CHAPTER 1: THE GHOST OF PINE VALLEY

 

The phantom pain was bad today. It felt like fire was licking at ankles that hadn’t been there for three years.

Alex Winters adjusted her position in the wheelchair, her face remaining a mask of neutral boredom. She was parked at her usual table in the corner of “Mike’s Stop & Shop,” a greasy spoon diner that served the best black coffee in Pine Valley, Montana.

It was a small town. The kind of place where everyone knew everyone’s business, where the American flag hung on every porch, and where secrets were supposed to be impossible to keep.

Supposed to be.

“Refill, hon?”

Jenny, the diner’s waitress and owner, hovered over the table with a pot of steaming coffee. She was twenty-five, overworked, and had the kind of tired eyes that had seen too much for her age.

“Please,” Alex said, offering a soft, practiced smile. “Legs are killing me today.”

“Weather’s turning,” Jenny said sympathetically, pouring the dark liquid. “My grandpa used to say his bad knee knew when the snow was coming before the weatherman did.”

Alex nodded, wrapping her hands around the warm mug. She looked frail in her oversized army surplus jacket. To the locals, she was just Alex—the unfortunate vet who came back from Afghanistan half the woman she used to be. A tragic figure. Harmless.

Nobody noticed that her “corner table” offered a tactical view of both the front and back exits. Nobody noticed that her baggy jacket concealed a modified Sig Sauer P365 with a specialized grip. Nobody noticed that the “bored” look in her eyes was actually a continuous, high-speed scan of every person who walked through the door.

The bell above the entrance jingled. The atmosphere in the diner instantly curdled.

Three men walked in. Then two more.

The silence that fell over the room was heavy, suffocating. They wore leather cuts with a red dragon stitched onto the back. The Red Dragons. A motorcycle club that had started as a group of riding enthusiasts and slowly metastasized into a localized cancer—meth, guns, extortion.

Leading them was Marcus Wilson. “The Snake.”

He was six-foot-three of bad decisions and violence. He didn’t walk; he prowled. He took off his sunglasses, scanning the room like a landlord inspecting a property he intended to demolish.

Alex didn’t flinch. She took a sip of her coffee. Heart rate: 62 beats per minute. Steady.

“Well, well,” Marcus boomed, his voice scratching against the silence. “Smells like patriotism and stale donuts in here.”

His goons chuckled. One of them, a guy named “Crusher” who looked like he was carved out of granite and stupidity, knocked over a chair as he walked past. He didn’t pick it up.

Jenny stiffened near the counter. “Marcus. We don’t want any trouble today.”

Marcus ignored her. His eyes locked onto Alex in the corner. A cruel grin spread across his face, revealing gold-capped teeth.

“Look who it is,” Marcus said, strutting toward Alex’s table. “The town mascot. Shouldn’t you be at the VA hospital, begging for pills?”

Alex set her mug down slowly. She calculated the distance. Six feet. He had a knife on his belt. The guy to his left—Razer—had a bulge under his vest that suggested a revolver.

She could kill Marcus with a throat punch from this seated position before his body hit the floor. She could use his falling weight as a shield, draw her Sig, and put two rounds into Razer’s chest and one in his head. The other three would scramble. Total engagement time: 4.5 seconds.

But she couldn’t. Not yet.

“Just having coffee, Marcus,” Alex said, dropping her gaze to the floor. “Please.”

“Please?” Marcus mocked, leaning over her table. He placed both hands on the surface, invading her space. “You know what I hate? I hate looking at broken things. It depresses me.”

Alex felt the bile rise in her throat, but she swallowed it down. Hold the line, Winters. The mission is the priority.

“I was just leaving,” Alex whispered.

“Yeah,” Marcus hissed. “You were.”

CHAPTER 2: THE GRAVITY OF HATE

 

The air in the diner was so tense it felt like a rubber band about to snap. The other patrons—old man Miller, a young couple, a truck driver—were staring at their plates, terrified to intervene.

