Chapter 1 - The Name on Her Wrist
"You didn't earn your place here!"
Lieutenant Commander Derek Shaw thrust a white evaluation sheet so close to Ensign Ava Sullivan's face that its lower edge brushed her nose. Behind her, a line of candidates went silent. The concrete yard at the Naval Special Warfare Center was hot enough to blur the air above it. Water bottles stood in a neat row beneath the bleachers, and the ocean wind kept flattening the paper against Shaw's knuckles.
Ava was twenty-seven, wearing a navy-blue physical training shirt and plain dark shorts. Her dark hair was pulled tightly back. She had just finished a timed water-confidence assessment with her shoulders still aching from the last recovery drill. None of that mattered to the men and women watching her stand alone before their instructor.
"Maybe your last name opened doors," Shaw said. "It won't keep them open."
He flicked a glance toward Master Chief Patrick Sullivan, who stood at the far edge of the yard in a pressed service uniform, observing the scheduled review. Patrick didn't move. Ava had seen him only once before, in a hallway that morning. Their shared surname had become an accusation before either had introduced himself.
"My score is on the sheet, sir," Ava said.
"Your score?" Shaw turned the paper toward the other trainees. "A score isn't proof of ability when someone upstairs is protecting you."
Her fingers closed around the worn metal bracelet on her left wrist. It had been there through officer training, through the winter her mother died, and through every morning she had considered walking away from the Navy before she started. She felt its familiar scratched edge beneath her thumb.
"Judge my performance, not my family," she said.
The words came out steadier than she felt. A candidate named Nora Ruiz stared at the ground. Another, Ben Larkin, looked from the evaluation sheet to Shaw's stopwatch, which hung from a clip on his training uniform. Nobody volunteered to become the next person under scrutiny.
Shaw took a step closer. "You think you get to instruct me on standards?"
"No, sir. I am asking you to apply them."
For an instant Shaw appeared ready to tear the form. Instead he jabbed a finger at its bottom line. Ava caught a glimpse of a failed time beside a signature and the notation INCOMPLETE RECOVERY. Her breath stopped. She had completed that recovery. Ruiz had been beside her when the buoy came free.
"This is your final recommendation," he said. "Unless you have some family favor left to call in."
Ava lowered her hand. Sunlight ran across the bracelet's engraved lettering. Patrick's expression changed so suddenly she thought he might be ill. He stepped into the gap between the bleachers and the candidates, looking not at her face but at the metal on her wrist.
"Where did you get his number?" the master chief asked.
Shaw's jaw tightened. "Master Chief, this is an instructor review."
Patrick didn't look at him. "Ensign. Please."
Ava turned her wrist toward him. The inscription was nearly smooth with wear: MICHAEL SULLIVAN, followed by an old service identification number and a date from fifteen years earlier. Her mother had told her not to wear it to training. Ava had refused.
"It was my father's," she said.
Patrick reached out but stopped himself before touching the bracelet.
"You knew him?" Ava whispered.
May you like
He looked at her for a long moment. The sea wind stirred the corner of Shaw's evaluation. Then Patrick asked a question that made her forget the yard, the trainees, and the form in Shaw's hand.
"Did your mother ever tell you why I wasn't allowed at his funeral?"
