Chaos Game (Delta Squad Book 4)

Book summary

In a world teetering between peace and chaos, a new group of heroes, the Olympians, rises to restore order—by any means necessary. Old enemies, mysterious powers, and vengeful forces converge, all targeting the fallen Delta Squad. But behind the scenes, a darker, unseen force manipulates them all.

Excerpt from Chaos Game (Delta Squad Book 4)

Some days are burned into history. Today is one of those days.

It is 1954, March. The first of the month. The location is someplace most people have never heard of. It is called the Bikini Atoll, and here is the place where hell was going to be unleashed. But little did anyone know that hell was already here.

“Does it ever cool off out here?” Dana asked, and Tony shrugged. “I don’t know, it sure is distracting, not to mention all the bugs,” he replied, swatting one away from his face. “Yeah, at least they can’t do any real damage,” Dana replied, doing her best not to be noticed.

Their presence needed to be a secret, but if they found out that she wasn’t a man, there would be some confusion. Thankfully, conversations weren’t common, and no one had gotten too close. People were coming and going all the time. She went unnoticed with the help of a little Syndicate disguise gear to aid the process.

“You two, you’re being distracted by bugs and the weather. Don’t forget why we’re here,” a voice said from behind. Neither one heard anyone coming, and that was rare for them.

“Yes sir,” Dana replied and did her best not to roll her eyes at the same time. Justin shook his head and looked around. “This mission is a wash anyway. No one is going to show up,” he said to them, relaxing. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Why don’t we just bail early? I think we’ll be okay,” Tony said. He was all for tropical vacations, but this wasn’t what he had in mind.

“No, the second we do that, well, you know what happens. All the bad guys show up. It never fails,” Justin said, and Dana nodded. It was funny. Tony complained about the heat and the bugs. All of this felt fuzzy around the edges.

The island was busy, even at this time of the morning. People were getting ready for the big day, and everyone had orders to follow. Dana looked around. Despite all the activity, nothing felt right. She grew afraid. If the Zodiac Corps were to show up, there would be no telling how many people they would kill to get this new weapon.

Dana hoped for the best but knew that was a stupid thing to do. Ever since the world had changed, she was unsure why they hadn’t shown up sooner. Maybe they were waiting for today. Guarding the hydrogen bomb wasn’t their only mission. The Syndicate wanted firsthand accounts on how strong it was going to be.

Dana’s vision shifted. This was nothing more than another goddamned nightmare, but right now there was nothing she could do about it. The six figures cloaked in black smoke stood there, side by side. The sun was behind them, but it was not enough to get rid of this darkness. No, this nightmare was always the same.

“Wake up,” she said to herself. The voice echoed in her mind, it was useless. The rest of her team stood still. Faces blurred as if someone had hit the pause button. “Run,” Justin’s voice cut through the paused scene, and she tried to run.

The ground felt like it was made from mush right now as she ran, getting nowhere. A smoke covered tendril sprung out and wrapped around her neck. “No,” was the last thing she was able to say before it gripped, cutting off all the air. The pain was real, only for a second. The memories were broken, but all the feelings were the same.

No control over the nightmare. Everything changed again. There was fire everywhere. “Get to the boat, I’ll hold them here. Go now!” Justin screamed. Tony grabbed Dana and tossed her in the boat. She was still terrified. She knew why, but the mind blocked it out.

Only fragments remained. The engine started, and Tony pushed them out to sea. Justin fired his weapon again. The electric beam did its work. This wasn’t right, either.

The two of them sped away from the doomed island, but nothing would stop history. The flash of the world’s strongest nuclear weapon went off. She remembers looking into Tony’s eyes for the last time before the shockwave flipped their tiny boat, sending them both into the sea. There was no hope of anyone living through that.

She made her way to the surface, alone. The sea was boiling, and all she could feel was the searing pain. Death wouldn’t happen as easily. It never did. She looked around for anyone else, Tony at least, but there was no one. Isolation was one of the worst things to feel in the world, hopelessness.

The nightmare ended the same way it had for decades. The sky turned black, the breathing started, charred lungs gasping for air all around her. She should have been used to this. How long could someone remain scared of the same thing? The burned hands reached around her neck and pulled her out of the water. The hands of a monster.

She woke up screaming in bed, covered in cold sweat and terrified. “You are home, you’re in bed, you’re fine,” she said, regaining her senses and situation. It was still dark outside, and best of all, quiet.