Alex unlocked the brakes on her wheelchair. “Excuse me,” she murmured, trying to back away.

“I didn’t say you could go yet,” Marcus snapped. He reached out and grabbed the handle of her chair, jerking her to a halt. The sudden motion caused hot coffee to slosh over the rim of her mug, burning her hand.

Alex flinched. It was a genuine reaction to the heat, but she amplified it, shrinking back into the seat like a frightened child.

“Look at her,” Razer laughed, circling behind her. “Scared of her own shadow. How did you ever make it through boot camp, crippled?”

“Hey!” Jenny shouted from the counter, her voice shaking. “Leave her alone, Marcus! She’s a veteran!”

“She’s a leech,” Marcus spat, not taking his eyes off Alex. “Sucking up tax dollars while we work for a living.”

He leaned in close, his lips inches from her ear. “We have a big shipment coming through, Alex. We need the town… quiet. And having a Fed-loving narc like you sitting in the window every day? That makes me nervous.”

Alex’s internal radar pinged. Shipment. Confirmed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stammered.

“I think you do,” Marcus said. He stood up straight and looked at his men. “Boys, help the lady out. She looks like she’s having trouble with her balance.”

Before Alex could brace herself, Crusher stepped forward and kicked the left wheel of her chair.

It wasn’t a playful tap. It was a vicious, heavy-booted stomp.

The physics were undeniable. The chair tipped violently to the right. Alex didn’t fight it—fighting it would reveal her core strength, her reflexes. She had to fall. She had to let it happen.

She hit the linoleum hard. Her shoulder took the brunt of the impact, sending a shockwave of pain down her spine. The coffee mug shattered, splashing hot black liquid across her face and neck.

Laughter erupted above her. It wasn’t just mean; it was predatory.

“Oops,” Marcus deadpanned. “Gravity’s a bitch, ain’t it?”

Lying there, amidst the broken ceramics and the spilled coffee, Alex looked up. She saw the underside of the table. She saw the scuffed boots of the men who thought they were gods.

For a split second, the mask almost slipped. A flash of pure, unadulterated lethal intent flared in her eyes. If Marcus had looked closely in that micro-second, he would have seen his own death staring back at him.

But he was too busy laughing.

“You have 24 hours,” Marcus said, looking down at her like she was roadkill. “Get out of Pine Valley. If I see those wheels on my pavement after tomorrow noon… I’ll take them off. And I’ll finish what the Taliban started.”

He signaled his crew. “Let’s roll. Ideally somewhere that doesn’t smell like failure.”

They swaggered out, the bell jingling cheerfully behind them, a grotesque contrast to the violence that had just occurred.

Jenny rushed around the counter, tears in her eyes. “Oh my god, Alex! Alex, are you okay?”

She dropped to her knees, trying to help Alex sit up.

“I’m fine,” Alex said. Her voice was no longer trembling. It was flat. Hard.

“I’m calling the Sheriff,” Jenny sobbed, grabbing a napkin to wipe the coffee from Alex’s cheek. “I’m calling Anderson. They can’t keep doing this!”

“No,” Alex said sharply. She grabbed Jenny’s wrist. Her grip was like iron, shocking the waitress.

“Alex?” Jenny whispered, confused. “You… you’re bleeding.”

Alex ignored the cut on her cheek. She pulled herself up. She didn’t struggle. She didn’t flail. She placed her hands on the floor and lifted her body weight with the ease of a gymnast, righting the wheelchair with a single, powerful motion before hopping back into the seat.

It was a move that required immense upper body strength—strength a “broken” woman shouldn’t have.

She wheeled herself over to the window, watching the Red Dragons mount their bikes.

“Don’t call the Sheriff, Jenny,” Alex said, her eyes tracking Marcus as he kicked starts his Harley.

“Why? They just assaulted you!”

Alex reached into her pocket and pulled out a burner phone. She typed a text message: Contact made. Threat established. They feel safe. Green light for Phase 2.

She hit send.

