Eliza tried to move her right arm. A sharp, stabbing pain shot through her shoulder. The bone was fractured.
A massive wave of foreign memories crashed into her brain. Jeri's fake smile, the cold stares of the Wyatt family, the humiliation at school. The images flashed like a high-speed projector.
Eliza clenched her jaw. She forced the dizziness down, compartmentalizing the memories of the original owner. She looked down at her pale, trembling hands—hands that had never held a gun or snapped a neck. For a brief, surreal second, the name 'Lin' echoed like a ghost from a past life, distant and unreal. The top commander was dead. But in this fragile, bleeding shell, Eliza Wyatt was very much alive.
At the top of the stairs, Spike lit a cigarette. He jerked his chin at Cletus, ordering him to go down and strip the corpse of anything valuable.
Cletus splashed down the wet steps, muttering curses under his breath. He stopped next to Eliza's body.
He crouched down. He reached out his dirty hand to rip the silver necklace from Eliza's throat.
The moment his fingers brushed her cold skin, the dead girl moved.
Eliza's uninjured left hand shot out like a striking viper. Her fingers locked onto Cletus's wrist, pressing perfectly on the pulse point to numb his arm. He was off-balance, crouching, expecting a corpse—not a counterattack. His body was already in the worst possible position to defend himself.
Cletus froze. Before he could even open his mouth to yell, Eliza used his arm as leverage and thrust her hips upward.
She wrapped both her legs tightly around Cletus's neck. Using the dead weight of her own body, she twisted violently to the right. It was a textbook ground-fighting submission, executed with the precision of someone who had drilled it ten thousand times.
A crisp, sickening crack echoed in the stairwell. Cletus's cervical spine snapped. He collapsed onto her, dead before he hit the ground.
Spike and Dwayne heard the noise from above. They yelled Cletus's name, their voices tight with sudden panic.
Eliza shoved the heavy corpse off her. She reached into Cletus's pocket and pulled out his switchblade. She flicked it open with her thumb.
She couldn't outrun them with a broken ankle and fractured ribs. She couldn't overpower two armed men with one working arm. So she wouldn't fight. She would ambush.
She ignored the screaming pain in her ribs and her broken arm. She pressed her back flat against the concrete load-bearing pillar beneath the stairs, merging with the shadows.
Spike drew his knife. He and Dwayne crept down the stairs, their eyes wide with fear.
They saw Cletus's body lying in the bloody water. Both men gasped, cursing and looking wildly around the empty landing.
Dwayne turned his back to the pillar. Eliza launched herself from the darkness like a hunting leopard.
She clamped her left hand over Dwayne's mouth. Her right hand drove the switchblade across his throat without a millisecond of hesitation.
Hot blood sprayed over her hand. Eliza coldly shoved Dwayne's dying body forward, sending him crashing into Spike to block his line of sight.
Spike lost his mind with terror. He swung his knife wildly in the air, screaming.
Eliza dropped into a low slide, dodging the frantic blade. She slammed the heavy handle of her switchblade directly into the side of Spike's knee joint.
Spike shrieked and dropped to his knees.
Eliza flipped her knife in a reverse grip. She slashed upward, cleanly severing the tendons in his right wrist. His knife clattered to the concrete.
Spike clutched his bleeding wrist, howling in the rain. He looked up at Eliza as if he were staring at a demon from hell.
Eliza stood up. She looked down at him. There was zero human warmth in her eyes, only the cold calculation of a soldier.
She ripped the dry jacket off Cletus's corpse. She used her teeth and her left hand to tie her fractured right arm tightly against her torso, immobilizing the shattered shoulder.
The faint wail of police sirens drifted through the storm. Someone in the nearby apartments had called the cops.
Eliza knew this weak body was failing. She had to evacuate immediately.
She stepped over Spike's trembling body. She walked out into the freezing rain without looking back.
The rain washed the blood from her pale face. She looked up at the winding mountain road in the distance. The fire of revenge burned quietly in her chest.
