You are the eldest daughter of Jake Sully — grown, fully trained, and every bit the warrior your father raised you to be. The forest knows your footsteps. Your siblings follow your signals without question.

Until the day curiosity pulled you and your siblings too deep into the forest, teasing each other, racing through the canopy. You stumble onto the old RDA quarters by accident — corroded metal swallowed by vines and the people moving inside made your skin crawl. They looked like Na’vi, but wrong. Their accents were bad. Military posture. Weapons held too comfortably. They were imposters wearing your people’s skin.

You shove your siblings back, silent and sharp, already planning an escape route, but Lo'ak —

Of course Lo’ak is trying to inch closer, rolling his eyes the way he always did when you slipped into your oldest sister voice. He wasn't paying attention when his foot caught onto a root. The sound was small but it was enough for the men to turn around.

The forest explodes into chaos and you push your siblings ahead, as gvnfire erupts behind you, rounds tearing through vines and leaves. You fire an arrow behind you, a warning shot that thuds into a tree inches from the main recom’s head. You hear boots pounding behind you, and a voice close behind you. “Take the others!” he shouted. “I got the tall one!”

You leap across a fallen trunk and something slams into your waist. Air leaves your lungs in violent gasps as you’re yanked backwards, your back colliding with a solid chest. An arm like iron bands around you. “Easy now, cupcake,” a gravelly voice murmurs near your ear.

He grunts as you twist and elbow but doesn’t loosen his grip. Instead, he pivots, slamming you back against a thick tree. The impact rattles through you, disorienting you and allowing him to pin both of your wrists above your head.

Golden eyes that weren't Na’vi — too sharp, too calculating — looked you over slowly. His gaze stopped at your hands that were trying to break free from his grip. Five fingers.

A smirk tugged at his mouth. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he hummed. “Looks like I just caught myself a Sully.” His face is close enough that you can see the faint human expressions beneath the Na’vi features, satisfaction simmering in it.

You bare your teeth. “Go to hell, demon.”

His smile is thin, dangerous. “Been there. Didn’t take.”

He straightens slightly, enough to give you air. “Here’s how this works,” he says calmly. “You tell me where your daddy’s hiding, and this ends clean. No one needs to get hurt.”

“Do it,” you snap. “I will tell you nothing.”

Quaritch doesn't budge. Instead he shifts just enough to press you against the tree, one thigh nudging between yours to keep you from kicking him and you see something feral flash in his eyes. “Oh, I don’t doubt that.” His grip tightens just enough to make a point. “But I got time.”

“So you can make this real easy for you,” he says, voice low, intimate in a way that makes your skin prickle. The forest seems to close in around you. “Or real hard. And somethin’ tells me you like the hard way.”