Part 2
Gravity yanked at my heavy tactical vest, dragging me backward into the void. But as Rollins lunged forward to deliver the final push, I didn’t try to stop my fall. I weaponized it.
Instead of flailing for balance, I dropped my center of gravity entirely, reaching out with lightning speed. My gloved hands clamped onto the thick canvas webbing of Rollins’ tactical rig. I dug my boots firmly into the lip of the crumbling precipice, acting as a fulcrum, and threw all my remaining weight backward.
Rollins let out a sharp grunt of surprise as his own forward momentum was suddenly violently redirected. I pulled him straight over my head in a textbook sacrifice throw. His massive frame sailed over me, crashing heavily onto the jagged rocks just a few feet from the ravine’s deadly edge. The impact forced the air from his lungs in a ragged gasp.
Instantly, I rolled away from the cliff, popping up onto my knees in a crouched combat stance. Harper was already charging at me with a furious scream, swinging his heavy rifle like a club. I ducked under the clumsy, sweeping blow, pivoted on my heel, and drove my elbow viciously into his ribcage. Harper folded with a sickening wheeze. Before he could recover, I swept his legs out from under him, sending him crashing face-first into the dirt. I drove my knee sharply into his spine, pinning him to the ground, and drew my combat knife, pressing the cold steel firmly against the back of his neck.
“Move, and I swear to God, I’ll make you bleed,” I growled, my chest heaving.
Rollins was struggling to his hands and knees, spitting blood and cursing. He looked up, his eyes widening as he saw me dominating Harper. I kept the knife pressed to Harper’s neck but drew my sidearm with my free hand, aiming it squarely at Rollins’ chest.
“Stay down, Rollins!” I commanded, my voice slicing through the desert night. “Hands where I can see them!”
Rollins froze, chest heaving, a look of pure shock replacing his arrogant smirk. For a long, tense moment, the only sound in the canyon was the ragged breathing of four desperate soldiers.
“Vance…” Carter’s voice shattered the silence. He was still standing by the rock wall, trembling violently, but he wasn’t looking at Rollins. He was looking at me, his eyes wide with a terrifying mix of guilt and sheer terror. “Vance, you have to stop.”
“I’ve got this under control, Carter,” I said, not taking my eyes off Rollins. “Get their comms. Tie them up.”
“No, you don’t understand!” Carter screamed, his voice echoing hysterically. He dropped to his knees, burying his face in his hands. “It wasn’t them! Rollins didn’t do this!”
I frowned, keeping my gun leveled. “What the hell are you talking about? They just tried to throw me off a cliff.”
Rollins spat a glob of blood onto the rocks and let out a dark, bitter laugh. “You’re so blind, Trash. We didn’t track you. We were waiting for you.”
My stomach dropped. I glanced at Carter, who was openly weeping now in the dirt.
“I’m sorry,” Carter sobbed, refusing to meet my eyes. “I’m so sorry, Riley. They told me I would fail the course if I didn’t help them. They promised it was just supposed to be a scare tactic. Just a little push to make you quit. I didn’t know he was going to try and kill you.”
“Who, Carter?” I demanded, my grip tightening on my weapon. “Who told you?”
Carter reached into his assault pack with trembling hands. He pulled out a small, blinking black box—a military-grade signal jammer. The exact reason our GPS and radios were dead. He hadn’t been panicking because he was lost. He was panicking because the plan had gone violently out of control.
“I led you here,” Carter confessed, his voice breaking. “I broke the flashlight on purpose. I turned on the jammer. But it wasn’t Rollins’ idea. We’re all just following orders.”
“Whose orders?” I yelled, the betrayal burning like acid in my chest.
“Mine,” a calm, authoritative voice echoed from the darkness at the mouth of the canyon.
I snapped my head up. Stepping into the faint moonlight was a figure wearing the distinctive insignia of an instructor. Master Sergeant Davies. The man who had evaluated my tactical exams just three days ago.
Davies casually crossed his arms, looking completely unbothered by the fact that I was holding two men at gunpoint. “Put the weapon down, Sergeant Vance. The test is over.”
