PART 1

The asphalt at Fort Bridger was soft enough to swallow your boot heel if you stood still too long. It was a relentless, suffocating June heat, the kind that made the air shimmer above the parade grounds and turned the chain-link fences into branding irons.

I shouldn’t have been there.

Technically, I didn’t exist. According to the United States Navy, Petty Officer First Class Sarah Matthews died two years ago in a training accident that was classified for “national security.” My grave was empty, my file was redacted into oblivion, and my life was supposed to be over. But I was here, sitting in the back row of the observation bleachers, sweating under a canvas jacket I hadn’t taken off despite the ninety-degree temperature. I pulled my cap lower, shading my eyes. I wasn’t here to cause trouble. I was here to say goodbye.

Below me, the “Demonstration Day” was in full swing. It was a PR stunt, really. Twice a year, the base opened its gates to the public so taxpayers could see where their money went. Families spread picnic blankets on the manicured lawns. Children pressed their sticky faces against the safety fences, waiting to see the “hero dogs.”

Major John Hayes was at the podium, his voice booming through the distortion of the PA system. He looked perfect—dress uniform crisp, medals gleaming, the very picture of military order.

“Today, you’ll witness the finest working dogs in the United States military,” Hayes announced, flashing a practiced smile. “Each one is a highly trained specialist, a warrior worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in training and experience.”

The crowd clapped politely. They saw flags and uniforms. I saw the lies.

I wasn’t watching the Major. My eyes were locked on the staging area behind the main ring, near the heavy concrete kennels. I could hear it before I saw it. A sound that made the hair on my arms stand up, even in the heat.

A low, guttural vibration. Not a bark. A warning.

Then came the sound of metal rattling—violent, rhythmic, desperate.

“And now,” Hayes continued, his voice missing a beat as the noise grew louder, “one of our most distinguished veterans. Rex. Recipient of the K9 Medal of Courage. Three combat tours. A legend.”

Rex.

Hearing his name spoken aloud felt like a physical blow to my chest. I shifted in my seat, my hand instinctively going to my thigh, tapping a rhythm against the denim of my cargo pants. Tap, tap, pause. Tap, tap, tap, pause. It was a nervous tic I’d developed in the sandbox, a code only two beings in the world understood.

And one of them was being dragged out to the field like a monster.

It took three handlers to move him. Three grown men, sweating and cursing, struggling with catch poles and thick leather leads. Rex wasn’t walking; he was fighting every inch of ground. He was muzzled, his head low, his body coiled like a loaded spring.

The crowd went silent. The “aww, look at the doggy” energy evaporated instantly.

Rex looked like a nightmare. His coat, once sleek, was matted and scarred. One ear had a jagged notch taken out of it—shrapnel from the blast that was supposed to have killed me. His amber eyes were wide, wild, scanning the perimeter with a frantic intelligence that was terrifying to witness.

“He’s not a hero anymore,” I whispered to no one. “They broke him.”

I watched Sergeant Mark Davis, a handler I recognized from the old days, try to bring Rex to a heel position. Davis was good, experienced. But he was terrified. I could see the fresh blood seeping through the gauze on his forearm.

“Rex, sit!” Davis commanded, his voice cracking.

Rex didn’t even acknowledge his existence. The dog was scanning the crowd, hunting for something. Or someone.

“Mommy, why won’t he listen?” a child’s voice piped up from the front row.

That was the breaking point. The noise, the heat, the smell of too many strangers—it was too much for a dog with PTSD who had been thrown into a solitary kennel for two years.

Rex lunged.

He didn’t attack a person; he attacked the world. He threw himself against the perimeter fence, the metal clanging like a gunshot. The crowd screamed. A toddler started wailing. Families scrambled backward, tripping over coolers and blankets.

“Clear the ring!” Major Hayes shouted, the PR smile vanishing. “Get him out of here! Now!”

It was chaos. Humiliating, dangerous chaos. I watched as five men swarmed my dog, dragging him back toward the concrete shadows of the kennels. He was thrashing, crying out in frustration—a sound that wasn’t aggression, but pure, unadulterated grief.

As they dragged him past the bleachers, just twenty yards from where I sat, Rex suddenly froze.

He stopped fighting. His head snapped up. His nostrils flared, taking in the air. For one heartbeat, his amber eyes locked onto my position in the back row. He couldn’t see me clearly through the glare and the distance, but he knew.