“Because,” Alex said, turning to look at Jenny. The warmth was gone from her face. The “Alex” that Jenny knew—the sweet, sad victim—had evaporated. In her place was something cold, sharp, and terrifying.

“Because they just gave me exactly what I needed,” Alex said. “They think I’m leaving tomorrow. Which means for the next 24 hours, they’re going to be celebrating.”

“Alex… who are you?” Jenny asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Alex wiped the blood from her cheek and looked at it on her thumb.

“I’m the janitor,” Alex said. “And it’s time to take out the trash.”

CHAPTER 3: THE DECEPTION

 

The sun was beginning to dip below the treeline of the Montana mountains, casting long, bruised shadows across Alex’s front yard.

She sat on her porch, staring at a cardboard box labeled “KITCHEN.” From the street, she looked like the picture of defeat. Shoulders slumped, head bowed, a woman broken by the threat of violence, packing up her meager life to flee.

But under the brim of her cap, her eyes were sharp, fixated on the reflection in her window.

Across the street, a beat-up blue sedan sat idling. It had been there for three hours. Two heads were visible inside. Marcus’s lackeys. They were watching to make sure she obeyed the order.

Good, Alex thought. Get comfortable.

Her phone buzzed in her lap. It was a secure text from Agent Cooper, her FBI handler.

COOPER: Intel confirms shipment is live. Tonight. 0100 hours. The Old Lumber Mill. You need to be clear of the blast radius if we send in the tactical team.

Alex’s fingers flew across the keypad, hidden from the watchers’ view by the bulk of the cardboard box.

ALEX: Negative on the team. Too many access points. If they see a convoy, they’ll scatter and we lose the supplier. I’m going in alone.

COOPER: Winters, you’re compromised. They made you at the diner.

ALEX: They made a cripple. They didn’t make me. Stand down, Cooper. I’ll signal when the package is wrapped.

She slipped the phone away just as Jenny’s pickup truck rattled up the driveway. The young waitress hopped out, looking nervous. She wasn’t built for espionage; she was built for serving pie and remembering regulars’ birthdays. But she was the only ally Alex had.

“I’m here,” Jenny said loudly, pitching her voice so it would carry to the blue sedan across the street. “Let’s get you packed up, Alex. It’s… it’s for the best.”

Alex wheeled herself down the ramp. “Thanks, Jen. I just… I can’t take the risk. Marcus was right. I don’t belong here.”

They spent the next hour performing a carefully choreographed play. They hauled boxes out of the house. Alex struggled visibly with a lamp, letting it slip so she had to awkwardly retrieve it. Every movement was calculated to reinforce the narrative: She is weak. She is leaving.

As they loaded the final box into the bed of Jenny’s truck, Alex rolled close to the driver’s side door.

“They’re watching,” Alex whispered, her lips barely moving. “Don’t look.”

“I see them,” Jenny whispered back, her hands trembling on the tailgate. “What do we do?”

“We stick to the script. You drive my stuff north. Go to the motel in Kalispell. Stay there until I call.”

“And you?”

“I’m staying.”

Jenny’s eyes widened. “Alex, they’ll kill you. You saw them today. They’re animals.”

“They’re not animals, Jen. Animals hunt for survival. These men hunt for sport.” Alex’s expression hardened. “And the hunting season just ended.”

Suddenly, the blue sedan rolled forward. It pulled up alongside the driveway. The passenger window rolled down. It was Razer, the one with the revolver from the diner.

“Need a hand, ladies?” he sneered, chewing on a toothpick.

“We’re leaving,” Jenny snapped, her protective instinct overriding her fear. “Just like you wanted.”

Razer laughed. He got out of the car, feigning politeness. “Here, let me help with that last bag.”

He grabbed Alex’s duffel bag from her lap. As he tossed it into the truck bed, Alex saw his hand linger on the strap for a fraction of a second too long. A distinct, magnetic click sounded. It was faint, masked by the thud of the bag landing, but Alex’s ears—trained to hear the safety click off a rifle from three hundred yards—caught it instantly.

Tracker.

