PART 1: THE PERFECT VICTIM

The rubber of my tires hummed against the cracked asphalt of Pine Valley’s Main Street, a rhythm I’d memorized over the last three years. To the people of this sleepy Montana town, that sound meant only one thing: poor Alexandra Winters was coming. Broken, battered, legless Alex. The charity case. The war hero who came back with half a body and a shattered life.

I kept my head down, chin tucked into the collar of my worn field jacket, counting the cracks in the sidewalk. Not because I was ashamed, but because eye contact invites conversation, and conversation risks the mask slipping.

I wasn’t here to be a neighbor. I wasn’t here to heal.

I was here to hunt.

Underneath the seat of my custom-built rigid-frame wheelchair, a Glock 19 with a suppressor was magnetically clamped to the chassis. In the hidden lining of my jacket, a ceramic knife rested against my ribs. My “useless” legs were strapped in tight, not to support dead weight, but to secure the most lethal weapon in the Pacific Northwest: me.

“Alex! The usual?”

Jenny’s voice chimed like a bell cutting through the thick, dusty heat of the afternoon. She stood in the doorway of Mike’s Corner Store, wiping her hands on a grease-stained apron. Jenny was the only variable I hadn’t calculated for. She was kind. Genuinely, painfully kind.

“Please, Jenny,” I said, my voice pitched soft, carrying the tremor I’d practiced for months. “And maybe a blueberry muffin? It’s been… a day.”

“You got it, hon.” She smiled, that sad, pitying smile that usually made my stomach turn, but today, I needed it. I needed everyone to see the fragility.

I wheeled myself up the ramp, exaggerating the effort, my biceps burning not from strain but from the restraint it took not to power up the incline with the explosive strength I trained daily in my basement. I rolled into the cool, air-conditioned sanctuary of the store, the smell of brewing coffee and old newsprint washing over me.

Then, the air changed.

It wasn’t a smell, exactly. It was a pressure. A drop in barometric reading that happens when predators enter a closed space.

The bell above the door didn’t just jingle; it rattled aggressively. Heavy boots stomped on the floorboards. The scent of stale tobacco, unwashed denim, and cheap whiskey flooded the room, choking out the coffee.

The Red Dragons.

I didn’t turn around. I didn’t have to. I could hear the distinct scrape of Marcus Wilson’s boot heel—he dragged his right foot slightly, a souvenir from a bar fight in ’09.

“Well, lookie here,” Marcus’s voice grated like gravel in a blender. “If it ain’t the mascot.”

I felt the heavy presence of his lieutenants, Rick “Razor” Thompson and Mike “Crusher” Davis, flanking him. They moved in a tactical spread, instinctual but sloppy. They blocked the exit, cut off the counter, and isolated the target.

Me.

“Leave her alone, Marcus,” Jenny warned from behind the counter, her voice trembling but brave. “She’s just getting coffee.”

“We’re just having a conversation, Jen. Right, Alex?” Marcus stepped into my peripheral vision. He was big, six-four, mostly muscle layered under a decade of beer bloat. He wore his cut like armor, the red dragon patch screaming dominance.

I gripped the push-rims of my chair, my knuckles turning white. Not out of fear. Out of discipline.

My mind automatically ran the solution: Shift weight forward. release brake. Spin 180. Drive the push-handle into Marcus’s solar plexus—collapse the diaphragm. Elbow strike to Razor’s groin. Seize Razor’s sidearm. Double tap Crusher. Clear the room. Total elapsed time: 4.2 seconds.

Instead, I shrank back. I let my shoulders slump. I made myself small.

“I don’t want any trouble, Marcus,” I stammered, staring at my lap.

He laughed, a wet, ugly sound. He moved closer, invading my personal space, looming over me like a tower of malice. He placed a hand on the back of my chair.

“See, that’s the thing, Alex,” he whispered, his breath hot on my neck. “ trouble seems to follow you. Every time we have a shipment, every time we make a move, I see you rolling around. Watching. It’s almost like you’re not just a cripple getting fresh air.”

My heart rate didn’t spike. My breathing remained even. He was fishing. He was paranoid because the shipment coming in tonight was the biggest in the cartel’s history—military-grade hardware that would turn street gangs into armies. He needed to clear the board.

“I live here,” I whispered, forcing a tear to well up in my left eye. It was a good trick; pinch the thigh hard enough, and the eyes water.

“Not for long.” Marcus gripped the handles of my chair.

“Hey!” Jenny shouted, reaching for the phone.

“Don’t touch it, Jen!” Razor barked, slamming his hand on the counter. Jenny froze.

Marcus leaned down, his face inches from mine. I could see the broken capillaries in his nose, the yellowing of his eyes.

“You’ve got twenty-four hours,” he hissed. “You pack your shit, you wheel your little half-body out of Pine Valley, and you never come back. If I see you on these streets after tomorrow noon, accidents happen. Brakes fail. Ramps get slippery.”

I nodded frantically, playing the part. “Okay. Okay, I’ll go. I promise. Just let me leave.”

Marcus grinned, straightening up. He looked at his boys, soaking in their admiration. He felt like a king. He had dominated the weak.

“Smart girl,” he said. Then he looked at Crusher. “Help her on her way.”

