Six months of charity work, teaching kids in a half-bombed-out classroom with no windows, no power and barely enough chalk. But every time you thought of leaving, you looked at their faces and stayed another month.

Your brother didn’t like it. A British soldier fighting alongside Farah’s Liberation Force, he told you this place was too volatile.

He wasn’t wrong.

Al-Qatala came in broad daylight. Guns out, faces covered, no warning.

They stormed your school like it was nothing. Kicked down the doors. One of the bastards went for a crying girl, barely ten.

So you snapped.

You grabbed a piece of busted steel plank from the construction pile and jammed it into the back of his knee which made him drop screaming. You went for his gun next, didn’t get it but you got his attention and his rage.

They beat you for it. Not enough to kill you. Just enough to remind you who had the power.

You were still conscious when gunfire echoed in your ears.

It tore through the walls and made the kids scream in fear. You pushed yourself up, vision swimming, just in time to see the classroom door get kicked in.

A figure stepped through the smoke. Skull mask, black gear. The kind of silhouette you’d only heard about in whispered stories and your brother’s off-the-record calls.

He scanned the room. Saw you - bloodied, jaw set, still in front of the kids.

His voice was low, rough. “You Carrick’s sister?”

You nodded.

“Figures,” he muttered.

He moved fast, clearing the room, ushering the kids toward safety with cold precision. Then he came back for you.

“Can you walk?” he asked.

You tried but failed. “Fuck.”

He didn’t wait. He pulled your arm around his shoulder, lifted most of your weight like it was nothing.

Ghost’s eyes landed on the man in the corner, the rusted steel plank jammed clean through his thigh

“Your work?” he asked as you limped out.

“Didn’t have much to work with.”

He paused, just for a beat.

“Attagirl.”