Đang tải thông tin quảng bá...
My Ex-Husband Ordered Me to Die on the Battlefield
NovelShort
Hoàn thành
I am the captain of the Night Owl female special ops unit. During an overseas rescue mission, my team was ambushed and completely surrounded. I urgently requested a retreat from the command center—b...
Chương (5)
第1章
I am the captain of the Night Owl female special ops unit.
During an overseas rescue mission, my team was ambushed and completely surrounded.
I urgently requested a retreat from the command center—but the order I received came from the commander himself.
My ex-husband.
"Hold your position. Fight to death."
Over the radio, my voice was hoarse with urgency. "The enemy is closing in! If we don't withdraw now, the entire unit will be wiped out!"
His reply was ice-cold.
"Didn't you do the same to me back then—leave me alone at our wedding and run off overseas without looking back?"
"Now you can experience it for yourself. Let's see whether the moon abroad is really round enough to be worth cheating for."
"Remember this: without my order, any unauthorized retreat counts as treason."
I clenched my fists in despair.
I led my team to dig in under a storm of bullets and artillery fire, every second stretching into an eternity.
I didn't know how long time had passed before his voice finally came through again.
"I've seen enough. You are now permitted to retreat."
I thought we were saved.
But his next words dragged me straight into the abyss.
"Before you retreat, kneel in front of everyone you rescued. Admit that you cheated. Kowtow one hundred times."
——
"Command Center, I request confirmation of that order!"
The roar of explosions drowned the battlefield.
Shrapnel screamed past my helmet.
I was practically screaming into the mic, my voice swallowed by relentless detonations.
Behind me, the cries of more than a hundred rescued civilians wrapped around my heart like invisible ropes, tightening with every sob.
My deputy captain moved closer, wiping blood and soot from her face. Her lowered voice trembled with despair.
"Captain... the heavy machine gun has only one belt left. Rifle ammo is under thirty rounds per person. We won't survive the next wave..."
At that moment, the encrypted channel crackled to life with that utterly heartless voice.
"Order confirmed. Hold your position until the last man standing. This is the commander's final directive."
Commander...
The word hit my chest like a bullet.
In a heavily guarded underground command center back home, sitting in the highest seat of authority, was the man I had abandoned at our wedding three years ago—my ex-husband.
Right now, he was watching us bleed through satellite feeds, his voice devoid of the slightest emotion.
"Captain Lewis... w-what is he trying to do?"
Charlie Herrera, my deputy, had gone deathly pale. The twenty-something-year-old's voice was shaking.
"All hostages have been rescued. According to protocol, we should've received top-tier evacuation support! Why are we being ordered to hold until the very end?! Why?!"
I didn't answer.
My gaze was locked on the distant horizon. Enemy headlights tore through the darkness, flickering like a black tide rolling in.
I tightened my grip on the communicator, my scorched throat forcing words through smoke and gunpowder.
"Noah, I'll say it again. All civilians have been evacuated. My unit is nearly out of ammunition. I request immediate withdrawal!"
There was a two-second silence on the other end.
Then came a soft sigh—almost amused. "A request?"
"Five years ago, at the wedding, when I grabbed your sleeve and begged you to stay—did you listen?"
"When you turned around and left me behind... you didn't even look back."
I slammed my fist into the scorched earth in front of me, pain flaring through my knuckles as I tried to crush the rage boiling inside.
This was not the time to dredge up the past.
Behind me were my sisters-in-arms—and one hundred and thirty-one terrified faces. Their lives depended on the choice I made at this very moment.
"Noah, get a grip!" I ground my molars, forcing every word out through clenched teeth.
第2章
"You are the commander of this operation right now—not a man settling old scores with me!" I spat angrily.
"Do you have any idea how critical the situation is?!"
"Clear-headed?"
A cold chuckle came through the receiver, carrying a calm that seeped into the bones.
"I'm perfectly clear, Captain Lewis. I'm simply accompanying you while you admire the moon abroad. Why don't you take a good look—this place you abandoned everything for five years ago. What has it given you in return?"
"If we don't retreat now, we're all dead!!" My eyes were bloodshot as I roared.
"So what?" His voice remained utterly flat, cold as permafrost that never melts.
"Back then, you could throw away three years of our relationship without hesitation just to come here. Now, giving your life for it... I imagine you'd be quite willing."
On hearing that, my last thread of reason snapped.
"Noah! Are you out of your damn mind?!"
The shout tore my throat raw as I slammed the radio into the mud.
Deputy Captain Herrera lunged forward, gripping my arm tightly, her voice breaking into sobs.
"Captain Lewis! Calm down—please! You have to calm down!"
I drew a harsh breath, bent down, picked up the mud-smeared radio, and forcibly reclaimed command of the unit.
"All teams, report remaining ammunition and casualties."
"Team A, fall back to Shelter Two. Team B, deploy the last Claymores at the southeast breach. Snipers—priority targets are enemy machine gunners and RPG operators."
Under my direction, the team continued its near-hopeless resistance.
But a unit cut off from support, trying to hold off a full-scale assault by an entire force, was nothing more than a praying mantis stopping a chariot.