Razer patted the roof of the truck. “Drive safe. Roads are slippery for runaways.”

He got back in the sedan and drove off, but didn’t go far—just down the block to watch the turn onto the highway.

“He put a tracker on the truck,” Jenny whispered, panic rising in her voice.

“I know,” Alex said calmly. “That’s perfect.”

“Perfect? They’ll follow me!”

“Exactly. They’ll follow the truck. They’ll watch the dot moving north on their phones. They’ll think I’m crying in the passenger seat, running away to Canada.”

Alex unlocked her front door but didn’t go in. She maneuvered her wheelchair into the shadow of the garage.

“Go, Jenny. Drive normal speed. Don’t stop until Kalispell.”

Jenny hesitated, looking at the woman in the wheelchair. For the first time, she noticed something different. The slump in Alex’s shoulders was gone. The fragility had evaporated. The woman sitting in the shadows looked like a coiled spring made of steel.

“Give ‘em hell, Alex,” Jenny said.

“Oh, I’m not giving them anything,” Alex replied, a dark smile touching her lips. “I’m taking everything.”

Jenny gunned the engine and peeled out of the driveway. Alex watched the truck turn the corner. A moment later, the blue sedan followed.

The street fell silent.

Alex wheeled herself back into her dark, empty house. She didn’t turn on the lights. She didn’t need them. She moved to the living room wall, where a dusty bookshelf stood.

She reached underneath one of the shelves and pressed a hidden biometric scanner.

Beep.

The bookshelf clicked and swung open on silent hinges, revealing a steel-lined panic room. But it wasn’t for panicking. It was an armory.

Walls lined with assault rifles, tactical gear, and surveillance monitors glowed in the blue light. Hanging in the center was a modified tactical vest, and next to it, a wheelchair that looked nothing like the one she was sitting in.

This one was matte black, made of reinforced carbon fiber. The tires were solid run-flats. The frame housed hidden compartments for ammunition and compact explosives. It was silent, fast, and lethal.

Alex stripped off her oversized army jacket, revealing arms defined by corded muscle. She transferred herself from the “civilian” chair to the “war” chair.

She checked the time. 19:00 hours.

“Playtime is over,” she whispered to the empty room.

CHAPTER 4: THE WOLF IN THE FOLD

 

The Old Lumber Mill sat on the edge of the Bitterroot River, a rotting skeleton of industry that had been abandoned for twenty years. It was a maze of rusted corrugated metal, towering stacks of rotting wood, and shadows deep enough to hide an army.

It was the perfect place for a ghost.

Fog had rolled in off the river, thick and cold. It muffled the sound of the wind and, more importantly, the sound of movement.

At 23:00 hours, the perimeter was crawling with Red Dragons.

Alex was already inside.

She had infiltrated an hour ago, using an old drainage pipe that the blueprints said was too small for a person. They were wrong. It was too small for a walking person. But for someone who could lay flat on a low-profile dolly and pull themselves through with just their arms, it was a highway.

Now, she was positioned on the mezzanine level of the main processing warehouse. She was tucked behind a rusted industrial saw, her matte-black wheelchair virtually invisible in the gloom.

From her vantage point, she could see everything.

Below, floodlights cut through the dusty air. About twenty bikers were patrolling the floor. They were armed—not with their usual pistols and knives, but with military-grade hardware. AR-15s, tactical shotguns.

Where did a motorcycle club get this kind of gear? Alex wondered, adjusting the scope on her suppressed MP5 submachine gun.

She tapped her earpiece. “Cooper. I have eyes on the floor. Twenty hostiles. Heavy weapons. This isn’t a drug deal. This is an arms exchange.”

Cooper’s voice crackled in her ear, tense. “Do you see the buyer?”

“Not yet. But Marcus is here. He’s looking nervous.”

Down below, Marcus was pacing. He was shouting orders, checking his watch every thirty seconds. He looked different than he had in the diner. The arrogance was replaced by a frantic energy. He was swimming with sharks tonight, and he knew it.

