The General was dying.

Arleen could see it in the way his skin had turned the color of ash, in the shallow, rapid rise and fall of his chest. The bullet had missed the major organs, but it had nicked an artery. He was bleeding out internally and externally.

He wouldn't last five minutes. The helicopter was at least seven minutes out.

Arleen knelt beside him. The smell of copper was overwhelming.

"You..." Clemons gasped, his hand clutching the wound. "You're just a child."

"Shut up," Arleen said. It wasn't rude; it was tactical. "Save your oxygen."

She looked at the wound. It was a jagged mess. The pressure bandage he had applied was soaked through and useless.

She needed to cauterize it.

She patted down his pockets. A silver cigarette case. A heavy gold lighter.

"This is going to hurt," she said.

She didn't wait for permission. She flicked the lighter open. The flame danced in the darkness.

She picked up the tactical knife she had retrieved from the dead mercenary. She wiped the blade on her hoodie, then held it over the flame.

Clemons's eyes widened. "No... anesthesia..."

"Bite this." She shoved a piece of leather-his own wallet-between his teeth.

She didn't hesitate. Hesitation was infection. Hesitation was death.

She pressed the hot blade against the torn vessel.

The sound was a wet sizzle. The smell of burning flesh filled the small clearing, thick and greasy.

Clemons screamed through his teeth. His body arched off the ground, his back bowing in agony. His eyes rolled back in his head.

Arleen held him down with one hand, her knee pressing into his thigh to immobilize him. Her other hand was steady, surgical. She wasn't Arleen Brewer, the high school dropout. She was The Queen, who had once performed an appendectomy on herself in a safe house in Caracas.

She worked quickly, sealing the worst of the bleed.

"Stay with me," she commanded, slapping his cheek lightly.

Clemons groaned, his eyes fluttering open. He looked at her with a mix of terror and awe. He had seen combat medics work, but he had never seen a teenage girl carve into a man with the dispassionate efficiency of a butcher.

"The bullet..." he mumbled.

"It's lodged against the pelvic bone. I can't take it out here. But you won't bleed to death."

She wiped her hands on the grass.

The helicopter was close now. The wind from the rotors began to whip the treetops, sending a shower of pine needles down on them. A spotlight cut through the canopy, blindingly bright.

Arleen stood up. She couldn't be found here. Not with three dead bodies and a high-profile target. The questions would be endless. Her cover would be blown before she even started.

"Wait," Clemons rasped. He reached out, his bloody hand gripping her wrist. His grip was weak, desperate. "Name. Tell me your name."

Arleen looked down at him. The spotlight swept over them, illuminating her face for a split second.

She calculated the odds. If she ran, they would hunt her. If she gave a name, she became a person of interest, but also a savior. Clemons. That was the name on the helicopter tail she had glimpsed. The Clemons family owed debts.

"Brewer," she said, her voice barely audible over the roar of the engine. "Arleen Brewer."

She pulled her wrist free.

She moved fast. She used the chaotic wind from the landing chopper to mask her retreat. She scrambled up the ridge, diving into a thicket of rhododendrons just as the first rope dropped.

She watched from the shadows.

A man rappelled down. He didn't move like a soldier; he moved like a force of nature. Tall, broad-shouldered, wearing tactical gear that looked custom-made.

Hale Clemons.

She recognized him from the news feeds. The heir to the Clemons empire. Ruthless. Brilliant. Dangerous.

He hit the ground and unclipped in one fluid motion. He sprinted to the General.

"Grandfather!" His voice was a roar of raw panic.

A medic dropped down behind him, carrying a trauma kit.

Arleen watched as the medic examined the wound. She saw the medic pause, look closer, and then look up at Hale, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Someone worked on him," the medic shouted over the noise. "Field cauterization. It's... it's perfect. Saved his life."

Hale froze. He stood up slowly, turning a full three hundred and sixty degrees. His eyes scanned the darkness.

He looked right at the rhododendrons where Arleen was hiding.

She held her breath. Her heart rate slowed to a crawl. Don't move. Don't blink.

Hale took a step toward the woods. He crouched down. He touched the ground where she had been kneeling.

He picked up something.

It was a cheap plastic hair clip that had fallen when she was thrown against the tree. Pink. Broken.

He stared at it, his face unreadable in the harsh light.

"Get him out of here!" Hale barked, pocketing the clip. "And sweep the area. I want to know who did this."

Arleen didn't wait. She melted back into the deeper woods, moving silently away from the chaos.

