Rogue Justice by Stacey Abrams

Author:Stacey Abrams [Abrams, Stacey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

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Water rushed in, endless waves of suffocating darkness pulling her under. She struggled against the pressure, but the weight bore her down. Down, down, down. Time stretched and looped around itself. Like the water, it had no end. No beginning. In the blackness of the water, in the emptiness of time, she ceased to exist. Again.

The scream woke her, tearing Hayden from her nightmare. She fumbled for the bottle she kept on the nightstand in anticipation. The cool liquid soothed her throat, calmed her nerves. She’d relived the terror of those weeks at sea for nearly seven years.

Therapy had failed to offer respite, and Hayden had devised a treatment of her own. She forced herself to remember why she had chosen this route. Rising from her bed, she wrapped a silk robe around her body and took the familiar path to her mirror. There, she would recount her journey and restate her purpose. As she murmured to herself, she let the images play in her mind, ready for their rending and tearing. Ready for the endgame.

Trapped in a metal tube of men, she had been one of the first women sailors commissioned for a submarine. The honor of her assignment buffeted her against complaints and muttered comments, against the disdain of crewmen who resented her stars and her skills.

She rose quickly, becoming a leader among those deployed. Her computer skills and savvy with electrical systems had impressed her commanding officers, and eventually won over the chauvinists who questioned whether women belonged in the depths of the sea. Lieutenant Hayden Burgess had proven herself.

In the life of the submariner, close contact yielded a camaraderie between the officers and crew. While fraternization was frowned upon, no one really paid attention. She’d made friends—Hank and Carolyn and Richard. They’d bonded over their love of the water, and they’d become their own subunit. Loyal and true. Hayden had been their leader, her natural gravitas providing a protective bubble within the confines of the hierarchy below the sea.

Until one man stripped her of a sense of security. One man denied her humanity and her autonomy. For days, he’d preyed upon her body and twisted her mind. Lied about her and her friends. Warped her mission, toyed with her memory. When she surfaced—when they surfaced—she found herself again. Reported his treachery.

And watched him walk away without consequence. Instead, she became the predator, a woman out of her depths trying to blame him for a failed relationship. Her witnesses were rejected, and they each paid a price for defending her. They’d believed him, not her—not the evidence. Instead, the Navy promoted him and drummed her out of her life’s work.

Still, she fought back. Letter after letter sent to the president of the United States and his successor. Yet the commander in chief refused her a hearing.

So she returned to what she’d learned as a child. She asked the civilian court system that she protected as a naval officer to protect her as an American citizen. She followed the chain of command and then the labyrinthine ways of the civilian courts.

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