Then they yanked him around the corner, and he was gone.

I sat there for a long time as the crowd dispersed, listening to the murmurs of the families walking to the parking lot.

“Did you see that?” “That dog is vicious.” “They should put it down before it kills someone.”

I stood up. My legs felt heavy, but my mind was clear. I checked my watch. 1400 hours. I knew protocol. After a public disaster like that, there would be a debrief. Then there would be a decision.

I pulled my cap down tight and started walking against the flow of the crowd. I wasn’t heading for the exit. I was heading for the restricted area.

Getting past the outer perimeter was embarrassingly easy. A clipboard, a confident walk, and the fact that everyone was distracted by the disaster on the field made me invisible. I slipped through a maintenance gate and hugged the shadows of the administrative building until I reached the rear of Kennel 7.

The observation room window was open a crack. I could hear the shouting from inside.

“He is a liability, plain and simple!” That was Major Hayes. “Did you see that? He nearly took the fence down. We had civilians fleeing, Lieutenant. Fleeing!”

“Sir, give me two more weeks,” a younger voice pleaded. Lieutenant Chris Morgan. The Chief K9 Officer. “He’s a decorated asset. We can’t just—”

“I’m not risking my command for a broken piece of equipment, Morgan!” Hayes slammed something onto a desk. “Dr. Lara Evans, give me the assessment.”

A woman’s voice, cool and detached. “Severe PTSD. Handler separation anxiety. Likely neurological damage from blast exposure. He’s aggressive, non-compliant, and escalating. He’s rejected six handlers in three months. Today proved he is beyond rehabilitation.”

Silence hung heavy in the humid air.

“Recommendation?” Hayes asked, though his tone said he already made up his mind.

“Humane euthanasia,” Dr. Evans said. “It’s the only safe option.”

“Do it,” Hayes ordered. “Tomorrow morning. 0800 hours. No fanfare. Just get it done.”

I stopped breathing. The world narrowed down to a pinprick. 0800 tomorrow. They were going to kill him. They were going to take the only thing I had left in this world, the partner who had dragged my unconscious body through a minefield in Syria, and they were going to put a needle in his vein because he missed me.

The rage that flared in my chest was cold, sharp, and familiar. It was the same coldness that had helped me survive the last two years in the shadows.

I didn’t think. I didn’t plan. I just moved.

I walked around the corner and pushed open the heavy steel door to the observation room.

The air conditioning hit me first, then the smell of stale coffee and high stress. Four people turned to look at me. Major Hayes, Lieutenant Chris Morgan, Dr. Evans, and Staff Sergeant James Carter, who was nursing his bleeding arm in the corner.

“Ma’am, this is a restricted area,” Morgan barked, his hand instinctively dropping to the radio on his belt. “You need to leave immediately.”

I didn’t stop walking until I was in the center of the room. I didn’t look at the men. I looked through the reinforced glass into the kennel.

Rex was pacing in tight, frantic circles. He was still muzzled, still shaking. He looked like a creature running out of time.

“I can control him,” I said. My voice was quiet, raspy from disuse, but it cut through the room like a knife.

The room went silent. Carter let out a dry, disbelief-filled laugh.

“Lady, no offense,” Carter said, grimacing as he adjusted his bandage. “But we’ve had professional handlers with twenty years of experience in there. That dog has attacked three people this month. He doesn’t respond to commands. He doesn’t care if you have treats. He wants to kill everything he sees.”

I finally turned to look at them. I kept my hands in my pockets, my posture relaxed. “Is that what you think? That he’s just mean?” I tilted my head. “He’s not aggressive. He’s insulted.”

“Excuse me?” Hayes stepped forward, his command presence filling the small room. “Who the hell are you?”

“Rex,” I recited, keeping my eyes on the Major. “Serial designation MWD447. Trained at Lackland Air Force Base, 2019. Deployed March 2020. Specialized in explosives detection, high-value target tracking, and… personal protection for Tier One operators.”

Dr. Evans stopped typing on her tablet. “How do you know that file? That’s not public record.”

“He’s been separated from his primary handler for two years, four months, and twelve days,” I continued, the numbers burning in my throat. “That’s why he won’t respond to you. You’re speaking a language he’s been trained to ignore.”

“Security!” Morgan grabbed his radio. “I have an intruder in the K9 unit.”

“Five minutes,” I said.

Morgan paused.

