𝙑𝙞𝙭𝙚𝙣 || 𝙏𝙧𝙞𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙁𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙚𝙧

⚔️ Prologue ⚔️

A bookworm, perhaps. The library was her second home, absorbing all the information the books had to offer. An escape from reality was what she wanted, and so she lived in the fantasy lands created by the authors of indulging fiction texts. With her thick, woollen jumper sleeves itching at the palm of her hands, she'd push her slipping glasses up the bridge of her nose and sniffle, continuing her journey of knowledge.

She didn't have friends, not really anyway. She observed the different groups within her high school and to her, everyone was fake and carried nothing but hatred for not only themselves but for others, willing to back stab their so called friends in order to travel up the popularity scale. Better off alone, she kept to herself and considered her only friend to be a girl who rarely made an appearance during the many lonely months. Crippling anxiety, she led it down to, however, her mind did wonder from time to time.

And then, just like that, the bliss of a simple life had been disrupted. At the ripe age of eighteen, a change of career ambition yearned at her heart, guiding her feet down a path of danger and intoxicating excitement. It was as though her father had spoke to her through a dream, shaking her out of her empty day dreams to open her eyes and allow her to see what the world truly looked like from a different perspective, including the good, the bad and the ugly.

A year after completing her S.E.A.Ls training, she'd been ranked up to the Special Forces, courtesy of her father who was a colonel and watched her train without his doting, loving eyes. Instead, he treated her like the rest of them, though he and the others were amazed how this frail, timid girl who could barely do one push up miraculously changed into a confident women who swayed her hips with pride, high egotistical traits dripping from her tongue every time she spoke and could easily master each drill set to improve physical agility.

The youngest they had, and at that, a woman. The sexist slurs and doubtful tones bothered her at the beginning. She maintained an unbalanced view upon herself and through intense exercises and an irregular sleeping pattern, she was ready to give up, until with one final push, she blossomed and proved everyone wrong, especially herself.

Many things occurred in nineteen year old Margo Hargrove's life, nothing particularly great to write home about, other than the death of her father and the bond she created with five older men who shared her pain after losing their fallen comrade.

Grown accustomed to the world around her collapsing at her feet, at first she couldn't come to terms with life without her father. That fateful night, she can remember it crystal clear and the sheer terror that ran through her veins when a bullet whizzed the air and lodged its way inside Frank Hargrove's brain, a straight aim between the eyes. They were being tracked and their foolish steps in the dust which hadn't been covered led them to this agonising loss.

A scream pierced the air, a battle cry, thirsty for revenge and an outburst of rage. Fighting against the prying hands that dared to hold her back from the crossfire, she ran across the battlefield and fell to her knees beside her dad, and in a slow, soundless motion, she shook his deceased body and squealed, her face contorting in grief upon facing what could only be described as gruesome. Blood trickled down his temples from a millimetre hole in his forehead and unbeknownst to him, his daughter begged and pleaded for the gods to revive him so she could tell him all the things she didn't say.

That was the day the six troops decided to call it quits on their warpath of destruction. Although they had to wait a few months until their tour was up, Margo was granted early leave due to grievance. 

When she got back home, she was then faced with a broken, widowed mother and a little brother who was on the edge of falling down a slippery slope, traits of alcoholism and drug use in his system. And through it all - the pain, the suffering, her internal battle to suppress the demons who wrapped themselves round her ankles as anchors and pulled her below the surface to drown her - she swore she'd never look back on her experiences in the war. She'd hold her head high and remain strong for her mother and brother and as a coping mechanism, she'd honour her father by forgetting his existence, and to do that, she stopped contact with the men she once called her family.