This was a held breath. The air tasted like metal.<\/p>\n
Twelve of them. A living wall of muscle and teeth around Sergeant Reed\u2019s flag-draped casket.<\/p>\n
Shepherds and Malinois, motionless for three days.<\/p>\n
They hadn\u2019t taken water. They hadn\u2019t touched food.<\/p>\n
They just watched.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want them gone,\u201d the General hissed, his voice cutting the air. \u201cThe dignitary\u2019s convoy is five minutes out.\u201d<\/p>\n
His polished dress shoes clicked on the marble floor. A sound of pure impatience.<\/p>\n
A young handler stepped forward, his catch-pole held out like a prayer.<\/p>\n
The lead dog, a scarred Malinois we called Ghost, didn\u2019t growl.<\/p>\n
He just lifted his lip. A silent, terrifying promise.<\/p>\n
The handler froze, his face draining of all color. \u201cThey won\u2019t move, sir,\u201d he stammered, backing away. \u201cThey\u2019re protecting him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s dead,\u201d the General snapped. \u201cWho are they protecting him from?\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when the heavy oak doors at the back of the chapel groaned open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This was a held breath. The air tasted like metal. Twelve of them. A living wall of muscle and teeth around Sergeant Reed\u2019s flag-draped casket. Shepherds and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38490,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38488\/revisions\/38490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}