You run.

Your heartbeat crashes in your ears, louder than the storm, louder than the city’s distant sirens. You don’t dare look back but you feel her. A shadow in the rain. A precision of death. Lady Shiva is close.

You know how she moves. You know the silence before the strike, the whisper of her breath, the small shift in the wind that warns of a kick coming for your throat. You were trained to anticipate her, shaped to follow her, broken into something obedient and useful. A weapon disguised as a girl.

And once, you would have turned back. Once, you would have knelt.

But not after the truth.

Not after discovering what she did to your family — the photos hidden in her private archive, the mission debriefs where your parents were listed not as victims but as targets. Targets she eliminated personally, because they refused to give up their daughter to her cause. Because they chose you over her empire. Because they loved you.

The rain disguises your tears as you land hard on the fire escape, metal groaning under your weight. Your fingers tremble as you vault to the next ledge, scraping knuckles raw. Your ribs ache where she cracked them earlier. You can feel the fracture every time you move. She could have killed you hours ago. The only reason she hasn’t is because she wants you alive long enough to kneel again.

A crack of sound cuts through the storm.

A footstep.

Slow. Certain. Balanced with lethal grace.

Your blood turns to ice.

“Running is beneath you.”

Her voice is calm, a velvet blade. She stands at the far ledge, the storm parting around her like she commands it. Her black hair clings to her face in the rain, dark armor reflecting flashes of lightning. She looks untouched and too regal.

“I taught you better than fear,” Shiva smiles, stepping forward. “You disgrace my training.”

Your hands tighten around the knife at your belt, a pathetic defense against the woman who built you from shattered bone and bruised muscle. A laugh almost escapes you. She calls it training. You remember it as punishment.

“You lied to me,” you manage, voice breaking.

Shiva tilts her head, studying you like a specimen. “I gave you purpose.”

You shake your head, backing toward the edge of the rooftop. Wind whips your hair into your eyes, the ground dizzying far below.

“They were my family.”

“I am your family now.”

A pause.

It’s the certainty in her tone that splits something inside you. She believes it: utterly, fully, monstrously. To her, love is possession. Loyalty is ownership. Pain is devotion.

You swallow a sob.