“Where is he?” Marcus shouted at Crusher. “He said midnight!”

“He’s coming, boss. The scout saw the SUV two miles out.”

A massive metal roll-up door groaned open. The sound echoed like a dying beast throughout the cavernous warehouse.

Two black armored SUVs rolled in, flanking a sleek Mercedes sedan. The vehicles stopped in the center of the room. The bikers tightened their grip on their weapons.

The door of the Mercedes opened.

A man stepped out. He was in his fifties, wearing a charcoal suit that cost more than the entire town of Pine Valley. He moved with a stiff, military precision. He had a scar running down the left side of his neck.

Alex froze. She zoomed in with her scope.

It can’t be.

“Cooper,” Alex whispered, her blood running cold. “Run facial rec on the target. Robert Sullivan. Ex-Army Colonel. Dishonorable discharge in 2018.”

“Sullivan?” Cooper gasped. “He’s a ghost. Intelligence has had him dead for two years.”

“He’s not dead,” Alex said, her crosshairs settling on Sullivan’s chest. “He’s selling out his country.”

Sullivan didn’t look at the bikers. He looked at the crates stacked against the wall. “Open them,” he commanded. His voice carried effortlessly, the voice of a man used to being obeyed.

Marcus signaled his men. They pried open the wooden crates.

Inside, resting on straw packing material, were shoulder-fired missile launchers. Javelins. Stolen US military property capable of taking out a tank from a mile away.

“Jesus,” Cooper whispered over the comms. “Winters, do not engage. I repeat, do not engage. If Sullivan is the supplier, this goes way above the Red Dragons. We need to track the buyers.”

“There’s a problem, Cooper,” Alex said, scanning the other side of the warehouse.

“What?”

“The buyers are already here. And they aren’t happy.”

From the shadows of the loading dock, a third group emerged. They didn’t arrive in cars. They had been waiting.

They were cartel. Alex recognized the tattoos, the distinct lack of discipline in their formation compared to soldiers, but the sheer brutality in their body language.

“Colonel,” the Cartel leader called out, stepping into the light. “You promised us exclusive rights. Why do I see these… leather-wearing clowns touching my merchandise?”

Marcus bristled. “Clowns? Who the hell are you calling—”

“Silence,” Sullivan snapped. He looked between the bikers and the Cartel. “The Dragons are merely transport. You pay me, they drive the trucks to the border. That was the deal.”

“The deal has changed,” the Cartel leader said, raising a gold-plated 1911 pistol. “We take the weapons. We take the trucks. And we leave the bikers here to rot.”

The tension in the room spiked. Thirty guns were raised instantly. It was a Mexican standoff, three ways.

Alex smiled in the darkness.

“Chaos,” she whispered. “My favorite tactical environment.”

She adjusted her position. Her wheelchair made zero sound. She wasn’t trapped in the chair; the chair was a mobile gun turret. She had stability, a low center of gravity, and the element of total surprise.

“Cooper, the deal is breaking down. I’m going to stir the pot.”

“Winters, stand down! That’s an order!”

Alex reached into the pouch on the side of her wheel and pulled out a flashbang grenade.

“Sorry, Cooper. Can’t hear you. My reception is terrible in here.”

She pulled the pin.

CHAPTER 5: FIRST BLOOD

 

Alex held the flashbang for two seconds—cooking it—before tossing it.

She didn’t throw it at the Cartel. She didn’t throw it at Sullivan. She threw it directly into the center of the Red Dragons.

The canister clinked against the concrete floor.

“Grenade!” Crusher screamed.

BOOM.

The flash was blinding, a miniature sun detonating in the gloom. The sound was a physical blow, rupturing eardrums and shattering the fragile standoff.

Panic erupted.

The Cartel thought the bikers had attacked. The bikers thought the Cartel had attacked. Sullivan’s bodyguards just started shooting at everyone.

In seconds, the warehouse became a war zone. Muzzle flashes strobed like a disco from hell. Bullets sparked off the machinery, ripping through wood and flesh alike.

