I'll start with my anal retentive criticisms so I can leave you on a sweet note. In >>11 I noticed: "...thrumming a rhythm-less beat..." It's redundant and I'm pretty sure "ryhtymless beat" is an oxymoron. "Thrumming" would have gotten the picture across fine. Try to weed out adjectives and adverbs where they aren't 100% needed. An example from your newest update: "...shut the door rather hard." The "rather" weakens the "hard", and the whole phrase weakened"shut". Writing "shut the door" or even "slammed" would be stronger. Last thing: Scout's accent is getting a little heavy, plus something doesn't seem right. Otherwise it is excellent, thrilling prose and an intriguing story. I love your portrayal of Soldier, especially. Don't worry about post length. I'd rather have short, frequent updates than one massive update every month.