Ghost (The 142nd Phantom Lancers #3)

Dalton

Columbus AFB

The auditorium smells like burnt coffee and nervous sweat.

I adjust the sleeves of my olive-green flight suit, feeling the weight of the patches on my arms as I roll my shoulders back. The room’s packed wall to wall—families, instructors, classmates—all of them crammed into the rows of faded chairs, buzzing like an overcharged wire.

Drop Night.

They make it sound like a party, but really, it’s just organized chaos—standing here, hearts pounding like we’re about to get called up for our execution or a trophy. Depends on how lucky we are.

I sit in the second row, boots planted flat on the thin carpet, hands loosely clasped between my knees. On the surface, I look calm. Inside, my pulse is a steady hammer against my ribs.

The other pilots are laughing too loudly, slapping each other on the back, pretending to be cool.

No one’s actually relaxed. You can feel the tension climbing the walls.

One by one, names get read off. One by one, lives get carved out as assignments flash across the big screen behind the podium.

Fighters. Bombers. Heavies. You take whatever you’re handed and you say thank you, and if you don’t like it, too fucking bad.

You should've worked harder. Or been luckier.

My name is still sitting there at the bottom corner of the screen.

Waiting.

One of our instructions, Captain Miller—“Troll”—stands at the front of the room. His voice echoes around the space, sharp and full of barely concealed amusement.

I lean back slightly, letting my head tip up toward the flags hanging from the ceiling. The American flag, the Air Force flag, and below them, the wing crest of Columbus. I trace the stitching of my own name patch with my thumb, slow and methodical.

Lieutenant Dalton Everett. UPT Class 17-03.

Almost there.

I’m avoiding a pair of familiar, light green eyes. I know she’s back there. Probably sitting ramrod straight, her gaze locked on the projector screen behind the stage. Probably working to school her pretty face so her dislike of a job I haven’t even started yet doesn’t show.

I finally asked her to dinner three days before I graduated from USAFA, at the tiny bookstore where she worked part-time in Colorado Springs.

I remember the bell over the door jingling as I stepped inside.

I remember the way her smile lit up the whole damn room when she looked up at me.

I remember feeling like I was stuck in the pages of one of those paperbacks I’d seen her reading for months.

Feeling like I was courting her, slow and steady, just like the guys in the romance novels she loves so much.

I bought books I didn’t need just for an excuse to talk to her.

I kept coming back, letting conversation build, until I finally worked up the nerve to ask her to dinner.

I remember the way she blushed when I tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear.

I remember the deafening roar of the Thunderbirds overhead, flying low in tight formation as they practiced for our graduation flyover. I remember the look on her face, the one that said I probably shouldn’t share my dreams with her just yet.

And now we’re here. A year into a long-distance relationship I want to work, but it’s felt like she’s had one foot out the door ever since I told her I wanted to be a pilot.

And tonight? Tonight I’m sitting in this overstuffed auditorium, on what should be one of the most exciting nights of my life—after grinding my way to the top of my UPT class—wondering if the words that flash onto that screen are going to be the final nail in us.

Because if I drop what I’m hoping for, I don’t know if she’ll stay.

The screen flashes again—C-17, F-15E, KC-135—cheers and whoops rattling the floorboards. Somebody behind me yells so hard when a B-2 slot pops up that he loses his voice halfway through.

I barely hear any of it.

I’m back at that airshow when I was thirteen, standing behind a rope line in the dry Arizona heat. My neck was aching from craning it, trying to follow one of the two flashes of silver dancing through the cloudless expanse of sky. The sound didn’t just tear through the air, it ripped through me.

Like the whole damn earth shifted just because that jet existed.

The F-22 Raptor.

I remember staring up, sunburnt and sweating, feeling something lock into place inside me. This was it. There was never going to be another path.

I remember standing in line, sneakers scuffing the asphalt, clutching a poster I didn’t care about just for the excuse to talk to one of the demo pilots.

I remember the black flight suit that distinguished him from the rest of the team.

I remember the weight of the embroidered patch he pressed into my palm, the way he took the time—real time—to answer every question I could throw at him.

What to study. What to expect. What it would take to earn the right to even touch a Raptor, let alone fly one.

I didn’t know it then, but that was the day the future stopped being a guess and started being a mission.

A flash of movement at the front pulls me back.

“Lieutenant Dalton Everett,” Troll says, voice bouncing off the walls like a gunshot. He’s grinning like a maniac as he flips through a notecard, savoring the moment. It’s no secret what my goal has been since my first day at USAFA.