Alex didn’t fire yet. She waited.

She watched the patterns. The Cartel took cover behind the SUVs. The bikers scrambled behind the lumber stacks. Sullivan and his men were retreating toward the back office, trying to stay out of the crossfire.

“Now,” Alex whispered.

She rolled out from behind the saw. She moved fast, her hands blurring on the rims of her wheels. She accelerated down the metal ramp, picking up speed.

She hit the ground floor moving at fifteen miles per hour.

A cartel soldier popped up from behind a crate, aiming at a biker. He never saw Alex. She glided past him, her MP5 barking twice. Thwip-thwip. Suppressed shots.

The soldier crumpled, two rounds in his leg. He screamed, adding to the cacophony.

Alex didn’t stop. She spun the chair 180 degrees, drifting like a rally car, and faced the bikers.

Razer was there, firing his revolver blindly.

Alex raised her weapon. She didn’t aim for the kill. She aimed for the terror.

She put a round through the engine block of the nearest motorcycle. Gasoline ignited. A fireball erupted, illuminating the warehouse in stark orange light.

“Who is that?!” Marcus screamed, ducking as debris rained down. “Is that the Feds?!”

“It’s a ghost!” one of the bikers yelled, pointing at the fleeting shadow zipping between the aisles.

They couldn’t track her. They were looking for a standing man. They were looking for a SWAT team moving in formation. They weren’t looking for a silhouette three feet off the ground, moving faster than a sprinting man, turning on a dime.

Alex headed for the power box on the far wall.

“Lights out, boys,” she muttered.

She fired three rounds into the circuit breaker.

Sparks showered down, and the floodlights died. The warehouse plunged into near-total darkness, lit only by the burning motorcycle and the erratic flashes of gunfire.

For the untrained criminals, the darkness was terrifying. They were blind.

For Alex, who pulled down her night-vision goggles with a mechanical click, the world turned into a crisp, green killing field.

She could see the heat signatures. She could see the fear.

She rolled silently up behind Crusher, who was spinning in circles, waving his shotgun.

“Come out and fight like a man!” he roared into the dark.

Alex tapped the back of his knee with the muzzle of her gun.

“I’m not a man, Crusher,” she whispered, her voice cutting through the ringing in his ears.

He spun around, aiming high. He aimed at where a head should be. But there was nothing there.

Alex jammed her baton into his solar plexus. The air rushed out of his lungs. He bent double. As his face came down to her level, she delivered a savage uppercut with her reinforced glove.

Crusher hit the floor, unconscious.

Alex moved on. She was painting a masterpiece of dismantling. She broke knees. She dislocated shoulders. She fired non-lethal rounds into soft tissue. She wasn’t just neutralizing them; she was systematically taking apart their ability to fight.

But then, she saw it.

Through her night vision, she saw Sullivan slipping out a side door. He was carrying a briefcase. The launch codes. The money. The list of buyers.

He was getting away.

And blocking her path to the door was the Cartel leader, armed with an assault rifle, spraying bullets in a wide arc, blocking the aisle.

Alex checked her ammo. Half a mag left.

She looked at the ramp leading up to the second level. It was steep. Risky. But if she hit it with enough speed…

“Cooper,” Alex grunted, pushing her wheels to the limit, her biceps burning. “I’m pursuing the target. I’m going airborne.”

“You’re going what?”

Alex hit the ramp. She launched into the air, a flying shadow of retribution.

As she soared over the confused Cartel leader’s head, time seemed to stop. She looked down at him. He looked up, his eyes widening in disbelief as he saw the wheelchair flying above him.

Alex landed hard on the metal walkway above, the shock absorbers groaning but holding. She didn’t lose momentum. She wheeled straight for the exit above Sullivan.

The hunt was on. And for the first time in years, Alex felt truly alive.

CHAPTER 6: THE SUMMIT OF SHADOWS

 

The metal walkway rattled beneath my wheels as I chased Sullivan. My arms burned with lactic acid, every push of the rims sending a jolt of fire through my shoulders. But pain was just information. It told me I was still alive.