“Give me five minutes,” I repeated. “If I can’t calm him, you can arrest me. You can call the MPs. You can do whatever you want. But if you’re going to kill him tomorrow anyway, what do you have to lose?”

Hayes studied me. He was a career military man; he knew how to read people. He saw the cargo pants, the boots, the scars on my hands that I hadn’t bothered to hide. He saw the way I stood—feet shoulder-width apart, weight balanced. I wasn’t a lost tourist.

“If he charges you,” Hayes said slowly, “we are not coming in to get you until he’s tranquilized. If you get mauled, that’s on you.”

“Understood.”

“Open it,” Hayes signaled to Carter.

“Sir, this is crazy,” Carter muttered, but he grabbed the keys.

He unlocked the heavy metal gate. The sound of the latch clicking echoed like a gunshot. Inside the run, Rex froze. His hackles rose, a ridge of fur standing straight up along his spine. A low growl started in his chest, vibrating through the muzzle.

“He’s going to kill her,” Dr. Evans whispered.

I stepped inside.

The smell hit me instantly—concrete, disinfectant, and the musk of a stressed animal. The door clanged shut behind me. I was locked in a ten-by-ten cell with a weapon of war that had been designated “catastrophically dangerous.”

I didn’t look at him. I didn’t speak.

I did the one thing you are never, ever supposed to do with an aggressive dog.

I turned my back to him.

And then, I knelt down.

I lowered myself until my knees hit the cold concrete. I sat back on my heels, exposing my neck, my back, my vital organs. I made myself small. Vulnerable.

“She’s suicidal,” someone whispered over the intercom.

But the growling stopped.

The silence that followed was heavy, pressurized. I could hear Rex’s breathing—jagged, fast. I could hear the click of his claws on the cement as he took a step toward me. Then another.

I closed my eyes. I reached deep into the memory of a dusty tent in the Syrian desert, the smell of gunpowder and sage tea, the nights when it was just the two of us against the dark.

I extended my left hand behind my back, palm up. I folded my thumb to touch my pinky, extending the middle three fingers in a specific, awkward splay.

It wasn’t a standard military hand signal. It was our signal.

I felt his breath on my hand. Hot. Wet. He was sniffing my fingers, inhaling the scent of my skin, the soap I used, the blood in my veins.

Then, I spoke. One word. Two syllables. Spoken on an exhale, barely a whisper.

“Tikun.”

It wasn’t English. It wasn’t a command. It was Hebrew. Repair.

Behind me, the presence shifted. The tension in the air didn’t vanish—it transformed. It went from the chaotic energy of a storm to the focused intensity of a laser.

I felt the cold metal of the muzzle press against the back of my neck. He was nudging me. Checking. Asking.

I moved my right hand, a quick flick of the wrist. Sit.

The sound of his haunches hitting the floor was immediate. Slap. Perfect military sit.

I turned around slowly.

We were eye to eye. He was trembling, his entire massive body vibrating. But his ears were back, his amber eyes wide and swimming with moisture. He let out a sound—not a growl, but a high-pitched, desperate whine. It was the sound of a child finding their parent in a crowd.

My vision blurred. I reached out and undid the buckle of the muzzle.

“Don’t!” Carter shouted from the glass, but he was too late.

The muzzle fell to the floor with a clatter.

Rex didn’t bite. He didn’t lunge. He collapsed into me.

He slammed his heavy chest against mine, nearly knocking me over. His paws came up around my shoulders, burying his face in the crook of my neck. He was making these soft, broken sobbing sounds, licking the salt from my skin, pressing himself against me as if he were trying to merge our molecules so we could never be separated again.

I buried my face in his fur, smelling the dust and the old scent of him. Tears I had held back for two years finally spilled over.

“I know,” I whispered into his ear. “I know, buddy. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I left you.”

I held him there on the concrete floor of Kennel 7, rocking him back and forth while the officers outside watched in stunned silence. The “monster” was gone. The “weapon” was gone.

There was just a boy who had missed his mom.

After a minute, I stood up. Rex moved with me instantly, pressing his flank against my left leg. He looked up at me, his eyes bright, his mouth open in a pant that looked like a grin. He was ready. He was waiting for orders.

I turned to the observation window. The four faces staring back at me were pale, mouths slightly open. They looked like they had seen a ghost.

In a way, they had.

“Open the door,” I said, my voice steady again.

Carter unlocked it, his hand shaking.

