Slade had started to suspect his sniper was either blessed by God or simply cheating.

Because no matter how filthy the mission was—

she came back looking almost perfect.

It didn’t matter where they went.

Mud?

Everyone else looked like they’d been dragged through a swamp.

She came back with barely a speck on her uniform.

Rain?

The rest of the team looked soaked, miserable, and half-dead.

She somehow looked like she’d just stepped out of a shower.

A mission through an abandoned industrial site left everyone covered in dust, grease, and grime.

Her?

A few marks on her boots.

That was it.

The men noticed.

Of course they noticed.

One recruit stared at her after they returned from another particularly ugly operation.

“Boss…”

Slade didn’t look up from the mission report.

“What?”

“How does she keep doing that?”

Slade glanced toward her.

She was calmly cleaning her rifle, looking remarkably composed.

“Doing what?”

The recruit gestured toward himself.

Then toward the rest of the team.

Then toward her.

“Look at us.”

Slade did.

One man had mud across his entire jacket.

Another had a torn sleeve.

Someone else was still trying to get dried blood and dirt off his gloves.

Then Slade looked at her again.

Clean.

Almost suspiciously clean.

“I don’t know,” Slade said.

Another recruit frowned.

“She was right beside me when that truck went through the mud.”

Slade raised an eyebrow.

“And?”

“She didn’t get dirty.”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

The man looked offended.

“How is that a me problem?”

“Because you’re the one covered in mud.”

The team went quiet.

He had a point.

It became a running joke after that.

Every mission ended the same way.

The team dragged themselves through the doors looking exhausted.

She followed behind them looking annoyingly put together.

Even after missions that left everyone else filthy, bruised, and covered in the evidence of a long night, she somehow managed to look almost untouched.

One recruit finally accused her of having some kind of secret.

“You’ve gotta be doing something.”

She simply stared at him.

He immediately looked toward Slade.

“See? That’s the look.”

Slade sighed.

“You’re accusing the sniper of witchcraft because she knows how to keep her uniform clean.”

“I’m saying it’s suspicious.”

Slade looked at her.

Then at him.

“Maybe you’re just bad at staying clean.”

The room erupted into laughter.

The recruit groaned.

“This team sucks.”

Slade returned to his report.

He wasn’t entirely convinced either.

He’d seen her come back from missions that left everyone else looking like they’d been through hell.

Yet somehow, she always emerged with her hair mostly intact, her uniform reasonably clean, and her equipment perfectly maintained.

It was impressive.

It was irritating.

And, frankly, Slade had no idea how she kept doing it.

But he wasn’t going to question it.

As long as his sniper came back alive and operational, he didn’t care if she somehow walked through a war zone without getting a single stain on her boots.

The rest of the team, however, had reached a different conclusion.

She wasn’t just the sniper.

She was apparently the team’s clean-up department.