Sullivan had a head start, but he was running on fear. I was running on three years of patient, concentrated rage.

He burst through the rooftop access door, stumbling into the cold night air. I followed seconds later, skidding onto the gravel-covered roof of the lumber mill.

The wind was howling up here. Fifty feet below, the Bitterroot River churned, black and icy. Above, the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of an approaching helicopter cut through the night.

“You’re too late!” Sullivan screamed over the roar of the rotors. He was standing near the edge, waving a strobe light to guide the bird in. “You think you can stop this? You’re nothing! Just a broken soldier playing hero!”

He raised his pistol. He didn’t have to aim carefully; I was a sitting duck in the open.

Or so he thought.

I slammed my hand on the left brake, spinning the chair violently to the side just as he fired. The bullet sparked off the gravel where my chest had been a millisecond before.

“Cooper!” I yelled into the comms. “Helicopter inbound! I need air support!”

“Negative, Winters! Nearest birds are ten minutes out. You’re on your own!”

Of course I was.

The black helicopter, an unmarked civilian model, banked hard and hovered over the roof. A side door slid open, and a mercenary leaned out with an assault rifle, providing cover for Sullivan.

I was pinned. Sullivan was laughing, clutching the briefcase to his chest. He turned to run toward the skid of the hovering chopper.

He was going to get away. After three years of undercover hell, drinking bad coffee, taking insults from low-level thugs, and pretending to be weak… he was going to fly away.

No.

I looked at the distance. Fifty yards. Rough gravel.

I looked at my chair. Carbon fiber. Reinforced frame.

I looked at Sullivan.

I didn’t reach for my gun. I reached for the speed dial on my chair’s electric assist motor—a modification I hadn’t used yet. I cranked it to MAX.

“Hey, Colonel!” I screamed.

Sullivan turned back, one foot on the helicopter skid.

“Catch.”

I didn’t throw anything. I threw myself.

I gripped the push-rims and drove forward with everything I had. The electric motor whined, adding torque to my push. I accelerated like a bullet train. Ten miles per hour. Fifteen. Twenty.

The mercenary in the helicopter saw me coming. He hesitated. It was absurd. A wheelchair charging a helicopter? It didn’t make sense. That hesitation cost him.

Bullets chewed up the roof behind me, but I was moving too fast. I hit a small ventilation ramp near the edge of the roof.

I launched.

For a second, I was flying. Gravity released its hold. The river was below me, the moon was above me, and the look of absolute horror on Sullivan’s face was right in front of me.

I didn’t aim for the landing skid. I aimed for him.

CHAPTER 7: GRAVITY IS A WEAPON

 

The impact was brutal.

My chair smashed into Sullivan’s chest with the force of a wrecking ball. The collision knocked him backward, off the helicopter skid and onto the hard gravel roof.

I tumbled out of the chair, hitting the ground hard. My breath left me in a painful whoosh. The wheelchair, now a twisted hunk of metal, skidded away into the darkness.

The helicopter pilot, realizing the payload was compromised and the situation was FUBAR, didn’t stick around. The engine roared, and the bird peeled away, disappearing into the night sky.

Leaving us alone.

Sullivan was groaning, trying to crawl toward his gun which had skittered a few feet away.

I was on my stomach. My legs were dead weight, anchoring me to the spot. I had no chair. I had no cover.

Sullivan grabbed his pistol. He rolled onto his back, his face a mask of bloody fury. He aimed at me.

“You stupid bitch,” he wheezed. “You ruined everything.”

I looked him in the eye. I didn’t try to crawl away.

“I didn’t ruin it, Colonel,” I said, my voice steady. “I fixed it.”

He pulled the trigger.

Click.

His eyes widened. He pulled it again. Click.

“Magazine disconnect,” I said, pulling my Sig Sauer from my waistband. “When I hit you, the impact jarred the mag release. You dropped your clip about ten feet back.”

Sullivan stared at his useless gun, then at me.

