RONAN My pulse began to pound, loud enough that I was certain everyone else in the tent could hear it. I did not think Victor would actually strike the girl. He was willing to do a lot, threaten, intimidate, destroy, but that was a line I believed he would not cross. Believed. The certainty I had clung to was starting to feel thin, brittle. I sent a silent text to his tablet, my fingers barely moving, asking if the missile was really on its way. My stomach twisted as I watched him swipe the notification away without even glancing at me. I was getting ready to ask out loud, the words already forming, when he tapped the screen and turned it toward our prisoner.The man was still shouting insults, spitting blood with every word. The screen showed a countdown timer with less than five minutes left. The numbers glowed an unforgiving red, ticking down second by second, merciless and precise. “You have four minutes and thirty seconds to decide who matters more, pigtails or your friends,” Victor said evenly. “Give me somewhere else to send that bird or your daughter will not get to wish you another Happy Father’s Day.” Tears mixed with the blood from the man’s damaged eye, streaking down his face. His skin turned bright red, veins standing out along his neck. He let out a scream of pure rage and pulled upward against the shackles with all his strength. The metal bit into his skin. I heard it before I saw it, the wet sound, the strain. Then I saw the splash of red on the steel. “Fuck!” A second later the fight left him. It was sudden, like a switch flipped deep inside his head. His body sagged, shoulders slumping as if the weight of the world had finally crushed him. His breathing turned shallow. “Show me a map,” he stated, his voice flat and empty. Victor smiled and tapped a few buttons, clearly savoring the moment. “I have put the missile into a high altitude glide pattern. If the locations you give me are not real when our drones fly over, your daughter pays the price.” The man did not respond. He stared straight ahead, jaw clenched. Victor signed into a secured account on the pad. He used his fingerprint and retinal scan, the device chiming softly as it accepted both. A map appeared, spreading across the screen in clean lines and glowing markers. He placed the tablet in front of the prisoner, knowing he could not use it to contact his friends, knowing exactly how helpless that made him feel. “Corporal, make sure he does not do anything stupid,” Victor said. He grabbed the shackles and began to unlock one hand, the metal clicking loudly in the sudden quiet. The soldier aimed his pistol at the back of the prisoner’s head without hesitation. “I will shoot him in the head, sir.” The man’s hand came free. Victor stepped to the table, opposite me, just out of reach. “Remember, you are trying to give me a better target,” Victor said. “If you give me small potatoes, I will just go back to my first idea.” The man’s good eye locked onto Victor.I did not doubt he was thinking about attacking him, calculating distance, timing, odds. His hand lifted, hovering inches above the screen, about to touch it, when all four of us looked north. The gunfire, always in the distance, had suddenly gotten much closer. No longer background noise. No longer ignorable. Soldiers were shouting to each other outside. We could not make out the words, but the tone was unmistakable, urgent, panicked, sharp. A laugh filled the tent, raw and triumphant. “Sounds like my boys are coming for me.” Victor looked at the Corporal. “Go check it out.” The man nodded and slipped out the tent flap. Bright white light flooded in, harsh enough to make me squint. His pistol was already up, his posture rigid.The gunfire intensified almost immediately. Then the loud buzz of a heavy weapon ripped the air apart, a deep mechanical roar that made my teeth vibrate. I felt it in my bones, a low, relentless hum that drowned out thought. “Was that an APC?” I asked, my voice barely steady. Victor did not answer. He looked at the prisoner. “Give me the locations. Now.” The man leaned back as far as the shackles would allow, his freed hand slipping casually to his thigh. “No, I think I will just sit here and wait,” he said. “Wait for you to give me a reason not to skin you alive when we take this place. You are going to die. Probably hang you from the overpass.” He smiled, slow and cruel. “But it can get worse. So why don't you tell me where your assets are?” He laughed, glancing at the pad, a smirk fixed on his face.Victor pulled his pistol and aimed. He was about to speak when a nearby explosion shook us all. The ground lurched beneath our feet. We lost our balance. I grabbed the table to steady myself and looked at Victor. Our eyes were wide, reflecting the same dawning realization. The prisoner laughed harder. “That is the sound of freedom, boys!” Harsh white light flooded the space as the tent flap was shoved aside. I turned toward the opening. My blood went cold. The prisoner turned his head. His smile melted away, draining from his face in an instant. “What the hell is that!” he shouted. Harsh metal hands shot out and grabbed both sides of his head. They wrenched it with a stomach churning snap, the sound sharp and final.The man’s face now stared directly at me, frozen in shock. Fear was the last emotion his one good eye would ever show. The drone stood there, towering above us all. Its white exterior was stained with smoke and speckles of blood, humming softly as if the carnage around it were nothing more than routine.