Out here, the anger wasn't a liability. It was fuel.
She moved faster, her feet finding silent paths through the undergrowth, her body weaving between trees with a grace that felt borrowed from instincts older than humanity. The armor hummed against her skin, feeding her data, sharpening her instincts, turning her into a predator who could hunt a predator.
She wasn't abandoning her family. She was becoming their shield.
The money was step one. Aria's bills paid, Angelo's pension secured, the house in Eagle Rock waiting for them. But money could run out. Money could be taken. What she was becoming couldn't be taken. This strength, this sharpness, this willingness to fight—she was forging herself into a weapon.
For them. And for herself. Both things could be true.
Midmorning, she caught up.
Just a glimpse at first. A shadow moving through the trees ahead, there and gone so fast she might have imagined it.
She didn't imagine it.
Her body knew before her mind caught up. Adrenaline spiked through her system, electric and immediate. Her weapon rose without conscious thought, the veth'kai settling into her grip like it had grown there.
She saw him.
Moving between the massive trunks, thirty meters ahead. That dark silhouette, that impossible bulk, armor catching fragments of light that filtered through the canopy. He moved like shadow given form, like violence waiting to happen, and her chest clenched at the sight.
She didn't hesitate.
She fired.
The veth'kai pulsed in her hand, silent and deadly, and a beam of pale green light lanced through the jungle air. Time seemed to slow. She watched the beam cross the distance between them, watched it strike his arm, watched him flinch.
She saw him stumble half a step.
First blood.
A dam broke inside her.
All the years of holding back. Of being professional. Of staying calm when she wanted to scream, of following procedure when she wanted to break something, of watching guilty men walk free and swallowing the fury until it curdled into cold weight in her gut.
Gone.
She had hurt him. She had made a god bleed. The invincible predator, the creature that could tear through squads of armed soldiers without breaking stride, the nightmare that had haunted her dreams—she had put a hole in his armor with a weapon she'd learned to use in four weeks.
Power surged through her, dark and primal and hungry. She wanted to do it again. Wanted to see him flinch, wanted to prove that she could touch him, that she mattered, that she was more than prey to be chased and caught and claimed.
He turned.
For a moment she thought he would charge. End this now, close the distance, take her down before she could fire again.Her finger tightened on the trigger, her body bracing for impact, ready for whatever came next.
He didn't charge.
He just looked at her.
That faceless helm, tilted slightly to one side. Dark and smooth and utterly unreadable. But she felt it anyway, the weight of his attention, pressing against her skin like heat from an open flame.
And beneath the weight, more than assessment. Recognition.
He saw what she was becoming. The predator waking up inside her, the anger she had finally let off its leash, the woman who had stopped asking permission and started taking what she wanted. He saw all of it.
And he approved.
She felt it in her bones, that approval. Felt it settle into her chest like warmth, like validation she'd been starving for without realizing it. She had spent her whole life trying to be enough, trying to earn respect from a world that gave it grudgingly if at all.