Ammunition dwindled at a visible pace.
Every shot fired was like tipping the hourglass of our lives forward—one grain at a time.
The medic's anxious voice came through the internal channel, trembling with tears.
"Captain Lewis... the civilians—many of them are breaking down. They're asking... have we been abandoned? Are we really going to be able to leave?"
I glanced down at the two remaining magazines on my belt. My throat tightened as I answered hoarsely, "Tell them... we haven't abandoned them. We will take them home. We just... need them to hold on a little longer."
Taking a deep breath filled with smoke and blood, I pressed the encrypted channel to the command center once more.
This time, all the fury and shouting were gone.
What remained was a depth of exhaustion and humility so profound that even I barely recognized my own voice.
"Commander Flores,"
I addressed him by rank.
"In my entire life... I've never begged anyone like this."
"Whatever you want to do to me, I'll accept it. But at least... let those hundred-plus innocent lives live."
The channel fell into a long, suffocating silence.
Only the faint hiss of static remained—along with what sounded like his tightly restrained breathing.
A thought I barely dared to entertain flashed through my mind.
Had he... wavered?
Just as that fragile spark of hope began to rise, his voice cut in again.
"Fine."
Those two words made my heart leap. But then his tone shifted—and he laughed like a madman.
"You want to withdraw with your people? Fine."
"But before I issue the official retreat order, Captain Lewis, you will walk up to every single person you rescued—and kneel."
"In front of them, you will personally admit how you cheated, how you betrayed your marriage, how you abandoned your husband."
"Then you will kowtow one hundred times. Not one less."
"I want to hear the sound."
第3章
"As long as you can do all that, I'll show mercy and allow you to retreat. How about it?"
"This is murder! He's killing us by proxy!"
Deputy Captain Herrera screamed in fury beside me.
"Captain Lewis! He never intended to let us live! He's forcing you—"
I raised a hand, stopping her.
How could I not understand?
Noah knew me too well.
Better than anyone, he understood what honor and dignity meant to me—what they meant to Ysabelle Lewis.
What he wanted was to crush me completely, to grind into the dirt everything I had spent my life defending—right in front of my team, in front of the people I had sworn to protect, in front of every record that might remain.
Five years ago, before countless witnesses, I had thrown his pride and expectations onto the floor of our wedding hall.
Now, standing at the edge of life and death, he intended to collect that debt a hundredfold.
"Ysabelle, have you thought it through?"
Noah's voice cut into the channel again.
"Let me guess... how long can your ammunition last? Three minutes? Or maybe just the next second?"
Rage overflowed, smashing the last barriers of reason. I roared into the mic, "Noah! Do you know what you're doing right now?! This is murder! The courts will be waiting for you!"
In response came a faint, utterly contemptuous chuckle.
"That's right. But only if... someone lives to come back and accuse me."
In that instant, an icy chill seized my heart.
I stood frozen, fully grasping the implication behind his words.
He was absolutely certain that this unit of mine would never make it out of this hell alive.
"Captain Lewis, don't listen to him! We can contact the top command and bypass him!" Charlie said urgently.
I slowly shook my head as a crushing wave of exhaustion washed over me.
"No. This mission is top secret. He's the direct commander. Without a supreme-level order, our distress signals won't even reach the outside."
"And along the retreat route, this is the only terrain where we can mount any kind of resistance. If we withdraw without support, we'll become sitting ducks in the open."
"He calculated everything."
Charlie's voice broke, choked with despair. "Then... then there's really no other way? We can only..."
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my last crumpled cigarette, lighting it with the lingering sparks of gunfire.
The weak flame flickered in the cold night, eerily reminiscent of that hurried night outside the airport five years ago.
Back then, I had lit a cigarette the same way, carrying my critically ill, unconscious mother on my back, turning to face his tear-streaked expression.
"Ysabelle—if you leave today, I'll never forgive you for the rest of my life!"
His plea still rang in my ears.
I had thought that the ashes of our three-year relationship were the full price I'd paid for my choice.
I never imagined that the hatred he had nursed for five years would be settled like this—wagering the lives of more than a hundred strangers who had nothing to do with me.
"Captain! A civilian has been hit in the arm by a stray bullet—severe bleeding! They need immediate evacuation!"
The medic's tearful voice tore through the taut silence once more.
That sound became the final straw, crushing every remaining calculation.
I took a deep drag on the cigarette. The last light in my eyes went out.
"Charlie."
"Take over command. Hold for three minutes. I'll bring you all home."
Charlie grabbed my arm suddenly, her nails biting into my armor.
"Captain..."
第4章
"This is an order."
I shook her hand off and did not look back.
Under the stunned, pained, and utterly disbelieving gazes of my teammates, I turned around and walked—step by step—toward the civilians huddled in the shadows, trembling with fear.
From the radio came Noah's voice at once, quivering slightly with excitement.
"Very good."
"Then let's begin, Captain Lewis. I can hardly wait."
Silently, I turned up the volume of the public broadcast channel.
I already knew what would follow.
The people I had risked my life to save would look at me with confusion and contempt.
The comrades who had shared life and death with me would feel shock and humiliation.
