The battlefield was chaos — dust, fire, and the constant percussion of distant gunfire. Amid the smoke, Petty Officer Jack Monroe, a Navy SEAL medic, dragged himself through the rubble toward a wounded soldier slumped against a crumbling wall.

Her uniform was torn, her shoulder slick with blood. She hadn’t made a sound — not a cry, not a word — just sat there, calm, pressing her own wound with one steady hand.

“Stay with me,” Jack said, pulling his med kit open. “I’ve got you.”

She didn’t answer. Just nodded once, eyes sharp despite the pain. He tore the fabric back, working fast — but then he froze.

Right there, beneath the grime and torn camouflage, was an emblem no one outside black operations was supposed to see — a double-headed insignia, gold and crimson, the mark whispered about in every Tier-One unit but never confirmed.

Jack’s pulse spiked. His breath caught.

“Where did you get this?” he whispered.

Her eyes flicked up — calm, deliberate.
“You’re not cleared for that, Corpsman.”

For a second, the battlefield disappeared. The explosions faded. He wasn’t treating a random wounded soldier anymore — he was staring at someone who wasn’t supposed to exist.

That insignia meant Echo Division — a unit so classified it didn’t appear on rosters, payrolls, or Pentagon networks. Operators spoke of it like a ghost story: the ones sent when even SEAL Team Six wasn’t enough.

And now one of them was bleeding out in front of him.

---

The Woman Who Wasn’t There

Jack forced himself to move again, working the gauze with shaking hands. “You’ve got an arterial nick. I need to clamp—”

“I know what I’ve got,” she said, her voice steady, low. “Just patch it. They’re coming.”

“Who’s they?”

She didn’t answer. Her pupils contracted, focusing past him, scanning the haze. He followed her gaze and caught movement — three hostiles pushing through the smoke, rifles up.

Jack dove. A burst of gunfire shredded the wall where he’d just been. She didn’t flinch. With her uninjured arm, she reached for her rifle, racked the bolt with her elbow, and fired three shots.

Three targets dropped.

Jack looked at her — stunned. She hadn’t even turned her head.

“I said they were coming,” she murmured, and then sagged back, breathing hard. “You’re wasting time, Corpsman.”

“Name?” he asked, taping the wound.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Like hell it doesn’t,” Jack snapped. “I can’t put you in the evac queue without—”

“Evac’s not for me,” she said. “You didn’t see me, understood?”

Jack clenched his jaw. “Lady, I’ve seen plenty of ghosts. You’re not one of them.”

That got the faintest flicker of a smile. “You’d be surprised.”

---

A Deal in the Dust

Jack secured the bandage, injected morphine, and started the IV. “You’ll live,” he said. “But you’re going to need evac in the next twenty minutes.”

She pushed his hand away. “Negative. You’re pulling out, and I was never here.”

He stared at her, anger flashing. “You think I’m just gonna leave you to bleed out in a hole?”

“I think,” she said, voice clipped, “that if you don’t, more people are going to die.”

Her eyes — gray, steady, lethal — locked onto his. “There’s an airstrike inbound. Target grid’s this block.”

Jack’s blood went cold. “We’re in the grid.”

“Yeah,” she said, “and that’s why you need to move.”

“How do you—”

“Because I called it,” she said flatly.

The silence between them was deafening.
“You what?”

Her expression didn’t change. “Mission compromised. Contingency Delta. No recovery possible. I gave the coordinates.”

Jack felt something twist in his gut. “You called fire on your own position?”

She nodded once. “It’s already in the air. Ten minutes.”

He stared at her in disbelief. “You’re insane.”

She gave a faint, tired smirk. “That’s why they picked me.”

---

The Insignia

He looked at the emblem again, now half-covered by blood. The double-headed mark gleamed faintly — one eagle facing the past, one the future. Rumor said it represented two oaths: one to country, one to something deeper, older.

“Echo Division,” Jack muttered. “I thought you people were a myth.”

She looked away. “Good. Keep thinking that.”

He exhaled sharply. “You could’ve just said you needed extraction.”

“I don’t need saving.”

“Then why the hell did you let me patch you up?”

A beat. Her voice softened. “Because you still believe people deserve saving.”

Jack stared at her — really looked at her. Beneath the grime and blood was a face that might’ve once known peace. But her eyes told another story — the kind you couldn’t unsee. He recognized it because he’d carried the same look after Fallujah, after Baghazi — the thousand-yard stare of someone who’s lost count of the bodies.

---

The Choice

He checked his watch. Six minutes.

“You’re coming with me,” he said.

She shook her head. “Not happening.”

“I’m not asking.”

“You’re wasting time arguing.”

“Lady, I don’t leave anyone behind.”

She met his gaze, something almost kind flickering behind the steel. “Then you’re in the wrong business, Corpsman.”

He reached for her arm, but she shoved him back with surprising strength. “I have to stay. That strike isn’t just cleanup. It’s cover.”

“For what?”

She hesitated, then leaned in close. “There’s something under this block. Something we buried a decade ago. If the wrong people dig it up, it won’t just be this city that burns.”

Jack’s mind raced. “You’re saying—”

“I’m saying go,” she cut him off. “You’re a good man. Don’t die for a secret.”

---

The Last Ten Seconds

Gunfire echoed again. Jack spun, returned fire, dropped two more hostiles. Smoke burned his lungs. The radio crackled with his team’s voices — panic, static, orders to pull back.

“Monroe, where the hell are you?”
“East side! Got a casualty!”
“Airstrike’s inbound! Move your ass!”

He turned back to her. “You heard them. Let’s go!”

She smiled faintly, blood staining her teeth. “Already did.”

Her hand slipped into her vest, pulling out a small data chip. She pressed it into his palm. “When you get home, give this to Admiral Briggs. He’ll know.”

“What’s on it?”

“Proof,” she said simply. “Of the things we bury.”

Jack wanted to argue, to drag her with him — but the look in her eyes stopped him cold. It wasn’t fear. It was peace. The kind that only comes when a soldier’s made peace with her ghosts.

He backed away, the roar of engines growing louder.
“Five seconds!” a voice shouted through the comms.

Jack hesitated, one last glance. “What’s your name?”

She smiled — soft, almost human. “You’re not cleared for that, Corpsman.”

The sky ignited.

---

Aftermath

He woke up three days later aboard the carrier Roosevelt. Concussion, shrapnel, bruised ribs. The doctors said he was lucky.

They told him no female operator was found. No trace of anyone matching his description. The area had been vaporized. Classified, they said. He must’ve been disoriented. Memory gaps were common after blast trauma.

But when he reached into his vest, the chip was still there — sealed, unmarked, real.

He slipped it into a secure pouch. When Admiral Briggs came for debriefing, Jack placed it on the table without a word.

The admiral looked at it, then at Jack. His face changed — recognition, guilt, something else. He pocketed the chip silently.

“You did good, son,” Briggs said quietly. “Now forget everything.”

Jack nodded. “Was she one of yours?”

Briggs paused at the door. “No,” he said. “She was one of ours.”

---

Epilogue

Months later, Jack stood on a quiet beach in Coronado, the Pacific wind cold against his scars. He looked down at the sand, and there — faintly — saw a glint of metal he hadn’t noticed before.

A small emblem, gold and crimson, half-buried.

He picked it up, thumb brushing over the twin heads — one looking forward, one back.

Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled, though the sky was clear.

Jack smiled faintly. “Guess you made it home after all.”