I saw it coming before Crusher even shifted his weight. The muscle twitch in his shoulder. The malicious glint in his eye.

He stepped forward and kicked the wheel of my chair.

Physics took over. The center of gravity shifted. I threw my hands out—not to catch myself, but to sell the fall. I hit the linoleum hard, my shoulder taking the brunt of the impact. My groceries spilled across the floor—blueberries rolling like marbles, the coffee cup exploding in a brown spray that soaked my jeans.

Laughter. it wasn’t just a chuckle; it was a roar of amusement.

“Oops,” Crusher mocked, looming over me. “Tire blowout. You should get that checked.”

I lay there on the cold floor, coffee seeping into my jacket, looking up at them. This was the hardest part. The Warrior in me screamed to sweep Crusher’s leg, to snap his ankle like a dry twig. The rage was a physical thing, a hot coal in my chest.

But the Agent in me held the leash.

Let them laugh, Agent Cooper’s voice echoed in my head. Let them think you’re nothing. The lower their guard, the harder they fall.

I struggled to push myself up, making my arms shake, dragging my “dead” legs like heavy sandbags. I looked up at Marcus, letting him see pure, unadulterated fear.

“Please,” I whispered.

“Tomorrow,” Marcus said, his voice void of mercy. “Or the next time you fall, you won’t get up.”

They turned and walked out, their boots crunching on the spilled blueberries, leaving a trail of purple stains like blood.

As the door swung shut, the silence rushed back in. Jenny was at my side in an instant, her hands fluttering, tears streaming down her face.

“Oh my god, Alex! I’m calling Chief Anderson. I’m calling the state police. I don’t care what they do to me!”

“No,” I said. My voice was different now. The tremor was gone. The softness had evaporated, replaced by cold steel.

Jenny froze, looking at me. She saw something in my eyes she hadn’t seen before. “Alex?”

I effortlessly hoisted myself back into the chair, the “struggle” of a moment ago vanished. I wiped the coffee from my jacket with a slow, deliberate motion.

“Don’t call anyone, Jenny,” I said, checking the alignment of my wheels. “Everything is exactly where it needs to be.”

“But they… they threatened to kill you!”

“They threatened a helpless woman,” I corrected her. I wheeled over to the window, watching the Red Dragons mount their bikes. Marcus was high-fiving Razor. They were celebrating. They thought they had won.

“They have no idea who they just declared war on,” I murmured.

By the time I reached my small ranch house on the outskirts of town, the sun was dipping below the tree line, painting the Montana sky in bruises of purple and red.

I rolled up the ramp, unlocked the door, and locked it behind me with a heavy deadbolt. I checked the perimeter sensors on my wrist comms—green. Clear.

I wheeled into the center of the living room and stopped.

I took a deep breath, letting the “Alex Winters, victim” persona slide off me like a wet coat. My posture straightened. My eyes sharpened.

I wheeled over to the bookshelf and pulled “War and Peace.” The wall hissed, a pneumatic seal breaking, and a panel slid open to reveal the nerve center of my operation.

Screens flickered to life. Maps of the Pacific Northwest, schematics of the abandoned lumber mill, and dossiers on every member of the Red Dragons illuminated the dark room.

My secure phone buzzed. It was Cooper.

“Talk to me,” I answered, rolling over to the desk.

“Intel confirms the shipment is tonight,” Cooper said, his voice tight. “Midnight at the old lumber mill. But Alex, it’s bigger than we thought. We’re tracking chatter about military prototypes. If this hits the black market, we’re looking at a global threat level.”

“I know,” I said, pulling up the live feed from the micro-cameras I’d planted at the mill months ago. “Marcus was jumpy today. He’s trying to clear the town. He paid me a visit.”

“Did he make you?” Cooper’s tone spiked with panic.

“No. He made a cripple,” I said, typing a command into the console. “He kicked me over in the grocery store. Gave me twenty-four hours to leave town.”

“Jesus, Alex. You need to pull out. If they’re that aggressive—”

“David, listen to me,” I cut him off. “This is perfect. They think I’m packing boxes right now. They think I’m terrified. They’re going to be sloppy. They’re going to be arrogant. Arrogance is a blindfold.”

“And what are you going to be?”

I looked at the reflection in the monitor. I didn’t see the woman in the chair. I saw the weapon the government had forged in the fires of Afghanistan.

“I’m going to be the monster under their bed,” I said. “I’m initiating Protocol Ghost. I need you to create a digital footprint that shows me buying a bus ticket to Seattle. Make it look like I ran.”

“Done. But Alex… be careful. You’re alone out there.”

“I’m never alone,” I said, glancing at the gun rack on the wall. “I have my tools.”

I hung up and began the transformation.

Off went the civilian clothes. On went the tactical bodysuit, reinforced with Kevlar weave but flexible enough for the chair. I strapped the holster to my chest. I checked the SIG Sauer P320—chambered, safety on.

Then, I turned to the chair.

It wasn’t just a medical device. It was a chariot of war. I engaged the hidden clutches on the wheels. I checked the battery levels for the silent electric assist motor—capable of propelling me at 20 mph for short bursts. I loaded the flashbangs into the dispenser under the seat. I secured the collapsible kali sticks to the frame.