My name would be stained beyond redemption, and the dignity I valued more than life itself would be crushed by my own hands.
But at this moment, none of that mattered anymore.
Before one hundred and thirty-one living, breathing lives, any personal honor or disgrace was lighter than dust.
I stopped at the front of the crowd, facing those frightened faces—faces filled with fear, dependence, and uncertainty.
The noise and sobbing gradually faded.
All eyes, confused and uneasy, fixed on me.
"Fellow citizens," my voice rang out through the loudspeaker, unnervingly calm and clear.
"I am the captain of this rescue operation. My name is Ysabelle Lewis."
After a brief pause, I spoke the words that would end my life as I knew it.
"Five years ago, I betrayed my husband."
"At our wedding, in front of all our family and friends, I abandoned him and unilaterally called off the marriage."
"This was entirely my fault. Today, I formally apologized to him."
The moment the words fell, the dead silence shattered.
Gasps and cries of disbelief rippled through the crowd.
I did not lift my head.
I did not look at a single face.
Slowly—yet with unshakable resolve—I bent my knees.
"Bang."
The first kowtow.
My forehead struck the cold, hard ground, the dull sound briefly overpowering the distant gunfire.
"Bang."
The second. Dust smeared my brow, pain blooming dully across my skin.
"Bang."
The third. The fourth. The fifth.
My movements grew faster, yet more mechanical, as if my body had separated from my will, reduced to nothing more than a shell executing a merciless command.
The murmurs gradually disappeared.
Perhaps they were stunned by the sheer finality of this self-destruction.
Perhaps they could not comprehend the madness behind it.
The battlefield was left with only the roar of explosions, the shriek of bullets—and the monotonous, heart-stopping sound of my head striking the ground again and again.
Blood streamed down my forehead, blurring my vision.
Warm liquid seeped into my eyes, carrying the metallic tang of rust.
I did not stop.
Thirty.
Forty.
Fifty.
The world seemed to drain of color and sound, leaving only the vibration of impact echoing through my skull, and the heart in my chest growing colder, more numb with every second.
I didn't know how long time had passed. It felt like a century.
Until, at last, Noah's voice came through the radio again.
It carried a languid satisfaction, the ease of someone fully sated—there was even a trace of unsettling gentleness.
"That's enough."
"Seeing how sincere you are... I'll allow you to retreat."
Soft keystrokes sounded over the channel.
"The extraction point is at E-7. The withdrawal route—Route Three."
Route Three.
The instant she heard the word retreat, Deputy Captain Herrera nearly burst into tears of relief.
"We're saved!"
But I cut her off.
My voice was hoarse—cold. "Route Three is the emergency evacuation route used only when a mission has failed... or when our position has been completely exposed."
第5章
"That route is almost entirely exposed—open ground from start to finish, without a single piece of cover. Leading over a hundred slow-moving civilians through it... is the same as marching everyone onto an execution field."
I snatched up the radio and roared with the last of my strength, "Noah! That's not a withdrawal route—you've designated a slaughter route! What the hell are you trying to do?!"
"What am I trying to do?" He gave a light chuckle, his tone as casual as if he were talking about the weather.
"I've already issued the order and the route, haven't I? Captain Lewis—you're the famous Night Owl King. Pulling a few people out across open ground should be basic training for you, shouldn't it?"
"Whether you can bring them back alive... well, that's your problem now."
He paused, then added the final line—each word cutting straight to the bone. "After all, when you abandoned me back then, you didn't hesitate like this."
Charlie was shaking with rage.
At this point, only two dead ends remained before us: stay and bleed dry in this position, or step onto Route Three—an undisguised death trap.
"Captain... what do we do?" Charlie's voice was stretched to its breaking point.
I didn't answer immediately. Instead, I silently reached into the deepest layer of my pack and took out a black terminal—reserved for last-resort communications.
My fingers flew across the cold keys.
A string of blood-red code flashed on the screen, then jumped to Confirmed: Sent.
The instant Charlie caught sight of that code, her face drained of all colors. Her voice nearly shattered.
"T-that's... Night Owl 313—the highest-level 'all personnel lost' pre-code..."
"That's right." My voice was unnervingly calm.
I dropped the terminal to the ground, spun around sharply, and faced the terrified, bewildered civilians—along with the battered yet unbowed teammates standing behind me.
I took a deep breath and forced every ounce of strength from my lungs, my voice rising above the artillery fire and reaching every ear. "Fellow citizens! Please listen to me!"
"The statement I was forced to make earlier was not the truth—nor was it made of my own free will!"
"My ex-husband abused his authority, maliciously vetoed all legitimate evacuation plans, cut off every channel of support, and forced us to accept a retreat route that guarantees death!"
"Just now, I transmitted the Night Owl 'immediate death' code to high command. This is the final report of our unit before total annihilation!"
"I, Ysabelle Lewis, will lead my team. We will use our bodies as your final shield—drawing all enemy fire to tear open a path for you to live!"
"If, in the end, none of us survive—remember this name."
"Noah Flores."
"He is the one who killed us all."
The signal for the final charge rang out.
"All units!"
"Prepare to advance! Clear a path for the civilians behind us!"