Because somewhere along the way, she stopped being an assignment. And became someone he couldn’t lose.
BASIC CADET TRAINING – DAY 23
The library was empty midday, midweek. The cadets were out on field rotation or gear drills, and the reading room was all cold light and quiet hum. Shannon moved quickly but not nervously, scanning the perimeter for staff or wandering eyes.
Ezra Fielder sat near the back, alone. He had a training manual open, but he wasn’t reading. His eyes flicked to her as she approached, then immediately back to the page. “I can’t,” he said before she even spoke.
“You don’t have to file anything,” she said. “Just talk.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
Shannon didn’t sit across from him. She sat beside him, just far enough that no one would see it as intimate. Just close enough that her voice didn’t need to carry. “Ezra,” she said softly, “I almost fell off the tower yesterday.”
He looked up, startled. “What?”
“Krueger sabotaged my harness. I felt it shift.”
His jaw clenched.
“They wrote it up as equipment failure,” she said. “They’re going to look the other way again. I’m next.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
Ezra didn’t argue.
She took a breath. “You told me he came after you. You said you knew what kind of game this was. You said I wasn’t alone.”
Ezra’s fingers curled into the edge of his book.
“I believe you,” she said. “But if I’m the only one who speaks, they’ll shut it down. I’m just another girl with a vendetta. That’s what they’ll say.”
He closed the book slowly. “I don’t want to say it out loud.”
“You don’t have to,” Shannon said. “Just tell me what he said to you. The words. Exactly how he made you feel.”
Ezra looked down. “He said I was pretty enough not to need grades. He said cadre could help guys like me find the fast lane. That I didn’t need to try so hard to impress the others.”
Shannon didn’t interrupt.
“He came into my room, said he was checking morale. He closed the door, said I’d be out in a week if I didn’t stop acting like I was too good to be coached.”
His voice cracked. “I didn’t know how to say no without it being insubordination. That’s how he phrased it. ‘You want to stay on track? You need to learn how to be coached.’”
Shannon stared straight ahead.
“I think he’s done it before,” Ezra added. “I think he has a routine.” He looked at her, terrified. “I’m not filing anything. Please don’t ask me to.”
“I won’t.” Shannon reached into her pocket, then stopped. She didn’t pull anything out. “I’m not asking you to sign anything. I’m not asking you to go on record. I’m not asking you to name him.”
Ezra watched her carefully.
“I just need to know if I heard it right,” she continued. “If the tone was what I thought it was. If he expected it to keep happening.”
Ezra’s jaw tightened. Then he shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want this written down. I don’t want it recorded. I don’t want it repeated.”
“I won’t,” Shannon said immediately.
