Chapter 4
I stared at the spot where the tiny flicker of orange light had been. The intense magnification of my scope combined with the heavy heat mirage made everything look like a blurry, underwater painting.
I couldn’t tell if the candle was still lit. I couldn’t tell if the bullet had hit the dirt, the rock, or vanished into thin air.
The silence on the firing line stretched out. It was heavy, suffocating, and thick with anticipation.
Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.
I slowly pulled my eye away from the scope. My neck ached. My shoulder was already bruising.
“Well?” one of the operators finally whispered.
Vance didn’t answer. He was frozen behind his spotting scope, his thick fingers turning the focus dial a fraction of a millimeter.
“Vance,” another man said, stepping closer. “Did she splash in the dirt? Where was the impact?”
Vance slowly pulled his face away from the eyepiece. He looked pale. The smug, arrogant grin that had been plastered across his face just minutes ago was completely gone.
He looked down at me. His eyes were wide, blinking rapidly as if he couldn’t process the visual information his brain was receiving.
“Miller,” Vance barked into his shoulder radio, his voice cracking slightly. “Miller, report. What’s the status of the target?”
Static hissed through the radio speaker on his tactical vest.
“Miller, do you copy?” Vance demanded, his voice louder this time, tinged with a strange panic. “Give me a goddamn damage assessment on that ridge.”
More static. Then, the sound of a heavy breath.
“Boss,” Miller’s voice finally crackled over the radio. He sounded out of breath. He sounded terrified.
“I’m here, Miller. What do you see? Did she hit the rock? Did the wind blow the candle out?”
“Boss… the candle isn’t blown out,” Miller said slowly.
Vance let out a harsh, barking laugh of relief. “I knew it. I told you. A mile and a half? It’s physically impossible. She probably missed the entire mountain—”
“Boss, you’re not listening,” Miller’s voice cut through the radio, sharp and urgent.
Vance stopped laughing. “What?”
“The candle isn’t blown out,” Miller repeated, the radio hissing with background wind. “The candle is gone.”
Vance frowned, staring at the radio on his chest. “What do you mean, gone? Like it fell off the rock?”
“No,” Miller said. His voice was trembling. “I mean it’s vaporized. The bullet didn’t just clip the wick. It didn’t just blow out the flame. The round hit dead center of the wax cylinder.”
A collective gasp echoed across the firing line. Several operators took a step back, staring at me as if I were a ghost.
“There’s nothing left but a smear of white wax on the granite,” Miller continued, his voice echoing loudly in the quiet desert air. “She didn’t just hit the target, Vance. She threaded the needle. She split the atom. It’s a perfect, dead-center impact.”
The radio clicked off.
The silence that followed was absolute.
It was the kind of silence you only hear in a graveyard, or in the seconds immediately following a massive explosion.
Ten of the most elite, highly trained, heavily armed tier-one operators in the United States military were standing dead still, completely paralyzed by what they had just witnessed.
They were looking at me.
But they weren’t looking at a crippled charity case anymore. They weren’t looking at a woman with broken hands.
They were looking at a monster. They were looking at a sniper who had just defied the laws of physics, atmospheric pressure, and human biology.
I didn’t smile. I didn’t celebrate.
I just felt tired. So incredibly tired.
I reached over with my left hand and flipped the toggle switch on the side of my mechanical brace.
The low hum of the micro-hydraulics died instantly.
The moment the power was cut, the brutal reality of my nerve damage flooded back into my system.
It started as a dull ache in my elbow, and within milliseconds, it erupted into a violent, agonizing tremor.
My right hand instantly began to shake uncontrollably. My fingers spasmed against the cold metal of the rifle. The sudden loss of stability was so jarring that my hand slammed against the shooting mat, kicking up a small puff of dust.
Several operators flinched, instinctively reaching out as if to help me.
“Don’t,” I snapped, my voice harsh and guttural.
They froze, their hands hovering in the air.
I struggled to push myself up off the mat. It was an ugly, ungraceful movement. My right arm was completely useless, jerking and vibrating wildly at my side. I had to use my left arm to clumsily heave my torso upright, rolling onto my knees before finally standing up.
The Nevada wind bit through my jacket, chilling the sweat that had pooled on the back of my neck.
