Chapter 2

"You are the commander of this operation right now—not a man settling old scores with me!" I spat angrily.

"Do you have any idea how critical the situation is?!"

"Clear-headed?"

A cold chuckle came through the receiver, carrying a calm that seeped into the bones.

"I'm perfectly clear, Captain Lewis. I'm simply accompanying you while you admire the moon abroad. Why don't you take a good look—this place you abandoned everything for five years ago. What has it given you in return?"

"If we don't retreat now, we're all dead!!" My eyes were bloodshot as I roared.

"So what?" His voice remained utterly flat, cold as permafrost that never melts.

"Back then, you could throw away three years of our relationship without hesitation just to come here. Now, giving your life for it... I imagine you'd be quite willing."

On hearing that, my last thread of reason snapped.

"Noah! Are you out of your damn mind?!"

The shout tore my throat raw as I slammed the radio into the mud.

Deputy Captain Herrera lunged forward, gripping my arm tightly, her voice breaking into sobs.

"Captain Lewis! Calm down—please! You have to calm down!"

I drew a harsh breath, bent down, picked up the mud-smeared radio, and forcibly reclaimed command of the unit.

"All teams, report remaining ammunition and casualties."

"Team A, fall back to Shelter Two. Team B, deploy the last Claymores at the southeast breach. Snipers—priority targets are enemy machine gunners and RPG operators."

Under my direction, the team continued its near-hopeless resistance.

But a unit cut off from support, trying to hold off a full-scale assault by an entire force, was nothing more than a praying mantis stopping a chariot.

Ammunition dwindled at a visible pace.

Every shot fired was like tipping the hourglass of our lives forward—one grain at a time.

The medic's anxious voice came through the internal channel, trembling with tears.

"Captain Lewis... the civilians—many of them are breaking down. They're asking... have we been abandoned? Are we really going to be able to leave?"

I glanced down at the two remaining magazines on my belt. My throat tightened as I answered hoarsely, "Tell them... we haven't abandoned them. We will take them home. We just... need them to hold on a little longer."

Taking a deep breath filled with smoke and blood, I pressed the encrypted channel to the command center once more.

This time, all the fury and shouting were gone.

What remained was a depth of exhaustion and humility so profound that even I barely recognized my own voice.

"Commander Flores,"

I addressed him by rank.

"In my entire life... I've never begged anyone like this."

"Whatever you want to do to me, I'll accept it. But at least... let those hundred-plus innocent lives live."

The channel fell into a long, suffocating silence.

Only the faint hiss of static remained—along with what sounded like his tightly restrained breathing.

A thought I barely dared to entertain flashed through my mind.

Had he... wavered?

Just as that fragile spark of hope began to rise, his voice cut in again.

"Fine."

Those two words made my heart leap. But then his tone shifted—and he laughed like a madman.

"You want to withdraw with your people? Fine."

"But before I issue the official retreat order, Captain Lewis, you will walk up to every single person you rescued—and kneel."

"In front of them, you will personally admit how you cheated, how you betrayed your marriage, how you abandoned your husband."

"Then you will kowtow one hundred times. Not one less."

"I want to hear the sound."