He Soaked Her Jacket In Front Of Everyone, Then The Commander Grabbed Her Collar

"Wet enough for you, private?" Falk called across the formation, and then he snapped the canteen up and let the water go.

Nobody broke ranks. Nobody moved. Only Crane stood there in a soaked jacket while the whole company watched, and Falk was already laughing, because in his world this is what money buys — a laugh now, a quiet erasure before sunset.

What he could not know is what sits under that collar.

The water hits her chest in one dark sheet, collar to belt, and drips off her boots onto the chalked concrete between the rows. Falk keeps the half-empty canteen in his left hand, taps his signet ring against the metal twice, and turns to the man beside him for the laugh he knows is coming. The man gives it. The formation gives nothing else.