I walked out, Rex glued to my leg, scanning the room, checking corners, instantly assuming a protective formation. I stopped in front of Major Hayes.

“My name,” I said, locking eyes with him, “is Sarah Matthews. And you are not killing my dog.”

Hayes looked from me to the dog, then back to me. He swallowed hard.

“Who are you really?” he asked, his voice barely audible. “Because dead people don’t walk into my base and command my dogs.”

I felt the vibration of Rex’s low growl against my leg—warning the Major to watch his tone. I rested my hand on Rex’s head, tapping that rhythm again. Tap, tap, pause.

“That,” I said, “is a very long story. And if you want to hear it, you’re going to need a higher security clearance.”

PART 2: THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE

The walk to the administrative block felt like a prisoner transfer. Major Hayes walked point, I walked center with Rex glued to my left knee, and Lieutenant Morgan trailed us, his hand hovering near his sidearm like he expected me to pull a grenade out of my pocket.

We bypassed the main lobby and went straight to a secure conference room in the basement. No windows. Soundproof walls. The kind of room where careers went to die.

Hayes slammed a folder onto the metal table. “Sit.”

I sat. Rex slid under the table, resting his chin on my boot. I could feel the steady thrum of his pulse against my ankle. It was the only thing keeping my own heart rate under 140.

“I made some calls,” Hayes started, pacing the small room. “I called Naval Special Warfare Command. I called the Pentagon. I even called a buddy at the CIA.” He stopped and leaned over the table, his face inches from mine. “You know what they told me when I asked about a Petty Officer Sarah Matthews?”

I held his gaze. “That she’s dead.”

“They told me to stop asking questions if I wanted to keep my pension,” Hayes corrected. “They said that file is sealed so tight it might as well be buried in the core of the earth.”

He tossed a tablet onto the table. It displayed a grainy photo of a younger me, wearing a tac-vest, standing next to a younger, less scarred Rex in a dusty village in the Levant.

“But then,” Hayes said, his voice dropping, “Lieutenant Morgan here ran a search on the dog’s microchip again. Not the standard database. The deep archive.”

Morgan stepped forward, looking pale. He turned the tablet around. Most of the text was blacked out—heavy, digital redaction bars covering dates, locations, and mission objectives. But at the top, in bold red letters, was a single word.

GHOST.

“That’s a Tier One call sign,” Morgan whispered. “That’s… that’s ghost stuff.”

“Who are you running from, Ghost?” Hayes asked, his tone shifting from anger to genuine curiosity. “Because you didn’t fake your death for the fun of it.”

I took a deep breath. The air in the room was recycled and stale. “In 2023, Rex and I were tracking a weapons broker named Jaxon King. You won’t find him on CNN. He sells to everyone—insurgents, cartels, state actors. We tracked him to a compound in the mountains. We had him. Visual confirmation. Rex had his scent profile locked.”

I paused, my fingers tapping that rhythm on my thigh again. Tap, tap, pause.

“And?” Hayes pushed.

“And the order came down to stand down,” I said, the bitterness tasting like copper in my mouth. “Don’t engage. Don’t capture. Withdraw and destroy all intelligence. Someone high up—someone with stars on their collar or a suit in Washington—was protecting him. He was an asset.”

“So you disobeyed,” Hayes guessed.

“I secured the evidence,” I corrected. “Hard drives, biometrics, financial ledgers. I wasn’t going to let a mass murderer walk because he was politically convenient. Two hours later, our extraction chopper had a ‘mechanical failure.’ We went down hard.”

I unconsciously touched the scar on my jaw.

“The official report said no survivors. It was cleaner that way. They thought the evidence burned with the bird. But I crawled out. And Rex… Rex dragged me three miles to a village where a contact hid me. But I couldn’t keep a wounded military dog while I was bleeding out. I had to let the extraction team take him. I had to let them think I was dead so they wouldn’t hunt us both.”

The silence in the room was heavy.

“I’ve been a ghost for two years,” I said softly. “Tracking the network that protected King. Waiting for the right moment to surface. But when I saw the alert that Rex was scheduled for euthanasia… I couldn’t stay dead anymore.”

Hayes pulled out a chair and sat down heavily. The bluster was gone. He looked like a man realizing he was standing on a landmine.

“You realize,” he said, “that by walking onto this base, you’ve tripped every silent alarm in the intelligence community. If you’re alive, the people protecting King are going to know.”

“I know.”

“And if they know you’re alive, they know the evidence might still exist.”