I spent the next three hours methodically preparing. I visualized the lumber mill. The catwalks. The sightlines. I knew that place better than the rats that lived in it.

At 22:00 hours, I was ready.

I wheeled to the window. Down the street, a lone biker sat in a truck, watching my house. Marcus’s insurance policy.

I needed to sell the lie one last time.

I called Jenny. “Jen, I need a favor. I need you to come over with your truck. We need to make a show.”

Thirty minutes later, we were outside. I was “crying” again, tossing bags into the back of Jenny’s pickup. The watcher down the street lit a cigarette, bored. He texted someone. probably Marcus. The cripple is folding.

“You drive my car to the bus station,” I whispered to Jenny as we hugged. “Leave it there. Take the bus to Spokane and stay with your sister for two days. Do not come back until I call you.”

“Alex, what are you going to do?” Jenny asked, her voice trembling.

I looked her in the eye. “I’m going to take out the trash.”

I watched her drive away in my car. The watcher in the truck waited five minutes, then started his engine and drove off, satisfied. The house was dark. The threat was gone.

Or so they thought.

I waited in the shadows of my garage until the taillights disappeared. Then, I didn’t get in a car. I didn’t get on a bus.

I engaged the silent motor on my chair.

I merged into the darkness of the tree line behind my house. The forest was my cover. I moved silently over the pine needles, the off-road tires biting into the earth. I was a ghost gliding through the woods.

The lumber mill was three miles away through rough terrain. For anyone else in a chair, it would be impossible. For me? It was a tactical approach.

As I neared the mill, the smell of diesel and ozone grew stronger. I killed the motor and switched to manual, my gloved hands gripping the rims. Sound discipline was paramount now.

I reached the perimeter fence. I didn’t look for a gate. I found the section I’d compromised weeks ago—a loose chain link hidden behind overgrown blackberry bushes. I slipped through, low to the ground, invisible to the sweeping headlights of the patrol trucks.

I was in.

I maneuvered my way up the ramp to the old loading dock, positioning myself in the shadows of a rusted crane. From here, I had a view of the entire yard.

It was crawling with them. Dozens of bikers. Heavy trucks idling. And in the center, Marcus Wilson, looking like the king of the world, pacing back and forth.

But he wasn’t alone.

A black SUV with tinted windows rolled into the center of the light. The back door opened, and a man stepped out. He wasn’t a biker. He wore a charcoal suit that cost more than my house. He moved with a stiffness that screamed “military.”

“The Architect,” I whispered to myself. Or at least, his emissary.

They began to unload the crates. I raised my thermal binoculars. The contents glowed hot—high-tech weaponry, fresh off the assembly line.

My earpiece crackled. “Alex,” Cooper whispered. “We have teams ten minutes out. Do not engage. Repeat, do not engage until backup arrives.”

I watched Marcus laugh, slapping the suit-man on the back. I watched Crusher point a rifle at a stray dog and dry fire, laughing.

Then I saw it.

They weren’t just unloading. They were setting up claymores around the perimeter. Facing outward.

“Cooper,” I hissed. “It’s a trap. They know you’re coming. They’re mining the approach.”

“What? We’re already committed. We can’t stop the convoy!”

“If your teams hit that perimeter, they’re dead,” I said, my grip tightening on my gun.

“Abort! I’m trying to abort!” Cooper shouted, but the static was heavy. “They’re jamming us! Alex, get out of there!”

I looked at the claymores. I looked at Marcus. I looked at the unsuspecting FBI teams rushing toward a massacre.

I had a choice. I could follow orders, slip away into the night, and live to fight another day. Or I could blow my cover, face fifty armed men alone from a seated position, and save the lives of the agents coming to help me.

I looked down at my legs. The legs that everyone said made me weak.

I smiled.

Let’s see how they handle a combatant whose center of gravity is lower than their aim.

I reached under my seat and flipped the safety off the flashbang dispenser.

“Cooper,” I said calmly. “I’m not aborting. I’m engaging.”

“Alex! No! That’s a suicide mission!”

I cut the comms.

I rolled forward, inching to the edge of the ramp. I took a deep breath, visualizing the geometry of the fight.

Gravity was about to be my best friend.

PART 2: THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE

I didn’t scream. I didn’t announce my presence with a battle cry. I simply released the brakes and let gravity take the wheel.

I rolled off the edge of the loading dock, a ten-foot drop into darkness. In the air, I engaged the suspension lock—a custom hydraulic system designed to absorb impact like a tank landing. I hit the concrete with a heavy, metallic thud, the shockwave rattling my teeth, but I stayed upright.

Before the nearest biker could process that a woman in a wheelchair had just fallen from the sky, I triggered the dispenser.

THWUMP-THWUMP.

Two flashbangs skittered across the floor, rolling perfectly between the legs of the men guarding the perimeter detonators.

“Grenade!” someone screamed, too late.

BOOM.

The world turned white. The concussion wave hit me, a familiar punch to the chest. I didn’t flinch. I moved.

I engaged the electric assist, the high-torque motor whining like a jet turbine. I wasn’t wheeling anymore; I was driving. I shot forward at twenty miles per hour, a low-profile missile cutting through the smoke.

