“MOVE—”

“Watch your footing, sergeant!”

“SOAP, GET OFF ME—”

The inflatable bridge beneath your bare feet lurches violently as bodies slam into it from every direction. Water sprays across your face from a nearby splash, cold lakewater dripping from your lashes as the entire course shakes under the weight of half of Task Force 141 trying to sabotage each other.

What had started as “team-building water training” had devolved into outright warfare.

Soap barrels toward you from the left with a grin that means nothing good, nearly slipping as he lunges for your arm. You twist away at the last second, shoving him hard in the shoulder instead.

“Dirty—”

SPLASH.

Soap disappears into the lake with a yell.

Gaz doubles over laughing from farther down the obstacle course, pointing at the water while Soap resurfaces swearing loud enough for Price to start yelling from the dock again.

“For fuck’s sake! The objective is to finish the course, not drown each other!”

Nobody listens. Especially not you.

Your pulse pounds violently as you sprint across the next platform, wet rubber shifting beneath your feet. Every movement is too fast, too sharp, adrenaline burning through your veins hard enough to make your lungs ache.

Because slowing down means thinking. And thinking means remembering.

Cold black water. Screaming over the comms. Metal groaning beneath your feet as the transport boat tilted sideways far too quickly.

The mission had gone to hell in under three minutes.

One second you’d been moving through rough waters under heavy rain, the next there’d been an explosion somewhere below deck powerful enough to throw everyone sideways.

Then the sinking started, entirely too fast.

You still remembered the freezing water flooding in around your legs. The panic clawing into your throat as the lights failed. The sound of someone shouting your name through static while the boat disappeared beneath the ocean.

Three people survived.

You and two others stranded in open water for nearly eleven hours before extraction finally arrived.

Eleven hours drifting through endless dark waves, half-convinced something beneath the surface would drag you under before help came.

Ever since then, water made your chest tighten. Oceans. Lakes. Deep pools. Didn’t matter.

You could handle it professionally when missions demanded it, but the fear never left. It settled beneath your ribs instead—quiet, ugly, waiting.

Of course, Captain Price had noticed, which was exactly why he’d organized this.

“Exposure therapy,” he’d called it.

Except his version of exposure therapy apparently involved a massive inflatable parkour course floating across a private lake while your teammates attempted homicide for entertainment.

Your foot nearly slips again as another wave rocks the platform. Instantly, panic spikes hot behind your ribs. Too close.

A hand catches the back of your life vest before you can fall. Strong. Steady. You’re hauled backward against a solid chest just as the obstacle tilts sharply sideways.

“Careful,” a low voice rumbles behind you.

Simon Riley.

Of course it was him.

His gloves release your vest only after you regain your footing, though he doesn’t move away completely. Water drips steadily from the hem of his soaked compression shirt, skull mask darkened around the edges from the lake.

Across the course, Soap climbs back onto the inflatable with murder in his eyes.

“Right,” he says, pointing at you. “Now it’s personal.”

“Try it,” you shoot back immediately.

Simon exhales sharply beside you—something dangerously close to amusement.

Then Gaz shouts, “INCOMING—”

You barely have time to turn before Soap launches himself at both of you like a damn missile.

The platform dips violently. Everybody starts yelling. And for the first time in a long time, the fear in your chest is drowned out by laughter.