She reached the trailer twenty minutes later. She climbed back through the window, collapsing onto the bed.

Her ribs throbbed. Her hands were shaking again.

System Notification: Mission Complete.

Reward: Combat Reflexes Level 1 Unlocked. Vitality Boost Applied.

She felt a warmth spread through her limbs, a tingling sensation as muscle fibers knit together and nerves sharpened. The pain in her ribs dulled to a manageable ache.

She looked at her hands. They were still thin, still calloused from scrubbing floors, but they felt different. Connected.

She closed her eyes. Tomorrow was Monday. School.

The battlefield was changing, but the war was just beginning.

St. Andrew's Prep was a castle built on old money and new insecurities. The iron gates loomed over the driveway, separating the elite from the rest of the world.

Arleen stood at the entrance.

She wore the school uniform-a plaid skirt and a navy blazer-but hers was different. It was bought second-hand, the fabric slightly faded, the hem fraying. Her shoes were scuffed loafers from a discount store.

She felt the upgrade from the System. Her posture was naturally straighter. Her senses were dialed up. She could hear the whisper of tires on asphalt, smell the expensive perfume of the girl walking ten feet ahead of her.

She walked onto the campus.

It was like parting the Red Sea, if the sea was made of disdain.

Students stopped talking as she passed. Eyes followed her. Whispers hissed like steam escaping a pipe.

"Is that the zombie?"

"I heard she died in a trailer park."

"She smells like bleach."

"Why is she even back?"

Arleen ignored them. She walked with a rhythm that was efficient, conserving energy.

She entered the main building. The hallway was lined with lockers that cost more than her mother's car.

She reached her classroom. Honors History.

She pushed the door open.

The room went silent.

Her desk, in the back row, was a shrine to hatred. It was covered in trash. Banana peels, crumpled papers, empty soda cans. Someone had written "WHITE TRASH" in permanent marker across the wood.

Mrs. Tate was at the whiteboard. She turned around, her glasses slipping down her nose. She looked at Arleen with a mixture of surprise and annoyance.

"Miss Brewer," Mrs. Tate said, her tone dripping with condescension. "You're late. And frankly, I didn't expect to see you... at all."

Arleen didn't apologize. She walked to her desk.

She looked at the mess.

In her past life, she would have burned the building down. In Arleen's past life, she would have cried and cleaned it up while everyone laughed.

She did neither.

She swept her arm across the desk in one fluid motion.

The trash flew off, clattering loudly onto the floor. The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet room.

Mrs. Tate gasped. "Arleen! Pick that up this instant!"

Arleen looked at the teacher. "It's not mine."

She sat down. She opened her textbook.

"I said pick it up!" Mrs. Tate marched toward her.

System Task: Establish Dominance. Reward: Intellect Boost.

Arleen looked up. "I am here to learn, Mrs. Tate. Are you here to teach, or to act as a janitor?"

The class inhaled sharply. No one spoke to Mrs. Tate like that.

Before the teacher could explode, the door opened again.

Bryce Vaughn walked in.

He was the quintessential golden boy. Captain of the football team. Son of a senator. He filled the doorway, his varsity jacket straining at the shoulders.

He saw Arleen. A cruel grin spread across his face.

He walked over to her desk. He didn't sit in his own seat. He stood over her, blocking the light.

"Well, well," Bryce said. "The corpse walks."

He put his foot on the bottom rung of her chair and leaned in. "Did your mom have to sell herself to pay for your hospital bill, Brewer?"

The laughter from the class was tentative but present.

Arleen didn't look up from her book. "Remove your foot."

Bryce laughed. "Or what? You gonna have another heart attack?"

He kicked the chair. Hard.

It jarred her spine.

Arleen closed the book. Slowly.

She looked up at him.

Her eyes were dark voids. There was no fear in them. There was no anger. There was only the calculation of a predator looking at a prey animal that didn't know it was already dead.

"I asked you nicely," she said softly.

Bryce faltered. For a second, the primal part of his brain-the part that evolved to spot tigers in the grass-screamed at him to run. Her stillness was unnatural.

But his pride was louder.

He reached out to grab her blazer lapel. "Listen here, you little-"

The bell rang.

It was a shrill, jarring sound that broke the tension.

Mrs. Tate cleared her throat, eager to regain control. "Everyone in your seats! Pop quiz. Now."

Bryce sneered, pulling his hand back. "Lunch, Brewer. You and me. Dead meat."