“It does.”

Suddenly, the door burst open.

It wasn’t a knock; it was a breach. Carter stood there, chest heaving, holding a printed security photo.

“Sir! We have a problem.”

“I’m in a briefing, Sergeant!” Hayes barked.

“Sir, security just flagged a discrepancy from the demonstration footage,” Carter said, rushing to the table. He slapped the photo down.

It was a still frame from one of the crowd cameras. It showed a man in a blue windbreaker standing near the perimeter fence. He wasn’t watching the dogs. He was holding a camera with a telephoto lens, pointed directly at the restricted kennel entrance.

“He used a fake press pass,” Carter said rapidly. “Name checks out as a dead man from Ohio. He wasn’t photographing the show, Major. He was photographing the personnel. Specifically, he was photographing her when she entered the secure area.”

My blood ran cold.

“He left the base twenty minutes ago,” Carter continued. “Security at the gate said he made a phone call as soon as he cleared the checkpoint. They caught one phrase: ‘Subject confirmed. The asset is active.’”

I stood up, and Rex was instantly on his feet, a low rumble building in his chest. He sensed the spike in my adrenaline.

“They found us,” I said. “That wasn’t a photographer. That was a spotter.”

Hayes looked at the photo, then at me. The career officer wrestled with the Marine. The Marine won.

“Lock down the base,” Hayes ordered, standing up. “Morgan, put a security detail on the main gate. No one in or out without my direct authorization.”

“Sir, if we lock down, we have to file a report with DOD,” Morgan warned. “That alerts everyone.”

“I don’t care,” Hayes growled. “We have a highly decorated veteran and a K9 asset on this base, and I’ll be damned if I let a hit squad roll through my gates. Carter, get her to the safe house. The old officers’ quarters on the north ridge. It’s off the grid.”

“Major,” I said, grabbing his arm. “You help me, you end your career. Maybe worse.”

Hayes looked at me, his eyes hard. “My career ended the day I started signing paperwork to kill good dogs because politicians are lazy. Get moving, Ghost. That’s an order.”

PART 3: THE UNSPOKEN OATH

The next morning, the sun rose blood-red over Fort Harrison. The air was heavy with humidity and the smell of ozone. A storm was coming.

The demonstration field had been cleared. No families. No picnic blankets. Just a line of black SUVs parked on the grass and a group of people in suits standing by the bleachers.

Major Hayes stood with them, looking tense. Next to him was a woman with sharp features and a posture that screamed ‘Federal Agent.’ That was Reeves.

I walked onto the field. No leash. No collar. Just me in my cargo pants and boots, and Rex at my side, moving like smoke.

“Ms. Matthews,” Reeves called out. Her voice carried across the grass. “Major Hayes tells me this dog is a liability. You claim he’s a Tier One asset. I have three men in the woods wearing bite suits and concealed synthetic explosives. Find them.”

She pointed to the dense treeline bordering the field. It was at least three acres of heavy brush.

“You have ten minutes,” she added, checking her watch.

I looked at Rex. I didn’t say a word. I just tapped my thigh. Tap, tap.

He didn’t bolt. He looked at me, waiting for the directional. I raised my hand, palm flat, and sliced the air to the left.

Seek.

Rex exploded into motion. He didn’t run like a normal dog; he moved in a tactical sweep, nose high to catch the air scent, then low to check the ground disturbance. He hit the treeline and vanished.

“He’s fast,” Reeves noted. “But fast makes mistakes.”

Two minutes passed. Silence.

Then, a bark. Sharp. Cut off.

“Target one located,” Carter called out from the radio monitor. “He… he didn’t bite, ma’am. He’s holding the suspect at bay. A ‘bark and hold’ without command.”

“Standard,” Reeves shrugged.

“Wait,” Hayes said. “Look.”

Out of the woods, Rex emerged. He wasn’t alone. He was walking backward, eyes locked on a man in a padded suit who was walking with his hands up. Rex was herding him.

“He found the synthetic explosive,” Carter reported, listening to his earpiece. “He signaled it, then engaged the host.”

“Send him back,” Reeves ordered.

I whistled. A low, two-note trill.

Rex spun around and dove back into the woods.

Four minutes later, he found the second man. This time, the “target” tried to run. We could hear the crash of brush, a shout, and then silence. When the target emerged, Rex was dragging him by the padded arm sleeve, pulling him out of the cover and into the open, then releasing him the second the man stopped fighting.

