Something sewn beneath the inner lining.
Maddox watched my hand.
“Step away from the dog,” he said.
I smiled then.
Not because it was funny.
Because my brother used to say I smiled before I did something stupid and permanent.
“You’re sweating, Commander.”
The lobby door opened behind him.
An older man in a John Deere cap came in carrying a coughing beagle wrapped in a towel.
He took one look at the scene and backed right out.
The door chimed again as it closed.
Maddox lowered his voice.
“You have no idea what you’re touching.”
“I know exactly what I’m touching.”
“Then you know better.”
I looked down at Rook.
His eyes were on mine now.
Waiting.
He remembered commands.
He remembered pain.
He remembered me.
That meant my brother’s death had not ended where they said it ended.
I kept my voice soft.
“Dr. Price, call county dispatch. Request an officer. Not military police. Local law enforcement.”
Maddox laughed.
“That’s cute.”
Dr. Price picked up the phone.
Maddox moved.
He didn’t run.
He didn’t shout.
He simply reached across the counter and pressed two fingers down on the phone cradle, ending the call before it began.
Then he looked at Dr. Price like he was disappointed in her.
“Let’s not make this embarrassing.”
I reached into my scrub pocket.
Maddox’s gaze snapped to my hand.
I pulled out a pair of bandage scissors.
Small.
Rounded tip.
Harmless unless someone had a secret sewn into a dog collar.
His face went still.
“Maya,” Dr. Price said carefully, “what are you doing?”
“Checking for infection.”
I slid the scissors beneath the collar lining.
Maddox stepped toward me.
Rook growled.
One low note.
The room stopped breathing.
Maddox froze.
His smirk came back, but weaker.
“See?” he said. “Dangerous.”
“No,” I said. “Accurate.”
I cut the first stitch.
Then the second.
Then the third.
The collar lining peeled open.
A small black capsule dropped into my palm.
Not military issue.
Not cheap.
A waterproof data capsule, scratched along one side.
My brother had owned one just like it.
He used to keep family videos on them because he didn’t trust cloud storage overseas.
Maddox lunged.
I expected it.
I threw the capsule under the reception desk.
Kelly grabbed it with both hands and rolled backward in her chair like it was a grenade.
Maddox stopped halfway across the room.
His face flushed dark.
“Give me that.”
Kelly shook her head so hard her ponytail slapped her cheek.
“Nope.”
“Little girl—”
“She’s thirty-two,” I said.
Dr. Price had already stepped into the hallway toward the back office phone.
Maddox turned after her.
I gave Rook one quiet command.
“Block.”
He moved like the years had fallen off him.
Not wild.
Not vicious.
Precise.
He put himself between Maddox and the hallway, shoulders square, head low, teeth covered but ready.
Maddox stared at him.
For the first time since he walked in, Commander Brock Maddox looked at that dog like he was not property.
Like he was a witness.
Outside, tires crunched over gravel.
Someone had heard enough to call.
Maybe the old man with the beagle.
Maybe God.
Maddox backed away, palms up.
“Everybody needs to calm down.”
I almost laughed.
He had walked in with a death order and a lie.
Now he wanted calm.
Sirens sounded far off.
Not close.
But coming.
Maddox heard them too.
He looked at me one last time.
“You don’t know what your brother was involved in.”
The room tilted.
I had not said I had a brother.
I had not said Rook was his.
I had not said anything.
But Maddox had.
There it was.
The first real crack.
Dr. Price emerged from the hall, phone in hand. “Deputies are on their way.”
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