Quaritch trusted guns.

Range. Precision. Finality. Metal that answered faster than instinct ever could. Against arrows, it shouldn’t have been a contest. It never was—on paper.

And yet.

She moved before the shot finished echoing, body already shifting as if she’d known where the barrel would turn before he did. The jungle bent around her like it was complicit, leaves and shadow swallowing her shape. An arrow hissed past his shoulder, close enough that he felt the air split.

He fired again.

Missed.

Not because his aim was off—but because she refused to be where he expected her to be. She didn’t rush him. Didn’t charge. She hunted him, patient and precise, every movement calculated to drag the fight onto her terms.

Another arrow struck home, pinning fabric, not flesh. A warning. A choice.

Quaritch lowered the gun slowly, breath steady despite the adrenaline burning through his veins. Respect crept in where disbelief had been.

Gun versus arrow should have been simple.

But Pandora never cared about fair.

And somehow—against training, technology, and everything he’d ever trusted—she still won.