Part 3The Blood on His Medals

I drove straight to the military hospital on the edge of the reservation.

While idling at a red light, my fingers tapped open the anonymous message boards frequented by the garrison personnel.

The top pinned thread turned my stomach to ash.

A campaign of total character assassination against Vivian had already begun. The anonymous posts hinted that my sister had been living a reckless, promiscuous double life, suggesting she died in a drug-fueled hotel tryst that went wrong. Attached was a leaked video—heavily edited, the audio distorted. The men surrounding her had their faces digitally obscured, their identifying base tattoos scrubbed out.

Only Vivian’s face was fully visible, exposed to the cruelty of the entire command.

Hailey and her inner circle were completely absent from the frame, vanished into bureaucratic air.

My hands shook so violently on the steering wheel I could barely hold the lane.

Just twelve months earlier, Austin had been ambushed on a classified reconnaissance route along the southern perimeter. Vivian and Hailey had been in the follow-up vehicle. The moment the first mortar hit, Hailey had curled into the footwell behind Austin, sobbing hysterically.

It was Vivian who took the lead, returning fire, drawing the enemy's attention onto herself, and taking a high-caliber round through the upper chest so Austin could extract the team.

And this was how he repaid her. By letting a spoiled girl throw dirt over her fresh grave.

When I reached the intensive care ward, the sterile smell of antiseptic washed over me, thin and cold. My father lay centered beneath the harsh fluorescent lights, his once-formidable frame shriveled, hooked to a mechanical ventilator like a ghost in uniform.

Tears I had held back for forty-eight hours finally spilled over.

His eyelids twitched. Slowly, painfully, his withered hand shifted on the rough hospital linen, his throat working around the plastic tubing to produce a raspy, formless sound.

I grabbed his fingers, kissing his dry knuckles. "Dad... I’m here. I’m right here."

The supervising nurse stepped into the bay, speaking in a hushed, sympathetic tone. "Mrs. Hayes... your father has been trying to communicate since dawn. He wanted you."

I wiped my face with my sleeve as the nurse expertly loosened the seal on his oxygen mask for a brief few seconds.

My father’s lips trembled. His voice was a thin wire of breath, dragging out syllables from somewhere deep within his chest:

"Nora... look... in my study... the old ledger... the red number..."

The nurse gently set the mask back in place as his monitors beeped in rhythmic distress.

Before I could wrap my mind around what he meant, the heavy double doors of the ICU swung open, and Austin’s sharp, military stride cut through the silence.

"Have you made up your mind, Nora?"