“This isn’t a test,” I shot back, my heart pounding against my ribs as the horrifying truth began to dawn on me. “This is an execution.”
Part 3
“Don’t be dramatic, Sergeant,” Master Sergeant Davies said, walking slowly toward us. His boots crunched methodically against the gravel. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be at the bottom of that ravine. This was an evaluation. A psychological pressure cooker designed to break you.”
I kept my pistol aimed squarely at Davies’ chest, while my knee remained firmly planted in Harper’s back. “Evaluations don’t involve signal jammers and attempted murder. This is an illegal black operation. You used these idiots to try and force me to quit because you couldn’t fail me on paper.”
Davies stopped a few paces away. The moonlight caught the cold, uncompromising glint in his eyes. “You’re a liability, Vance. This program breeds apex predators. It relies on absolute trust, brotherhood, and a cohesive psychological profile. You disrupt that. Your presence is a distraction. I offered Carter a passing grade to isolate you, and I offered Rollins a commendation to put the fear of God into you. I just needed you to ring the bell and go home voluntarily.”
“And if I didn’t?” I asked, my voice dangerously calm. “Rollins pushes me over the edge, and you write it off as a tragic night-navigation accident?”
Rollins shifted on the ground, his bravado entirely gone. “He told me to just rough you up, Vance. Make you surrender your flare. I swear.”
“It doesn’t matter what he told you,” I snapped. I looked at Carter, who was still kneeling in the dirt, clutching the jammer like a lifeline. “Carter. Turn off the jammer.”
Carter hesitated, looking terrified of Davies.
“I said turn it off, Private!” I roared, the command echoing through the canyon with absolute authority.
Carter flinched, his thumb frantically hitting the kill switch on the black box. The small red light died. Instantly, the dead static in my earpiece vanished, replaced by the crisp, clear hum of the command frequency.
“Echo Two, this is Command. We read you. Your GPS signal just popped back on the grid. What is your status? Over.”
Davies’ smug expression finally faltered. His jaw tightened as he realized he had lost control of the situation. “Vance, you key that mic, and I will personally see to it that your career ends in a miserable desk job.”
I smiled. It was a cold, humorless expression. I didn’t lower my weapon.
“Command, this is Sergeant Vance, Echo Two,” I spoke clearly into my headset, my eyes locked on Davies. “I have a priority one security breach at my coordinates. I have secured three hostile targets, including one rogue instructor, Master Sergeant Davies, who has confessed to orchestrating an illegal ambush using unauthorized jamming equipment. Requesting immediate armed extraction and Military Police.”
There was a stunned pause on the radio. Then, a sharp, urgent voice replied. “Echo Two, this is the Base Commander. We copy your transmission. MPs and medevac are Oscar Mike to your position. Secure the perimeter. Do not let Davies out of your sight.”
“Copy that, Sir. Targets are fully compliant,” I replied, releasing the transmit button.
I finally stepped off Harper, letting him gasp for air in the dirt, but I kept my gun leveled at Davies. The instructor looked furious, his fists clenched tight at his sides, but he was smart enough to know that making a move against an armed, adrenaline-fueled soldier who had just bested two men in close combat was suicide.
“You think this proves you belong?” Davies spat venomously. “You think destroying my career makes you one of us?”
“I don’t want to be one of you,” I replied coldly, lowering my stance into a perfectly balanced defensive guard. “I’m a better soldier than Carter, who sold out his teammate. I’m a better fighter than Rollins, who needs the dark to pick a fight. And I’m infinitely better than a coward like you, who hides behind subordinates to do his dirty work.”
Twenty minutes later, the canyon was bathed in the blinding strobe of red and blue lights as four military tactical vehicles swarmed the area. Heavily armed MPs swarmed the ravine, pulling Davies, Rollins, and Harper into cuffs. Carter was escorted away quietly, his head hung in shame.
As the Base Commander approached me, taking in the bruised faces of the men I had dropped, he didn’t offer a lecture. He just offered a sharp, respectful salute. I returned it flawlessly. I had walked into this desert as a target. I was walking out of it as an undisputed survivor.
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