His name was Simon Miller, although Jackson possessed no way of knowing that particular detail just yet. From an outward glance, Simon looked perfectly, intentionally ordinary. He had meticulously styled brown hair, expensive wire-rimmed glasses that caught the cabin light, and a supple leather briefcase resting casually on his lap. To anyone else on the packed commuter line, he was just another high-end corporate lawyer or finance executive heading home for the weekend.
But Jackson Reynolds was not anyone else. He noticed the glaring tactical anomalies almost immediately.
Simon was sitting in a narrow aisle seat, but his torso was angled unnaturally backward, completely ignoring the ergonomics of the chair. He was holding a glossy magazine open in his hands, yet he had not turned a single page in over ten minutes. And, most importantly, his eyes were not focused on the articles. He was intently watching the dark, mirrored reflection of the train window directly across from him. He was not admiring the blurring scenery outside; he was using the glass to monitor the interior of the carriage behind him. Specifically, he was watching the reflection of the very back row.
He was watching me.
Jackson watched closely as Simon’s flat, unblinking eyes tracked my every micro-movement through the glass. The man’s jaw muscles twitched under his skin. Simon reached his right hand inside his tailored jacket, resting it flat against his ribs for a brief moment before pulling it out entirely empty. It was a classic tell—a nervous tick, a pacifying behavior, or a subconscious check on a concealed weapon.
Suddenly, Havoc let out a sound. It was not a bark. It was a low, terrifyingly deep, subsonic rumble that I could actually feel vibrating through the floorboards beneath my boots. It was a sound Jackson knew intimately from his darkest deployments. It was the exact noise Havoc made in the suffocating seconds right before they violently breached a compound filled with armed hostile combatants.
“What is wrong with him?” I whispered, instinctively pulling my hand back in sudden fear as I felt the dog’s massive muscles turn to solid steel beneath my fingertips.
“Nothing,” Jackson said, his voice dropping an entire octave, becoming dangerously, terrifyingly calm. “He is doing his job. Keep your hands flat in your lap. Do not make any sudden movements.”
The entire atmosphere in the back of the train car had instantly shifted. The mundane, collective annoyance of the evening commute evaporated, replaced by an electric, heavy tension that tasted metallic and sharp, like copper in the back of my throat. Jackson sat completely motionless, his large hands resting lightly on his denim-clad thighs. He appeared fully relaxed, but I could sense he was ready to explode into devastating violence in a fraction of a second.
I was absolutely terrified, though my exhausted brain could not entirely comprehend why. The scarred man sitting next to me had not threatened me in any way. In fact, he had been the only person polite enough to surrender space so I could sit. The dog, despite its frightening wolf-like appearance, was currently acting as a warm, fiercely protective weighted blanket over my most painful, vulnerable leg. Yet, the recycled air suddenly felt thick and suffocating.
“What is your name?” Jackson asked softly. He did not turn his head toward me; his steely eyes remained fixed with laser precision on the back of the blue-suited man three rows ahead.
“Chloe,” I stammered, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. “Chloe Rollins.”
“Jackson,” he replied flatly, his tone strictly transactional. “Listen to me very carefully, Chloe. I do not want you to panic, but I need you to tell me something right now. Have you noticed anyone following you today? At the station? On the concrete platform?”
I swallowed hard, trying to think back through the agonizing, blurry trek through Penn Station. I had been in so much physical pain that my entire focus had narrowed to the simple, excruciating mechanics of putting one metal crutch in front of the other without completely falling over. I had not looked at a single face; my eyes had been glued to the dirty floor.
“No,” I whispered, cold panic threading through my shaky voice. “No. I just… I came straight from my doctor’s appointment in Manhattan. I am just trying to get home to my apartment in Boston. Why? What is going on?”
“Do not look up,” Jackson commanded, his voice gentle but entirely inflexible. “Keep looking directly at the dog. Pet him if it helps you stay calm.”
I obeyed instantly, my shaking fingers sinking desperately back into Havoc’s thick, coarse fur. The German Shepherd’s low, vibrating rumble continued—a steady, continuous warning directed straight down the center aisle.
Up ahead, Simon Miller stood up. He smoothly patted down the front of his tailored suit jacket, casually picked up his heavy leather briefcase, and stepped out into the aisle. He did not turn to walk toward the front of the train, where the crowded cafe car and the business-class restrooms were located. Instead, he pivoted and started walking slowly, deliberately toward the back.
Toward Jackson and me.
Jackson’s eyes tracked the approaching man’s every micro-movement. Simon’s gait was slightly off, forced. He was desperately trying to walk casually, but his broad shoulders were unnaturally stiff. His right hand was gripping the molded handle of the briefcase so tightly his knuckles were stark white, while his left hand remained entirely free, swinging just a fraction too close to the opening of his jacket pocket.
Simon stopped dead in the aisle, right next to our row. He looked down at me. I felt the man’s cold shadow fall over my face and, despite Jackson’s strict warning, I simply could not help but look up.
Simon possessed a perfectly pleasant, highly symmetrical face, but his eyes were completely, terrifyingly dead. They entirely lacked the natural warmth, the ambient spark, or the baseline empathy of a normal human being. They were exactly like the black glass lenses of a digital camera, simply recording raw information without a shred of emotion.
“Rough time with those crutches, huh?” Simon said. His voice was incredibly smooth, highly educated, and entirely devoid of any genuine sympathy. It was a cold, calculated icebreaker meant to gauge a reaction.
Before I could even process the bizarre, entirely unwarranted intrusion, Havoc erupted.
The dog did not bark. To a trained military animal, a bark is a mere warning. Havoc did not issue warnings to active threats. The massive German Shepherd lunged forward with explosive speed, throwing his entire ninety-pound frame directly across my lap. His powerful jaws snapped shut with a terrifying, hollow clack of bone-crushing force less than three inches from Simon Miller’s kneecap.
Simon violently stumbled backward, slamming heavily into the plastic armrest of the seat across the aisle. His perfectly pleasant, crafted mask slipped for a microscopic split second, revealing a chilling flash of absolute, murderous fury underneath.
“What is wrong with that beast?” Simon yelled, desperately trying to regain his ruffled composure, perfectly acting the part of the deeply offended, innocent commuter. “Get that animal under control! It just tried to bite me!”
Jackson did not raise his voice by a single decibel. He did not even bother to stand up. He simply sat there and looked at Simon with the cold, hollow eyes of a man who had watched entire villages burn.
“He did not try to bite you,” Jackson said, his voice slicing clean through the ambient noise of the train carriage like a surgical scalpel. “If he had actually tried to bite you, your femoral artery would currently be decorating the ceiling panels. He told you to back up.”
“That animal is a public menace,” Simon hissed, his fake persona cracking as he aggressively stepped forward again, his left hand deliberately moving toward the hidden pocket of his suit jacket. “I should have the conductor—”
“Take one more step toward this row,” Jackson interrupted, his tone chillingly soft and absolutely devoid of fear. “Reach your hand into that left pocket. Do it. Give me a reason.”