Content Warning: The source material features graphic violence and torture and references to sexual assault, suicide, drug overdose, and racism.

“This is too easy. You are thinking too much again. It’s just another mission. Then why this feeling? Maybe it’s just the headaches […] Reece had learned a long time ago that if something didn’t look right, then it probably wasn’t.”

This quote introduces The Deceptive Nature of Appearances. Reece realizes that something doesn’t feel right about the mission, but he continues because someone higher in command ordered him to carry out the mission. By not trusting his gut, represented by the italicized thoughts, he allows for his entire team to be slaughtered.

“He looked down at his right boot and smiled as he saw the unmistakable evidence that his three-year-old daughter had decorated it with a Magic Marker. The other boot, covered with the blood of his dying teammates, quickly wiped the smile away.”

This moment shows how Reece is torn between two worlds: his happy domestic life and his bloody military life. Ultimately, the bloody boot that represents war can erase the memory of his family life. Additionally, it is his military life that permanently erases his family life, making the blood on his left shoe eventually spread metaphorically to his right shoe and family life as well.

“He did not buy in to government conspiracies, but he’d seen enough shady and unexplainable things go down overseas that he wasn’t naive enough to rule anything out, either.”

By saying that Reece does not believe in conspiracy theories, Carr lends validity to his later belief that there is a conspiracy theory. It gives his character a steadiness that portrays him as trustworthy.