The noise around me mutes. Just for a second.

I stand, the pressure behind my ribs tightening into a knot that shoves against my lungs.

And out of the corner of my eye, I see Noa, sitting two rows behind my dad, half hidden behind a couple of instructors.

She’s wearing that navy dress with the white flowers, the one she had on the first night I kissed her after my graduation.

Her hands are folded tightly in her lap.

She’s not smiling. She looks like she’s bracing for a funeral, not a celebration.

The walk to the front feels both too fast and painfully slow. Boots thudding against carpet. Every step is solid, deliberate.

Troll’s trying not to smirk. Our instructors live for this, dragging it out, watching us squirm, torturing the guys gunning for fighters a little extra.

He draws a deep, theatrical breath. Looks down at the notecard like he hasn’t already memorized it.

The whole room leans in.

“Lieutenant Everett will be heading to…”

Another pause. Another heartbeat missed.

“…Tyndall Air Force Base…”

The whole place freezes.

“…to fly the F-22 Raptor.”

The room detonates.

It’s not sound exactly—it’s force, punching me right in the chest. Shouts, chairs clanging, fists banging on seatbacks. Someone howls my name.

Right behind me, on the projector screen, the video hits—crisp and clean. A Raptor knifing through blue sky, wings slicing the air. Flipping over into a high-g roll, afterburners flaring bright white. Pulling vertical, disappearing into the sun like it owns the whole goddamn sky.

That’s mine. That’s actually going to be mine.

But even as I stare, lungs full of fire, part of me twists around to see the look on Noa’s face.

She once told me she hated the sound of fighter jets.

Said it felt like war sneaking in through the windows.

Said they made the world feel less safe, not more.

That was the moment I opted not to tell her what I wanted to fly and I think out of spite, she never asked.

She doesn’t look happy or proud or even surprised.

She just looks angry. Her jaw’s tight. Eyes narrowed just enough that I know she’s trying not to cause a scene, but it’s there, burning just beneath the surface.

That mix of betrayal and disappointment I’ve started to recognize too well.

Like I picked the jet over her. Like I chose war, knowing exactly how she’d feel about it.

And maybe I did.

A fist slams against my back, one of the guys from my class, and I snap back into my body. I can’t fight the smile, the surge of emotions written all over my face even as I try to lock it down inside.

Raptor.

I dropped a fucking Raptor.

Troll’s laughing as he yanks me into a rough handshake that turns into half a bear hug, squeezing my shoulder harder than he needs to.

"Don’t screw it up, Everett," he mutters low.

"Wouldn’t dream of it, sir," I get out, voice rough around the edges.

I turn toward the room. Toward my buddies beating the crap out of each other, cheering. The projector screen behind flashes in bold letters:

DALTON EVERETT—F-22 RAPTOR—TYNDALL AFB.

I spot my dad in the middle row, standing tall over the crowd, clapping slow and steady.

Same look he wore at my high school graduation, at my commissioning.

Pride, yeah. But something heavier, too.

Like we both accomplished something today because even though it’s just been the two of us all these years, he’s always made sure I knew I was enough.

And we’re here. The moment I—we—have been working toward.

He raised me in the dry, baked heat on an Army base outside Tucson.

We never had much but we had each other.

My dad made sure to instill whatever relevant wisdom he could between deployments.

He taught me that nothing worth having comes easy.

To dig for my own answers in books. And to never expect a damn thing to be handed to me.

He told me once when I was fifteen, that if I wanted the sky, I’d better be willing to bleed for it.

I think about that now, standing here. About everything he carried so I didn’t have to.

I walk back down the aisle, guys slamming their hands against my shoulders, yelling in my ear. The knot in my chest snaps loose all at once, and for the first time in years, I let myself feel it. Excitement. Relief. Pure, gut-deep joy.

Thirteen-year-old me would be losing his shit right now.

I know what’s coming—IFF will chew me up and spit me out if I’m not razor-sharp. Then the B-Course, where every single day will be a new chance to prove I deserve to fly the most advanced jet on the planet.

I won’t be given second chances.

I ignore Noa’s heated stare and instead find my dad in the crowd again, his eyes locking onto mine. He smiles. The same smile that’s been there through every hard moment, every victory, every failure.

I smile back, but it’s more than that.

Because that little kid from the air show made it.

And now it’s time to live up to the dream.