The axe splits the log clean down the middle.

Diana sets the halves aside and wipes sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. The afternoon sun filters through the pines overhead, wood chips scatter around the chopping block—oak, mostly, good for burning through winter. The air smells like sap and earth and honest work.

She's been at it for two hours. Her shoulders ache, hands are calloused, blistered in places the gloves don't cover. Fifty-eight years old, and she can still swing an axe all afternoon without stopping. Marine training doesn't leave you. Neither does twenty-eight years in the field.

Diana plants the axe in the stump and sits on a separate stump near the woodpile, unscrewing the cap on her water bottle. She drinks slowly, letting her heart rate settle.

How the hell did I get here?

S.T.A.R.S. recruit in 1998. BSAA founding member. Twenty-eight years hunting bioweapons across six continents. Loyal, dependable and stubborn as hell. And then ARK. Rodger. The realization that everything she survived was orchestrated.

She gave the Elpis sample to Chris. Not the BSAA. Not the organization that wanted to turn it into another weapon. She handed it to Hound Wolf Squad, told Chris he was right, and walked away.

The BSAA discharged her three weeks later. Honorable, much to her surprise. A one-way ticket out of the life she'd built.

And somehow, she ended up here. Midwest woods in a cabin with no neighbors for five miles. Part-time work at the lumber mill. Chopping wood and watching the seasons change.

It's too quiet, sometimes. Her instincts don't shut off—she still checks the perimeter every morning, still keeps a shotgun by the door, still notices when the forest goes silent.