36 Kapitel Laufend The first time Lena Carter held a gun, her hands shook so badly she nearly dropped it.
The weight was heavier than she expected, the cold steel pressing into her skin like a warning. She could hear the chaos outside the small room-the sharp crack of gunfire, the desperate shouts of men hunting her down. Her heart pounded so loudly she thought they might hear it through the walls.
This wasn't supposed to be her life.
She was supposed to be a nobody. The quiet girl in the back of the classroom. The girl who never spoke unless spoken to. The girl who walked with her head down, avoiding the world's gaze.
But they took that girl away.
The night they dragged her from her home, everything changed. The bruises faded, the fear settled into something colder, sharper. And now, standing in the dimly lit hideout with blood staining her hands-not hers, not yet-she realized there was no turning back.
A figure moved in the doorway. She spun, gun raised, breath hitching.
"Easy, Carter."
Knox Calder stepped into the light, hands raised in surrender, his dark eyes unreadable. He looked her over, gaze lingering on the trembling weapon in her grip.
"Are you going to shoot me?" His voice was calm, but there was something else beneath it-curiosity. Maybe even approval.
Lena's fingers tightened around the trigger. A month ago, she wouldn't have been able to hold his stare, let alone a weapon. But a month ago, she wasn't the girl who had been left to die.
Her hands stopped shaking.
"Not tonight," she murmured.
Knox smirked. "That's my girl."
From the hallway, footsteps echoed. More were coming.
Lena exhaled, rolling her shoulders back. Fear was a luxury she couldn't afford anymore.
She wasn't the quiet girl in the background anymore.
Now, she was the one they feared.
And she was just getting started.
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