“Lower your shoulder. Don’t clench so hard.” His breath had skimmed her ear then, steady and familiar, the kind of calm that had rooted her in the storm. “Follow the three-point line. Slow your breathing… now.”
Bang!
She remembered the kick of the recoil, how he had smiled then, faint and approving. She had been safe in his arms. Now he had put a bullet through her. The jab of pain pulled her from the brink. She couldn’t die like this. Not before she tried to save herself.
Scarlett’s hand fumbled across the dark room until her fingers closed around a knife. Her pulse thundered. No morphine. No surgeon. Just her and the blade. Her breath came ragged as she angled the steel against her own shoulder. Her hand shook once, then steadied. She drove the blade in.
A muffled cry tore from her throat. Tears stung her eyes, blurred her sight. She dug until the sharp clink of metal hit the floor—the bullet, rolling uselessly away.
Her vision went black at the edges, threatening to drag her under. She forced herself to look at the moonlight slicing through the window bars, something—anything—to anchor her mind away from the agony.
The moon was beautiful. But she knew she would never see it again through a scope. A sob escaped her. She wrapped her arms around herself, rocking against the wall.
The Night Owl—once a top-ranked sniper—had lost the very thing she most prided herself on in a single violent sweep. And the man who had done it walked away, believing he was being merciful.
Scarlett thought about the possibility of never holding a sniper rifle again and despair clawed at her chest. Ignoring the surveillance cameras inside the dark chamber, she marched straight to the display case. With one violent swing of a heavy object, the glass shattered. She reached inside, pulled out the sniper rifle and began assembling it with practiced, instinctive motions.
She knew the security team would need at least five minutes to respond. Those five minutes—this was the final window she would grant herself.
Scarlett raised the weight of the rifle and aimed at the cold, distant moon outside the window. Her finger brushed the trigger by force of habit—then suddenly froze.
Something felt wrong.