The first biker, a bearded giant named Tiny, was stumbling, rubbing his blinded eyes. He never saw me. I drove the reinforced footrest of my chair directly into his shinbone. The sound of the snap was sickeningly loud, even over the ringing in everyone’s ears. As he crumpled, I used his falling momentum to pivot, spinning the chair 180 degrees.

My hand found the grip of the SIG Sauer.

Pop-pop.

Two shots. Two shoulders. The men holding the detonators dropped the triggers. The FBI team was safe for now, but I was in the kill box.

“It’s the cripple!” Marcus roared from the catwalk above. “Kill her! Kill her now!”

Bullets started to chew up the concrete around me. This was the moment of truth. In a standing firefight, I’d be dead. I was a stationary target. But I wasn’t stationary, and I wasn’t fighting their war.

I dropped my upper body flat against my legs, reducing my profile to less than three feet. I became a shadow, weaving between the stacks of lumber and crates. They were aiming at chest height—where a standing man would be. Their bullets whizzed harmlessly over my head.

I was rewriting the geometry of combat.

I wheeled around a stack of cedar planks and found myself face-to-face with Razor. He had a shotgun. He looked confused, his brain unable to reconcile the terrified woman from the grocery store with the demon in front of him.

“Boo,” I whispered.

I slammed the brakes on my left wheel while powering the right. The chair spun violently, the rear wheel acting as a bludgeon, slamming into his gut. As he doubled over, gasping for air, I jammed the barrel of my gun into his knee and pulled the trigger.

He screamed, collapsing. I didn’t finish him. A screaming man is a distraction. A dead man is just an obstacle.

“She’s everywhere!” a biker yelled. Panic was setting in. They couldn’t track me. I was below their sightlines, moving faster than a running man, silent and deadly.

I saw the Suit—the man in the charcoal three-piece—moving toward the black SUV. He wasn’t panicking. He was calm, efficient. He had a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist.

The objective.

“Cooper!” I yelled into my dead comms, hoping the jamming was local to the perimeter. “The Suit is running! He has the payload!”

No answer. I was on my own.

I pushed the motor to its limit, the battery indicators flashing red. I tore across the open yard, bullets sparking off the titanium frame of my chair. One round grazed my shoulder, tearing the Kevlar suit. The burn was immediate, hot and sharp, but I filed it away. Pain later. Mission now.

I cut off the SUV just as the driver was starting the engine. I aimed for the front tire. Bang. The tire exploded, the rim grinding into the asphalt.

The Suit stepped out of the vehicle. He didn’t run. He stood there, adjusting his cufflinks, looking at me with a mixture of annoyance and… curiosity.

He drew a pistol. Not a gang-banger’s Glock, but a high-end Heckler & Koch. He held it with a professional grip.

“Agent Winters, I presume,” he said, his voice smooth, cutting through the chaos of the firefight behind us.

I froze. He knew my name.

“Drop the case,” I ordered, keeping my aim steady on his chest.

“You move well,” he noted, stepping closer, ignoring my gun. “Better than the reports said. The modifications to the chair—rigid frame, cambered wheels for stability, electric assist. Very ingenious. Did you design it, or did the Bureau finally hire someone with a brain?”

“I said drop it!”

“You won’t shoot me, Alexandra,” he smiled, a cold, reptilian expression. “Because you want to know how I know who you are. You want to know why your team isn’t here yet.”

My finger tightened on the trigger. “My team is breaching the perimeter right now.”

“Are they?” He checked his watch. “Or are they stuck at the bridge, dealing with the second distraction I planted? You see, I knew you were watching, Alex. We’ve been watching you watch us.”

A chill went down my spine that had nothing to do with the night air.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Sullivan,” he said. “And you and I… we’re the same breed. Discarded toys.”

Behind me, the roar of motorcycles grew louder. Marcus and the remaining Dragons had realized I was isolated. They were coming.

“You have a choice, Alex,” Sullivan said, backing toward the tree line where a second vehicle—a dirt bike—was waiting. “You can try to stop me, in which case my men behind you will turn that fancy chair into scrap metal with you inside it. Or, you can turn around and finish your fight with the trash, and live to ask me questions another day.”

He was right. I could hear the engines. I could feel the vibration in the floor. If I chased him into the woods, Marcus would shoot me in the back.

“This isn’t over,” I snarled.

“No,” Sullivan agreed, mounting the dirt bike. “It’s just beginning. Good luck with the Rising Action, Agent.”

He revved the bike and vanished into the darkness of the forest.

I didn’t have time to curse. I spun the chair around just as Marcus came around the SUV, a heavy chain in his hand, his eyes wild with rage.

“You bitch!” he screamed. “You lied to me!”

“I lied to everyone, Marcus!” I yelled back, channeling the adrenaline into pure aggression.

He swung the chain. It was a crude, brutal attack. I ducked, feeling the wind of the steel links whip past my ear. The chain smashed into the SUV window, shattering it.

I didn’t retreat. I attacked. I rolled into his guard. People expect you to back away. They never expect the wheelchair to become a battering ram.

I slammed into his shins, pinning him against the car door. He grunted, bringing the chain down again, but I caught his wrist. My upper body strength, honed by three years of dragging my own dead weight, was monstrous. I twisted his arm, hearing the satisfying pop of cartilage.