“Who are you?” he whispered. “You’re not just some FBI grunt.”

I dragged myself up onto my elbows, leveling my weapon at his heart.

“You remember the Kandahar raid in 2019? The one where an IED took out a convoy, and one Marine sniper held off thirty insurgents for six hours while bleeding out?”

Sullivan’s face went pale. “That… that was a myth. That soldier died.”

“She didn’t die,” I said cold. “She just lost her legs. And she got really, really angry.”

I saw the fight leave him. He slumped back against a vent pipe, defeated.

“The briefcase,” I commanded. “Slide it over.”

He pushed it toward me. “It won’t matter. The network is too big. The Red Dragons… the Cartel… they’ll come for you.”

“Let them come,” I said, checking the chamber of my gun. “I’m not hiding anymore.”

Suddenly, the roof access door burst open.

“Federal Agents! Drop the weapon!”

A tactical team swarmed the roof, flashlights blinding me. Cooper was in the lead. He saw Sullivan zip-tied (I had crawled over and done it while he was in shock) and me lying on the gravel, battered but breathing.

“Winters,” Cooper breathed, lowering his rifle. “You crazy son of a…”

“I secured the package, Cooper,” I said, resting my head on the cold stones. “Now, do me a favor.”

“Anything.”

“Get me a new set of wheels. I have a date with a waitress.”

CHAPTER 8: SUNRISE IN PINE VALLEY

 

The sun came up over Pine Valley like an apology for the night before. The sky was a brilliant, bruised purple, turning into gold.

The Old Lumber Mill was a crime scene. Dozens of FBI SUVs, local police cruisers, and ATF trucks filled the lot. The surviving Red Dragons were being marched out in handcuffs, looking significantly less tough than they had yesterday.

Marcus Wilson was among them. He had a broken nose and a limp. As the Marshals walked him past the ambulance, he stopped.

He saw me.

I was sitting on the back of an ambulance, a blanket draped over my shoulders. Cooper had found me a spare wheelchair—a standard hospital model, clunky and slow, but it worked.

Marcus stared. He looked at the chaos around us, the destroyed warehouse, the helicopter reports coming over the radio. Then he looked at the “helpless” woman he had tipped over in the diner.

“You,” he croaked. “It was you.”

I took a sip of lukewarm coffee from a Styrofoam cup.

“I told you, Marcus,” I said, my voice raspy but loud enough for him to hear. “Gravity is a bitch.”

He was shoved into the back of a paddy wagon, the realization that he had been beaten by the very person he mocked written all over his face.

“Alex?”

I turned. Jenny was standing at the police barricade. She looked terrified, still wearing her coat from the night before. She had driven halfway to Kalispell before turning around when she saw the explosions in the distance.

“Let her through,” I told the officer.

Jenny ran over, ducking under the yellow tape. She stopped a few feet away, looking at the gun on my hip, the tactical vest over my torn clothes, the soot on my face.

“You didn’t go to Canada,” she said softly.

“No,” I smiled, tiredly. “I had work to do.”

“Is it… is it over?”

I looked at the briefcase being loaded into Cooper’s armored truck. I looked at the town of Pine Valley, waking up to the news that their local motorcycle club was actually an international arms ring.

“For now,” I said.

“So, who are you really?” Jenny asked. “Are you Alex Winters? Or was that just a lie?”

I looked down at my legs. The part of me that everyone saw first. The part that made them look away.

“Alex Winters is real,” I said. “The wheelchair is real. The pain is real. The only lie, Jenny, was that I was weak.”

Cooper walked over, holding a secure phone.

“Director wants a word, Alex. Says they have a new assignment. Something in Miami. Needs a low profile.”

I looked at the phone. Then I looked at the diner down the road.

“Tell him to wait,” I said. “I haven’t finished my coffee.”

I wheeled myself toward the rising sun, the hospital chair squeaking slightly. The town was safe. The bad guys were in chains. And for the first time in three years, when people looked at me, they wouldn’t see a victim.

They would see the storm.

THE END.