eyes swept across the table like twin searchlights, fierce and merciless.
“I said, on your feet!” he shouted, his voice cracking with suppressed emotion. “Now! Every single one of you, stand at attention!”
Chasers scraped violently against the floorboards. Napkins slid from laps and fluttered to the ground. In a chaotic, synchronized wave of movement, all twenty-three decorated officers stood up straight, snapping to attention without a second hesitation.
Camera lenses clicked furiously. Flashbulbs strobed from the press gallery. Reporters who had been half-asleep moments ago suddenly leaned forward, their notebooks flying open.
May you like
Colonel Reed ignored them all. He stepped away from his chair, squared his shoulders, looked directly at me across the twenty feet of white tablecloth and lilies, and raised his right hand in a crisp, flawless military salute.
“Falcon-07,” Reed said, his voice thick, rough, and trembling with tears. “Six men are alive because of you.”
