Chapter 11 Adam
Adam
The command tent smelled like wet canvas, stale coffee, and fear.
Maps covered in red grease pencil curled at the edges, damp from the constant humidity.
My boots squelched mud onto the dirt floor as I stepped in, but no one seemed to notice.
Everyone was too busy chasing ghosts. These floods were worse than ever recorded.
Russ had the casualty board in front of him, methodically crossing out names of the rescued.
Boone lounged against a crate with his headset askew, tossing a water bottle in the air like this was a ball game.
Hawk muttered to himself while pacing the edge of the tent, and Blade sat sharpening that damn knife again—steel rasping against stone, steady and unnerving.
But my eyes weren’t on them.
They were on the list.
Sector Echo. Four names still circled. Two were children—the ones Raine and I had just dragged out of a collapsing house. The mother’s name was crossed off, too. But the fourth…
“Where’s Merritt?” I asked, tapping the name.
Russ frowned, double-checking his notes. “Fifty-six years old. Last seen at his property line yesterday. Neighbors swore he was alive. Never came through triage.”
I scanned the intake logs stacked nearby. No Merritt. No body. No evac transfer. Just… gone.
“Probably swept downriver,” Boone said casually, catching his bottle.
“No.” My gut tightened. “He didn’t drown.”
Hawk snorted. “What, you got a crystal ball now?”
I ignored him. Something about this was off. Too clean. Too easy to chalk up as flood loss.
Raine pushed through the flap, braid still dripping, a bandage wrapped tight around her arm. Her cheeks were pale, but her eyes were sharp. “There are more missing than there should be.”
Everyone looked at her.
She set down a soaked notebook, pages covered in her messy scrawl. “I talked to evacuees. Families are reporting people never made it to shelters—but there’s no record of them being rescued or lost. They just… disappeared.”
Russ’s brow furrowed. “You think someone’s taking them?”
The tent went silent.
I felt it deep in my gut—the same instinct that had kept me alive in a dozen warzones. The pattern was there, in the gaps, in the silence. It’s happened before, so many times.
“Yeah,” I said slowly, eyes meeting Raine’s. “I think this flood’s hiding something worse.”
Her gaze locked on mine, steady and grim. For the first time since I’d walked back into her life, we weren’t arguing.
We were on the same side.