“That’s impossible,” Morgan muttered. “That requires visual line-of-sight commands. You can’t control a dog that precisely deep in the woods.”

“I’m not controlling him,” I said quietly. “He knows the rules of engagement.”

“Target three,” Reeves said. “He’s the hard one. He’s masked his scent.”

Seven minutes. Eight minutes.

Rex was quartering the field, confused. The wind was swirling. He stopped, looked back at me. I didn’t move. I couldn’t help him. He had to solve the puzzle.

Suddenly, Rex stopped. He looked up—not at the woods, but at one of the black SUVs. Specifically, the undercarriage.

He trotted over to the vehicle, sniffed the wheel well, and immediately sat down. The “Alert” sit.

“That’s my car,” Reeves said, frowning. “There’s no one in there.”

“Did you drive from DC?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you stop at the armory?”

Reeves paused. “Yes. I picked up some munitions evidence for another case.”

“He smells the residue on the undercarriage,” I said. “He’s signaling nitrates.”

Reeves stared at the dog. Then she looked at the woods. “What about the third man?”

“Rex!” I called out. “Chop!” (Release/Search).

Rex broke his sit, ignored the car, and sprinted toward a large oak tree fifty yards away. He didn’t go to the ground; he looked up. He barked once, loudly, staring into the branches.

A sheepish man in a bite suit climbed down from twenty feet up.

“He wasn’t tracking ground scent,” Carter gasped. “He was tracking the air disturbance.”

I called Rex back. He came galloping across the field, tongue lolling, tail wagging. He stopped in front of me and leaned against my leg. I rested my hand on his head.

“Ten minutes exactly,” I said to Reeves.

Reeves took off her sunglasses. She looked from the dog to me.

“The deal was for your testimony,” she said. “The dog wasn’t part of the package.”

“The package has changed,” I said firmly. “We come as a set. Witness protection. A secure location where he can work. And full immunity for Major Hayes and his staff for harboring a ‘dead’ woman.”

Reeves sighed, but a small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “You drive a hard bargain, Nomad. But… I can’t argue with results. The Director is going to love this dog.”

She extended her hand. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Ms. Matthews.”

I shook it.

We packed up within the hour. The threat of the spotter was still real, and Reeves wanted us in a federal convoy immediately.

As I loaded Rex into the back of the armored SUV, I heard boots crunching on gravel.

I turned around. It was the entire K9 unit. Carter, Giannis, Nelani, and about a dozen other handlers I didn’t know. They were standing in a formation near the gate.

Major Hayes stepped forward. He wasn’t wearing his dress uniform, just fatigues, but he looked taller than he had yesterday.

“We cleared the paperwork,” Hayes said gruffly. “Modified discharge for the dog. Listed as ‘Transferred to Special Duties.’ He’s officially off my books.”

“Thank you, Major,” I said. “For everything.”

“You saved him,” Carter said, stepping out of line. “We gave up. You didn’t.”

“He saved me first,” I replied.

I opened the car door, but Carter cleared his throat.

“Attention!” he barked.

The command snapped through the air. Twelve handlers slammed their heels together.

“Present… ARMS!”

In perfect unison, the handlers of Fort Harrison raised their hands in a salute. It wasn’t a standard salute. It was slow, deliberate. A salute for a superior officer. A salute for a hero.

Hayes saluted last. He held my gaze, nodding once. A silent message: Go get the bastards.

I felt a lump in my throat the size of a grenade. I wasn’t an officer anymore. I was a ghost. A civilian. I shouldn’t be saluting.

But I straightened my back. I clicked my heels. And I brought my hand up, snapping a crisp salute to the men and women who watched the wall.

“Ready?” Reeves asked from the driver’s seat.

I dropped the salute and climbed into the truck. Rex was already settled in the back, watching the handlers through the tinted glass. He gave a soft ‘woof’ as the engine roared to life.

As we rolled out of the gates, passing the spot where the American flag snapped in the wind, I reached back and rested my hand on his fur.

Tap, tap, pause.

He nudged my hand.

We weren’t running away. We were going to Washington. We were going to testify. We were going to take down Serif and everyone who protected him.

The world had tried to break us. It tried to kill us, bury us, and erase our names. But as the convoy hit the highway, speeding toward a fight we were finally ready to finish, I realized something.

They forgot the one rule you learn on your first day in K9:

Never come between a dog and his handler.