He dropped the chain. I grabbed his collar and pulled him down to my level.

“Look at me!” I shouted, staring into his terrified eyes. “You wanted to see the real Alex Winters? Here I am!”

I headbutted him. Hard. Bone on bone. He went limp, sliding down the side of the car.

Sirens wailed in the distance. Blue and red lights began to stroke the walls of the mill. The cavalry. Finally.

I released Marcus and let him slump to the ground. The adrenaline crash hit me like a physical blow. My hands started to shake. The wound on my shoulder throbbed.

I looked around. The yard was a wreck. Bodies groaned on the concrete. The smell of burnt rubber and gunpowder hung heavy in the air.

And I was still sitting in my chair. Still broken. Still whole.

Three hours later, I was sitting in the back of an ambulance, a blanket draped over my shoulders. The EMT was trying to clean the graze on my arm, but I kept swatting him away.

“I’m fine,” I snapped. “Check on the detainees.”

Cooper walked up. He looked pale. He’d seen the security footage. He’d seen what I did.

“You disobeyed a direct order,” he said, but there was no heat in it. Just awe.

“I saved your team,” I countered. “The perimeter was mined. If I hadn’t triggered the ambush, you’d be scraping agents off the pavement.”

Cooper sighed, rubbing his temples. “We got Marcus. We got most of the Dragons. We seized the crates.”

“And?”

“And… they were empty, Alex.”

I closed my eyes. “Decoys.”

“Packing peanuts and cinder blocks,” Cooper confirmed. “The weapons aren’t there. Sullivan played us. He used the Dragons as a smokescreen to move the real shipment somewhere else while we were busy kicking down the door.”

“He knew,” I said softly. “He knew I was an agent. He knew my name.”

Cooper froze. “What?”

“Sullivan. The guy in the suit. He called me Agent Winters. He knew about the chair modifications. David… he knew about the bridge delay before you did.”

Cooper’s face went from pale to ashen. “That’s impossible. The bridge intel was classified internal comms only. Unless…”

“Unless we have a leak,” I finished. “A mole. Someone high up.”

I looked down at my legs. The phantom pain was flaring up again—a burning sensation in toes I didn’t have anymore. It always happened when I was stressed, or when I was close to a danger I couldn’t see.

“He said something else,” I murmured. “He said we were the same. ‘Discarded toys’.”

Cooper knelt down, lowering his voice. “Alex, we ran a facial rec on the guy you described. Robert Sullivan. Former Colonel, Army Rangers. He ran black ops in the Middle East. He was… he was the commanding officer of the unit that operated in Kandahar.”

My blood ran cold. Kandahar. The place where I died and was reborn in this chair.

“My unit?” I whispered.

“No,” Cooper said. “The unit that called in the airstrike after your IED went off. The cleanup crew.”

The world tilted slightly. The narrative I had lived with for three years—that my injury was a random act of war, a tragic accident—suddenly felt thin. Fragile.

“He’s not just a smuggler,” I realized. “He’s cleaning up loose ends. And I think… I think I might be one of them.”

“We need to get you to a safe house,” Cooper said, standing up. “Your cover is blown. The cartel knows you. Sullivan knows you. Pine Valley isn’t safe.”

“No,” I said, gripping the wheels of my chair. “I’m not running. That’s what I told Marcus today, and I meant it. If Sullivan is connected to Kandahar, then this isn’t just a mission anymore, David. It’s personal.”

“Alex, you’re compromised!”

“I’m motivated,” I corrected him. “Where is the truck?”

“What truck?”

“The one Sullivan escaped on. He had a dirt bike, but he was heading toward the north logging road. That road dead-ends at the old airfield.”

Cooper shook his head. “We checked the airfield. It’s abandoned. No flight plans filed in ten years.”

“Since when do ghosts file flight plans?” I ripped the IV tape off my hand. “He’s not flying out commercial. He has a bird waiting. If we leave now, we can catch him.”

“We?” Cooper looked at my chair, then at the ambulance. “You’re injured. You’re exhausted.”

I wheeled forward, forcing him to step back. I looked him dead in the eye, the fire from the burning lumber mill reflecting in my irises.

“I just took down a biker gang single-handedly while sitting down,” I said. “Do I look exhausted to you?”

Cooper held my gaze for a long moment, then cracked a small, weary smile. “You look like trouble.”

“Get the car.”

The drive to the airfield was silent. My mind was racing, connecting dots that shouldn’t connect. Sullivan. Kandahar. The “discarded toys” comment.

Was it possible? Was it possible that the IED wasn’t just bad luck?

I remembered that day. The sun was so bright. The dust tasted like copper. We were on a routine patrol. We were supposed to be in a low-risk zone. But then the order came down to change the route. An order from Command.

From Sullivan?

My hands trembled in my lap. I clenched them into fists until the nails bit into the palms.

Focus, Alex. Don’t go down the rabbit hole. Not yet.

“We’re here,” Cooper whispered, killing the headlights.

The airfield was a strip of cracked concrete in the middle of the wilderness. But it wasn’t empty.

A sleek, twin-engine plane sat on the tarmac, engines idling with a low, throbbing hum. It was unmarked, painted matte black. Men were loading crates into the cargo hold—smaller crates than the ones at the mill.

