Chapter 828
Blair’s mouth tightened. She did not move.
A look of profound disgust crossed Caroline’s face. This time, she didn’t step into the attack. She didn’t need to dismantle them with her hands. She had already dismantled the room.
“That’s interesting,” Caroline said quietly.
Melanie froze.
Blair’s face went pale.
Caroline’s voice stayed calm, almost gentle. “You heard her, Blair. She doesn’t need a partner. She needs someone to take the report for her.”
The words landed harder than any blow.
Blair stared at Melanie. For the first time, suspicion cut cleanly through fear.
“Shut up,” Melanie hissed.
Caroline tilted her head. “Why? Because she knows I’m right?”
Blair, struggling to hold on to what little dignity she had left, looked between them in disbelief. They hadn’t just been beaten. Their alliance had been opened up like a wound. Not by force. By exposure.
Caroline stood in the center of the barracks, her breathing even, her uniform completely dry. She looked down at the two women, her expression as cold and impassive as a winter sky. Her movements had been minimal, clean, and utterly controlled. She looked less like a recruit spoiling for a fight and more like someone who had learned that the most efficient strike was sometimes a sentence.
Fear, cold and real, finally broke through Melanie and Blair’s anger. They looked at each other, and in that shared glance was a terrifying realization: they had picked a fight with something they could not possibly comprehend.
Melanie staggered back a step, clutching her bound right hand against her chest with her left arm. For the first time, she chose to retreat.
“We’re leaving,” she choked out to Blair.
Blair did not immediately help her.
That hesitation was small, but Melanie saw it. So did Caroline.
The barracks door was thrown open with such force that it slammed against the wall.
Instructor Sharpe stood there, her face a mask of thunderous fury. Behind her stood another woman in an instructor’s uniform, a stranger with sharp, intelligent eyes and an air of coiled, predatory stillness.
Sharpe’s gaze took in the scene in an instant, the spilled laundry on the floor, Melanie’s disheveled, trembling state, Blair standing too far away from her to look loyal, Brenna bristling like a guard dog, Beatrix watching with aristocratic amusement, and Caroline, standing untouched in the middle of it all.
Her mouth opened, a roar of pure rage building in her throat. But before she could speak, the stranger stepped past her.
The woman’s voice was melodic, yet it carried an innate, unquestionable authority. “Well,” she said, a small, amused smile playing on her lips. “Looks like I arrived before anyone was stupid enough to make this paperwork.”
Sharpe took a deep, calming breath, reining in her anger. “All of you, listen up!” she barked. “This is Instructor Sloane Hawke. As of today, she is joining the cadre.”
Caroline’s eyes fixed on the new instructor’s face.
On Sloane Hawke.