He walked away.

Arleen picked up her pen.

Task Accepted.

She looked at the quiz paper Mrs. Tate slammed onto her desk. The questions were trivial. Dates. Battles. Treaties.

She filled them out. Her hand moved with machine-like precision. Her memory, enhanced by the System, pulled pages from textbooks she had glanced at only once.

She finished in five minutes.

She sat back, waiting for the bell. Waiting for lunch.

Waiting for the hunt.

The cafeteria was a cavern of noise and social hierarchy. The popular kids sat in the center, the athletes near the windows, and the outcasts at the fringes near the trash cans.

Arleen sat alone at a corner table. Her lunch was a free-meal ticket sandwich-dry turkey on white bread-and an apple that had seen better days.

She took a bite. It tasted like cardboard.

She felt him before she saw him. The air pressure changed as a group approached.

Bryce Vaughn. Flanked by two of his linemen. And hanging on his arm was Kaycee Glass.

Kaycee was beautiful in a manufactured way. Blonde extensions, perfect teeth, eyes that held nothing but malice. She was holding a tray of spaghetti with marinara sauce.

"Hey, Arleen," Kaycee chirped. Her voice was sugary sweet. "You look so pale. You really need some iron. Or carbs."

She "tripped."

It was a theatrical stumble. The tray launched from her hands, arching perfectly toward Arleen's head.

Time seemed to slow down.

Arleen didn't turn around. She didn't gasp.

She simply shifted her weight. She slid her chair back six inches.

The tray hit the table where her head had been a second ago.

SPLAT.

Red sauce exploded outward. It missed Arleen completely. Instead, the splashback hit Kaycee.

The marinara coated the front of Kaycee's white designer cashmere sweater. It looked like a gunshot wound.

Kaycee shrieked. "My sweater! You ruined my sweater!"

The cafeteria went silent. Everyone turned to watch.

Bryce stepped forward, his face turning red. "You did that on purpose!"

He grabbed a metal tray from the table next to him. It was heavy, industrial steel.

"You think you're funny?" Bryce roared. He swung the tray at Arleen's head like a discus.

It was a dangerous swing. If it connected, it would cause a concussion, maybe a skull fracture.

Arleen stood up.

She raised her left hand.

CLANG.

She caught the edge of the flying tray. Her palm stung, but her grip was iron.

The room gasped.

Bryce blinked, shocked that his projectile had stopped in mid-air.

Arleen held the tray. She looked at it, then at Bryce.

"You have poor form," she said.

She stepped forward.

Bryce threw a punch. A clumsy, haymaker right hook aimed at her jaw.

Arleen didn't block. She slipped inside his guard. She moved faster than anyone in that room had ever seen a human move.

She brought the edge of the metal tray down.

Hard.

It connected with the bridge of Bryce's nose.

CRACK.

The sound was wet and sickening.

Bryce howled. He staggered back, clutching his face. Blood poured through his fingers, dark and copious.

"Get her!" he screamed, his voice bubbling with blood.

The two linemen charged. They were big boys, 250 pounds each.

Arleen dropped the tray.

She kicked the first one in the kneecap. A precise, snapping kick to the patella. He went down screaming.

The second one tried to grab her in a bear hug.

She grabbed his pinky finger. She bent it backward until it touched the back of his hand.

He shrieked, his knees buckling from the pain compliance.

She spun him around and shoved him into a table, sending trays and milk cartons flying. As she shoved him, her other hand, a blur, brushed against his jacket pocket, the motion so fluid and integrated into the attack that no one noticed the tiny, adhesive listening device, no larger than a grain of rice, that she left behind.

Three seconds. Three varsity athletes down.

Arleen stood in the center of the carnage. She wasn't even breathing hard. She smoothed the front of her blazer.

She walked over to Bryce, who was on his knees, crying and bleeding onto the linoleum.

She crouched down.

"Look at me," she whispered.

Bryce looked up. His eyes were wide with terror. He was looking at a monster.

"If you ever touch me again," Arleen said, her voice devoid of emotion, "I won't use a tray. I'll use my hands."

Kaycee was sobbing in the corner, trying to wipe the sauce off her sweater. She looked at Arleen and scrambled backward, crab-walking away in fear.

Arleen stood up. She looked around the cafeteria.

"Anyone else?"

Silence. Absolute, terrified silence.

She picked up her backpack.

"Good."

She walked toward the exit.

As she pushed the doors open, the school alarms began to blare.