“That’s the real shipment,” I said. “The prototypes.”

“I’ll call in air support,” Cooper reached for the radio.

“No time,” I stopped him. “By the time they get here, that bird is gone. We have to ground it.”

“How? We have two pistols and a sedan.”

I looked at the layout. The plane was taxiing. It was turning around for takeoff.

“Drive,” I said.

“What?”

“Drive the car onto the runway. Block them.”

“Alex, that’s a plane. It will crush us.”

“Not if you aim for the landing gear,” I said. “Do it, David! Or we lose him forever!”

Cooper cursed, slammed the car into gear, and floored it.

We burst out of the tree line, tires screaming. The pilot saw us. He didn’t slow down. He throttled up. The roar of the turbines became deafening.

“He’s playing chicken!” Cooper yelled, knuckles white on the wheel.

“Hold your line!” I shouted.

The plane loomed larger, a massive black bird of prey rushing to swallow us. Fifty yards. Thirty. Ten.

At the last second, Cooper swerved.

“Coward!” I screamed, but I knew he was right. We would have been flattened.

The plane roared past us, wingtip missing the roof by inches. The wash of the jet engines shook the car violently.

“He’s getting away!” Cooper slammed on the brakes, drifting the car to a halt.

I didn’t wait. I kicked the door open. I grabbed my rifle from the back seat—my specialized long-range rifle, modified with a shorter stock for my use.

I threw myself out of the car, hitting the tarmac. I didn’t bother with the chair. I crawled, dragging myself to a prone position, using the car’s tire as a stabilizer.

The plane was gathering speed. It was lifting off. The wheels were leaving the ground.

I scoped in.

I wasn’t aiming for the pilot. Armored glass.
I wasn’t aiming for the tires. Too late.

I aimed for the engine intake.

Breathe. Exhale. Squeeze.

CRACK.

The shot echoed across the valley.

For a second, nothing happened. Then, a spark. A flash. A boom.

The left engine of the plane coughed fire. Smoke poured out, thick and black. The plane banked hard, losing lift. It didn’t crash—the pilot was too good for that—but it slammed back down onto the runway, bouncing hard, wings scraping the concrete, sparks flying like fireworks.

It skidded to a halt at the far end of the tarmac, slewing sideways into the mud.

“Nice shot,” Cooper breathed, staring at the smoking wreck.

“Let’s go say hello,” I said, pulling myself toward my chair which Cooper had unloaded.

We approached the wreck cautiously. The hatch opened. Sullivan stumbled out, coughing, his suit ruined, blood trickling down his forehead. He looked up and saw us approaching—Cooper with his gun drawn, me rolling beside him, rifle resting across my lap.

He didn’t look angry. He looked… impressed.

“You grounded me,” Sullivan rasped, wiping blood from his eye. “I didn’t think you had the range.”

“I adapted,” I said, stopping ten feet from him. “It’s what we do.”

Sullivan laughed, a wheezing, painful sound. He looked at Cooper, then at me.

“You think you’ve won,” he said. “You think you stopped the shipment.”

“We did,” Cooper said. “It’s over, Sullivan.”

Sullivan shook his head slowly. “The weapons in the plane? Those aren’t the prototypes, Agent Cooper. Those are just the delivery system.”

“Delivery system for what?” I asked, a sense of dread pooling in my stomach.

Sullivan looked directly at me.

“For the virus,” he said. “Not a biological one. A digital one. The target isn’t a foreign government. It’s us. It’s the VA database. The personnel files. The medical records of every disabled veteran in the system.”

“Why?” I demanded.

“Because,” Sullivan smiled, his teeth stained with blood. “The Architect needs recruits. And he believes that trauma… trauma is the only reliable forge for the next generation of soldiers. He wants to find the ones who broke, and the ones who, like you, rebuilt themselves into something sharper.”

He raised his hands in surrender, but his eyes were mocking.

“I’m not the General, Alex. I’m just the recruiter. And you? You just passed the audition.”

PART 3: THE ARCHITECT’S DESIGN

The interrogation room at the FBI field office in Spokane was cold, sterile, and smelled of stale coffee—a smell that now triggered a phantom ache in my missing legs, a memory of the day this all started at Mike’s Corner Store.

Sullivan sat on the other side of the glass, handcuffed to the table. He hadn’t said a word since his cryptic “audition” comment on the tarmac. He just sat there, humming a tune I couldn’t place, staring at the mirror like he could see me through it.

“He’s stonewalling,” Cooper said, pacing behind me. “We’ve run his prints, his DNA, his retina scan. Nothing. The man doesn’t exist. His service record was wiped.”

“He exists,” I said, watching Sullivan’s rhythmic tapping on the metal table. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap. “And he’s communicating.”

“What?”

“Morse code,” I whispered. “He’s tapping Morse code.”

I closed my eyes, listening. … – .- -. -.. / -… -.– / ..-. — .-. / . -..- – .-. .- -.-. – .. — -.

Stand by for extraction.

“Cooper!” I yelled, spinning my chair around. “Get him out of there! Now!”

“What? Why?”

“He’s not waiting for a lawyer. He’s waiting for a breach!”

Before Cooper could reach the door, the lights in the building flickered and died. Emergency red lights bathed the room in a bloody glow. The electronic lock on the interrogation door buzzed and clicked open.

