Chapter 15 - The New Beginning: Standing Tall
Six months later.
The Florida sun was warm against my skin, the salty breeze from Tampa Bay rustling through the palm trees outside the officers' club.
I was standing on the outdoor terrace, dressed in my summer service whites, holding a glass of iced tea. Beside me stood Colonel Vance, several officers from my new intelligence team, and an unexpected guest who had flown down for the promotion ceremony: Thomas Sterling.
Thomas looked happier, lighter, the shadow of that cursed wedding completely lifted from his face. He had reached out three months after moving to Chicago, simply to ask how my recovery was going, and over dozens of long phone conversations, we had discovered something rare and honest—two people who had survived the same emotional wreckage and come out stronger on the other side.
"Major Campbell," Thomas said with an easy smile, raising his glass in a quiet toast. "It has a nice ring to it."
"Better than 'the dramatic sister,' wouldn't you say?" I replied, clinking my glass against his.
"Infinitely better," he laughed softly.
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
It was a notification from a national news feed. I glanced down at the screen.
"FORMER SUBURBAN SOCIALITE ARRESTED FOR RETAIL THEFT IN OUTLET MALL."
Beneath the headline was a mugshot.
Jessica. Her hair was greasy, her face stripped bare of expensive cosmetics, her eyes wild and bitter, staring into a police camera after attempting to steal an eight-hundred-dollar designer coat she could no longer afford.
I looked at the photo for two seconds.
No anger flared in my chest. No sorrow. No desire for vengeance.
Just a clean, empty nothingness.
I slid the phone back into my pocket without opening the article.
"Everything alright?" Thomas asked, watching my expression.
"Everything is perfect," I said.
May you like
I turned my back on the phone, on the past, and on the ghost of the family that had tried to let me die. Ahead of me lay a command of my own, people who would bleed for me as I would bleed for them, and a life built on courage, truth, and honor.
I took a deep breath of the ocean air, smiled at the people standing beside me, and walked forward into the sunshine.
