I tossed my phone and stomped on the gas, pushing the FJ as hard as she would go all the way to the first check point. I was still muddy from my day at Arlington, but I had my badge. The night guard wasn’t familiar with me, but he’d already called in on Martinez, Sloan, Kitsch and Harbinger, so they’d told him to expect me.

We wasted no time once I caught up with them in the control room. Without Saunders being there to hold us up, Harbinger gave the order then took the Jeep while we drove ATVs, headlamps on, speeding through the wilderness. After an hour, Harbinger went alone and split the rest of us up by twos. After ninety minutes, we all went on our own to cover more ground. Kitsch called in reports to the mountain and Trex, but when we got reports back that the rescue teams had been pulled for the night, Harbinger radioed for us to meet in the black, and we turned off our engines.

“We’re out of our depth,” Martinez said, fishing in his pack for water. “We haven’t been trained for this. What if the winds change? We have no business being out here blind.”

“I mean,” Sloan began, “we’re trained to survive.”

“You’re Navy, Martinez. We’re Marines. We’ve been trained for everything,” I said.

“Funny,” Martinez said, annoyed.

“Okay, okay, we’re not getting into a military branch pissing match. Let’s focus,” Harbinger said.

I continued, “We have headlamps and flashlights. I’m not going in,” I said.

“You’ll go in if you’re ordered to,” Kitsch said.

Harbinger sighed. “I’ve seen that look. I might as well not even try.”

One corner of Sloan’s mouth turned up. “She ain’t leavin’.”

“Which means we’re not leaving,” Sloan said, throwing his pack to the ground.

I handed Martinez my canteen. The sky was changing, still dark, but the horizon was lighter than before. “They’re out here. Just like last time, they’re probably trying to get one of their injured out. We’re fucking Marines; we don’t stop when the sun goes down.”

Martinez’s cheeks flushed. “Think about this, Nomes. You’re really willing to get us all killed to fix something you can’t fix?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I seethed.

“Lay off her, Martinez!” Kitsch yelled.

Martinez wasn’t afraid to go where others wouldn’t. He was a Navy Corpsman, trained in medicine and everything that went with it, including processing death. His medical training hadn’t taught him how to understand those of us who couldn’t let go, though. His patience had been wearing thin for a while.