Sullivan stood up, stretched his arms, and smiled at the mirror.

BOOM.

The outer wall of the building—three stories up—imploded. Not an explosion from the outside, but a directed charge that turned the reinforced concrete into dust.

Through the hole in the wall, a drone the size of a motorcycle hovered. It wasn’t a surveillance drone. It was a heavy-lift extraction unit, bristling with automated turrets.

“Get down!” I screamed, tackling Cooper out of his chair just as the drone’s mini-gun spun up.

Bullets shredded the observation glass, turning the room into a storm of shards. I shielded my face, feeling the glass bite into my arms. The roar was deafening.

When I looked up, Sullivan was grabbing a harness dangling from the drone. He clipped it to his belt. He looked back at the shattered mirror, right at where I was lying on the floor. He saluted.

And then he was gone, pulled into the night sky.

“We lost him,” Cooper coughed, waving away the dust. “How… how did they get a drone that size into downtown Spokane?”

“They didn’t,” I said, pulling myself back into my chair. “It was already here. Hiding in plain sight. Just like the weapons. Just like me.”

I wheeled over to the broken window, wind whipping my hair. I watched the blinking red light of the drone disappear into the clouds.

“He said the target was the VA database,” I said, my mind racing. “He said they wanted recruits. Recruits like me.”

“Alex,” Cooper said gently, putting a hand on my shoulder. “We need to stand down. This is way above our pay grade now. The Pentagon is getting involved.”

“The Pentagon is the leak, David!” I snapped. “Sullivan is a ghost. The Architect has access to classified personnel files. They’re building an army of broken soldiers, and they’re using the VA to find them.”

I turned to face him. “I need to go back.”

“Back where? To Pine Valley?”

“No,” I said. “To where I was made. To the VA hospital in Seattle. That’s the hub. If they’re hacking the records, that’s where the data stream is coming from.”

“Alex, you can’t. You’re a target.”

“Exactly,” I said, checking the load on my pistol. “I’m the bait. Sullivan said I passed the audition. So let’s go see the casting director.”

The Seattle VA Medical Center was a labyrinth of beige corridors and fluorescent lights. To most, it was a place of healing. To me, it was where I learned that “disabled” was just a label people used to make themselves feel better about your tragedy.

I rolled through the lobby, wearing civilian clothes again—a hoodie and jeans covering my tactical gear. I had my badge tucked away. Tonight, I wasn’t Agent Winters. I was just another vet coming in for a late-night checkup.

“Cooper, are you in position?” I whispered into my collar.

“I’m in the server room,” Cooper’s voice came back, tense. “Alex, this is insane. The traffic on these servers… it’s massive. They’re not just downloading files. They’re uploading something. An algorithm.”

“What kind of algorithm?”

“It looks like… a selection matrix. It’s filtering patients based on psychological profiles, trauma response, and… combat adaptability.”

“They’re looking for the ones who didn’t break,” I muttered. “The ones who got angry instead.”

I reached the Rehabilitation Wing. It was quiet. Too quiet.

I wheeled past the physical therapy room. The parallel bars where I learned to drag my body. The mats where I cried from frustration.

At the end of the hall, a single door was open. Light spilled out.

I approached slowly, gun drawn but hidden under a blanket on my lap.

Inside, a man was sitting in a wheelchair. But it wasn’t a standard hospital chair. It was like mine—custom, rigid, built for speed.

He was facing away from me, looking at a wall of monitors. On the screens were live feeds of veterans. Sleeping in their beds. Sitting in their homes. And one screen… one screen showed me, right now, in the hallway.

“Come in, Alexandra,” a voice said. It wasn’t Sullivan. It was deeper, raspy, synthetic.

I rolled into the room. “The Architect, I presume.”

The chair spun around.

The man in the chair had no legs. He had no left arm. Half his face was scarred burn tissue. But his eye—his one good eye—burned with an intensity that made Sullivan look like a choir boy.

“I prefer ‘Patient Zero’,” he said.

“You’re a vet,” I said, lowering my aim slightly.

“We are all vets here,” he rasped. “I was like you once. A hero. Then an IED took my body. And the country I served… they gave me a medal and a pension and told me to rot quietly in a corner.”

He gestured to the screens.

“They threw us away, Alex. Broken toys. But they forgot one thing. When you break something, you create sharp edges.”

“So you’re stealing weapons to arm them?” I asked. “You’re building a terrorist cell out of disabled heroes?”

“Terrorist?” He laughed, a dry, clicking sound. “No. I am building a family. A brotherhood of the broken. We are not terrorists, Alexandra. We are the next evolution of warfare. Who suspects the man in the chair? Who fears the woman with no legs? We are invisible. We are everywhere.”

“Sullivan works for you.”

“Sullivan works for the highest bidder. He is a tool. But you…” He leaned forward, his electric chair humming. “You are a masterpiece. I watched you in Pine Valley. I watched you let them humiliate you. And I watched you strike. You understand. You know that our weakness is our greatest camouflage.”

“I’m nothing like you,” I said, raising my gun. “I fight for the people who can’t fight for themselves. You fight because you’re angry.”

