Part 2
The dial tone echoed through the dead silence of the dining room.
Arthur violently snatched the phone off the table, shoving it into his pocket. He spun on me, his thick finger jabbing inches from my nose. "Are you happy now, Sarah? You just had to open your mouth and ruin the story! You couldn't let a real veteran...
PART 2 — THE VOICE THAT BROUGHT THE DEAD BACK TO LIFE
735 words • Continues directly from either Part 1 option
For a moment nobody moved. Richard jabbed at the phone, trying to reconnect. “He must have lost service,” he said, but the signal bars were full. Kenzie looked from him to me. “Dustoff Three-Seven?” she asked. “Is that you?”...
Part 1
My bare hands were soaked in my eighteen-year-old daughter’s blood before the champagne glasses even stopped clinking on the terrace above.
I’m Marin, forty years old, an orphan who clawed her way up from nothing to run night operations at one of the largest shipping ports on the East Coast. I grind through brutal fourteen-hour shifts while my husband,...
Part 2
The cold night air hit my face as I stormed out of the restaurant, my phone still pressed tightly to my ear. My pulse hammered a frantic rhythm, but my military training forced the panic down, replacing it with cold, calculated rage.
"Repeat that, David," I demanded, marching toward my Jeep in the dimly lit parking lot. "What exactly...
PART 2 — THE $680,000 SECRET BEHIND MY HUSBAND'S BETRAYAL
665 words • Continues directly from either Part 1 option
Victor stared at the signature, then reached for the page. I held it down with two fingers. “That approval is dated May seventeenth,” I said. “I was at Fort Leonard Wood that entire week.” Lorraine looked from the page to her...
PART 2 — THE PHONE CALL THAT GROUNDED AN ENTIRE AIRLINE
The Port Authority police officer waiting on the jet bridge reached for my arm. “Sir, I need you to come with me.” “I'll cooperate,” I said. “But first, look at this.” I unfolded Maya's boarding card. On its back, she had copied a line from Global's internal seating system:...
Part 2
Master Sergeant Marcus "Bear" Cole, the head chef of the Fort Cavazos mess hall, stormed onto the concrete landing like a runaway freight train. He was a mountain of a man, easily six-foot-four, wearing a white chef’s coat stained with tomato sauce and grease.
Right behind him was Captain Sterling, screaming. "Sergeant Cole! Get back inside! That is a...
PART 2 — THE WOMAN BEHIND THE BURNED LADLE
742 words • Continues directly from either Part 1 option
“I came because his mother asked me to,” I said.
Isaiah Brooks knelt beside me so fast his knee struck the concrete. He wasn't a young private anymore. Sixteen years had broadened his shoulders and filled his collar with stripes, but I knew...
PART 2 — THE SECRET MY HUSBAND COULDN'T REVEAL
The stretcher's wheels slipped off the pavement. A truck blasted its horn. Dana slammed against the rail while a firefighter stomped on the brake. We stopped inches from traffic. Tully had my phone. “Give it back!” I screamed. He tried to swipe the screen. Dana stepped between us. “Officer, move. Now.”...
Part 1
I am Jessica Hayes, a twenty-six-year-old architectural draftsman from Chicago, and right now, white-hot agony is tearing through my central nervous system. I am sprawled across the polished Italian marble floor of the Grand Rosewood Ballroom, clutching my right leg while a fountain of crimson soaks through my pale lilac bridesmaid gown. Protruding from my shattered shin are...