Nothing had quite been the same since the sky rained blood and the team apparently destroyed themselves to banish something no one understood. The dreams had been worse. The state of the world didn’t seem to improve.

America was still recovering from Mark’s crusade, the world still recovering from the war before that. She was more shaken, still, by the blood that rained from the sky and the horrible events that could only be seen as supernatural. Thankfully, the world didn’t know about that last part. If they had, there was no chance life would be anywhere near normal right now.

Dana took a breath and sat up. She felt gross and needed to take a shower. The feeling of the burned hands around her neck was still there. Getting out of bed and taking that shower took less than ten minutes, a long time for her. She had spent several years in a life that demanded constant readiness and everything needed to take the least amount of time as possible.

Before long there was a fresh pot of coffee being made. Despite being ten after one in the morning, there was no chance of going to sleep now. Dana turned on the television and poured a cup at the same time.

“The virus outbreak keeps getting worse here in Seattle. Experts fear a pandemic.” Dana rolled her eyes and turned the channel. She didn’t want to know anything about the outside world right now, nor did she care about a bunch of idiots who didn’t know how to wash their hands.

All she wanted coming out of her television now was mindless background noise. The next channel episode of some ghost hunting show was on. People stumbling around in the dark, talking to nothing.

It was trash television, but just what she needed. She finished putting her creamer and sat down. She knew that there were things out there, but nothing real would ever be put on the screen. All she wanted to do was not think and drink coffee.

Then the lights began to flicker. The power grid was unreliable since the chaos. Blackouts for hours, even days at a time, were the new normal in small towns like this. She took another sip, halfway through, the power went out. “Awesome,” she said to herself with a sigh. There was nothing to do but wait for it to come back on, if it ever did. Each time the lights went out, could have been the last time. There was no way to know.

Nothing but the occasional cricket outside to keep her company, there was a dull blue flash outside of her window. “No,” she whispered. It could have been a transformer shorting out. It could have been anything at all.

That light was something she knew, the color, the quick and quiet nature of it. It could only mean one thing. Someone teleported in, someone who knew where she lived. Her house wasn’t on fire yet, and there wasn’t anyone beating on the doors, so it must have been someone friendly, or at least on the same side.

Assuming anything like that was a dumb mistake. Betrayal was practically a sport in this business, and no one did it better than the Syndicate, at least it felt that way at times. Standing up, Dana moved back to her room and put on something simple, a T-shirt and some black jeans, then she grabbed the shotgun that was mounted on the wall.

She walked to the patio door and slid it open. At first, there was nothing to see in the dark. Then, a few seconds later, five figures walked into the light dressed in armor, too. They were familiar but unexpected. “What a surprise. I wasn’t aware they had you doing house calls now,” she said and lowered her weapon. It was useless here.

“We don’t. You’re in trouble, and we need to get you out of here now. There isn’t any time to explain,” she said. “It must be serious for all of you to show up, but I don’t trust you. Get lost, commander,” she said with more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice. This was nothing more than a trap. It had to be. She smiled and shut the patio door in her face and closed the curtain.

“Oh man, you just got owned, Winnie,” Jin said, doing his best to not laugh. “Yeah, it was my first time trying to do a rescue mission. Do you think I should have explained what was going on?” Winnie asked, unsure what to do next.

“You should try again,” Vera replied. Winnie nodded. “You’re right, I’ll explain it this time,” she said. The hope that people would listen to her because of her rank melted away.

Dana knew she should go with them. No one talked to her like that. She wanted to make the new commander sweat a little bit. Not too long. She reached for the door, but inches away from the handle, someone knocked on her front door. She stopped and turned to look.

“What is this? Did this team get even more reckless in the past few months?” she asked and walked to the front door. She opened the door but realized a second too late that the door wasn’t locked when she opened it. No one was behind that door, and it caused a chill to run up her spine. The threat was already here, and it was playing games. She knew that leaving was the best choice and made her way out the front door.

Just before she got out of the house, someone grabbed onto her hair and pulled her back. “Does this bring back any memories? It should,” a voice said. Dana pulled the trigger, and the other hand knocked the gun to the ground with ease.

“Aw, look what you did, attracted so much attention, such a bad girl. I can’t just kill you in peace now,” he said to her, holding her tight. “Damn it, who are you?” she asked, and there was no reply. It sounded like he was going to say something, but then the five of them landed in the front yard. The gunshot was sure to wake people up and if any cops showed up, they would add to the body count.