“And aren’t you angry?” he roared, slamming his one hand on the armrest. “Don’t you hate them? The ones who stare? The ones who pity you? The ones who kicked you over in that store?”

I paused. The image of Marcus laughing filled my mind. The shame. The rage.

“Yes,” I admitted softly. “I’m angry.”

“Then join us,” The Architect said, extending his hand. “We have the prototypes. We have the network. We can take back our dignity. We can make them fear us.”

“I don’t want them to fear me,” I said, my finger tightening on the trigger. “I want them to be safe.”

I tapped my earpiece. “Cooper. Now.”

“Executing,” Cooper said.

The lights in the room turned green. The monitors flickered and died. The Architect’s chair gave a whine of protest and powered down.

“What did you do?” he hissed, jamming his joystick. Nothing happened.

“I didn’t come here to shoot you,” I said. “I came here to upload a patch. Cooper just isolated your algorithm. We traced the upload source. We have the location of every sleeper cell you’ve activated. The FBI, the CIA, the Rangers… they’re rolling out as we speak.”

The Architect stared at me, his face twisting in betrayal. “You… you betrayed your own kind.”

“My kind are soldiers,” I said. “We protect. We don’t prey.”

He lunged.

Even with one arm and no power, he was fast. He threw himself out of his chair, tackling me. We crashed to the floor, a tangle of limbs and metal.

He was strong, fueled by madness. His hand clawed at my throat.

“I offered you power!” he screamed, spitting in my face.

I couldn’t reach my gun. It had skittered across the floor. I couldn’t use my legs to kick him off.

But I had something he didn’t.

I had the technique.

I grabbed his wrist, finding the pressure point I’d used on Marcus. I twisted, but he didn’t feel pain. He was beyond it.

I saw a shard of glass from a broken monitor on the floor. I reached for it.

He tightened his grip. My vision started to tunnel. Black spots. Air cutting off.

Adapt, my mind screamed. Use the environment.

I hooked my arm around the wheel of my overturned chair. I pulled with everything I had. The heavy steel frame tipped over, crashing down onto his back.

He grunted, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second.

That was all I needed.

I grabbed the shard of glass. I didn’t stab him. I jammed it into the exposed wiring of his prosthetic arm.

Sparks flew. The arm seized up, locking in a rigid spasm. He screamed as the feedback loop hit his nervous system.

I rolled away, gasping for air. I dragged myself to my gun.

I aimed it at him. He was lying there, tangled in the wires of his own creation, breathing heavily.

“It’s over,” I rasped.

“It’s never over,” he whispered, looking at the ceiling. “You stopped me. But you can’t stop the idea. The broken are waking up, Alexandra. And sooner or later… they will rise.”

The door burst open. Cooper and a SWAT team poured in.

“Secure him!” Cooper yelled.

They swarmed The Architect. I lowered my gun, my arms heavy as lead.

Cooper knelt beside me. “You okay?”

I looked at The Architect being dragged away, still smiling that twisted smile.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I really don’t know.”

Two weeks later.

The sun was shining in Pine Valley. The air was crisp.

I sat at a table outside Mike’s Corner Store. Jenny brought me a coffee and a blueberry muffin.

“On the house,” she smiled. “Hero discount.”

“I’m not a hero, Jen,” I said, taking the cup. “Just a fed doing a job.”

“You saved the town,” she said. “The Red Dragons are gone. Marcus is in prison for life. Sullivan is in a black site somewhere answering questions he doesn’t want to answer.”

“And The Architect?” I asked, though I knew the answer.

“Locked away in a facility that doesn’t exist,” Cooper said, walking up to the table. He was wearing civilian clothes, but he still looked like a fed.

“Any fallout?” I asked.

“Some,” Cooper sat down. “We found the list. The recruits. Most of them didn’t know what they were signing up for. They thought it was a support group. We’re getting them help. Real help. Not weaponization.”

He looked at my chair. “The Bureau wants to give you a commendation. A desk job at Headquarters. Director of Analysis. Safe. Warm. No field work.”

I looked at the street. I watched a kid on a skateboard trip and fall. He skinned his knee. He cried for a second, then looked around, wiped his eyes, and got back up.

“Tell them thanks,” I said, taking a sip of coffee. “But I think I’ll pass.”

“Pass?” Cooper raised an eyebrow. “Alex, you can’t keep doing this. Your cover is blown. Your face is in the system.”

“So give me a new face,” I said. “Give me a new town. There are other networks out there, David. Sullivan was just a middleman. The Architect was just a symptom. The disease is still out there.”

I tapped the rim of my wheel.

“And besides,” I smiled, a real smile this time. “I’ve got the best disguise in the world. Nobody looks twice at the woman in the chair.”

Cooper stared at me for a long time. Then he sighed, reached into his jacket, and pulled out a file.

“We have reports of a trafficking ring in New Orleans,” he said. “Operating out of a rehab center.”

I took the file. “When do I leave?”

“Ideally? Yesterday.”

I finished my coffee. I looked at Jenny. “Keep the muffins fresh for me.”

“Always,” she said.

I spun my chair around. The motor hummed. The tires gripped the pavement.

I wasn’t broken. I wasn’t a victim. I wasn’t a discarded toy.

I was Alexandra Winters.

And I was just getting started.