The security footage would later show 8.3 seconds. That’s all it took for Lysandra Voss to dismantle five Division 1 football recruits using nothing but a Happy Meal tray and physics. But the McDonald’s manager already knew what was coming when he saw them corner her in the back booth, which explained why his hand was already on the phone before the first body hit the floor.

Lysandra sat perfectly still as French fries scattered like confetti across the cracked lenolium. A strawberry milkshake painting abstract art on the ceiling tiles above. Caspian Sterling lay unconscious at her feet, his nose pushed back at an angle that would require reconstructive surgery. The quarterback, who’d thrown 43 touchdown passes last season, couldn’t throw anything now except involuntary twitches as his nervous system rebooted.
3 weeks earlier, Lysandra had walked through Riverside Academyy’s Gothic archways carrying a leather satchel that cost more than most cars in the student parking lot.

Her platinum blonde hair caught the September sunlight in a way that made the cheer squad stop mid practice to stare. At 5’4 in, she moved with the fluid grace of a ballet dancer, which was the cover story her handlers had carefully crafted. Former student at the Prague Conservatory, they’d told the admissions office.

Father worked in diplomatic services. Mother deceased. Needed a fresh start after some vague European scandal involving leaked exam papers. Nobody needed to know that Lysandra’s father had actually spent 15 years eliminating terrorist cells across Eastern Europe, or that the scandal involved three dead assassins who tried to grab her outside a Vienna coffee shop when she was 14.

The exam paper story was much more believable than the truth, that she’d broken one attacker’s arm in four places before her handler arrived to clean up the mess. The Riverside Academy admissions committee had been impressed by her perfect grades, her fluency in seven languages, and the substantial donation that accompanied her application.

They’d assigned her to the honors dormatory, given her a locker in the main hallway, and assumed she’d integrate seamlessly into their ecosystem of privilege and predetermined futures. What they hadn’t noticed during her campus tour was how her eyes cataloged every exit, every camera blind spot, every potential weapon disguised as everyday school supplies.

 They missed the way she tested the lock on her assigned locker three times, checking for weaknesses. They didn’t see her scout the library’s layout with the precision of someone planning an escape route, or notice how she chose a lunch table with perfect sightelines to every entrance. The library would become her sanctuary.

 Three floors of mahogany shelves and leather bound books that smelled like old money and older secrets. She’d claimed a corner table on the second floor back to the wall with clear views of both staircases and the emergency exit hidden behind a portrait of the school’s founder. Most students assumed she chose that spot for the natural light.

 They didn’t realize she was following protocol drilled into her since childhood. Never sit with your back exposed. Never trust a room with only one exit. Never assume you’re safe just because the walls are decorated with Ivy League acceptance letters. Lysandra’s first week passed without incident.

 She attended classes, took notes and handwriting so perfect it looked printed, and politely declined every social invitation with excuses about jet lag and settling in. The other students wrote her off as another international student struggling with American social dynamics. Beautiful but boring. worth looking at but not worth pursuing.

 That assessment changed when Caspian Sterling noticed her. Standing 6’2 in with the kind of bone structure that belonged on magazine covers rather than football fields, Caspian ruled Riverside Academy with with the casual cruelty of someone who’d never heard the word no spoken with genuine conviction.

 His father, Senator William Sterling, had graduated from Riverside 30 years ago and still donated enough money annually to ensure his son’s transgressions were treated as youthful enthusiasm rather than warning signs. Caspian collected things, vintage cars, limited edition watches, and beautiful girls who made the mistake of catching his attention.

 He had a system refined over four years of practice. First came the charm offensive. Designer flowers delivered to their lockers, invitations to exclusive parties, promises of social elevation. When that failed, and it rarely did, came phase two, isolation. Suddenly, study groups were full, lunch tables mysteriously had no empty seats, and teachers developed selective blindness to raised hands.

 Most girls cracked within a week, accepting a date just to make their lives bearable again. The few who held out longer faced phase three, which Caspian called pressure testing. That’s when his crew got involved. The crew consisted of four carefully selected players from the football team.

 Each chosen for specific qualities that complemented Caspian’s particular brand of psychological warfare. Thaddius Morrison, nicknamed Tank for obvious reasons, stood 6’5 in and weighed 280 lbs of muscle mass that had already secured him a full ride to Alabama. His role was simple intimidation, using his size to make people feel small, helpless, trapped.

 Kieran Lynch played safety on the field and enforcer off it. Known for hits that technically stayed within the rules, but somehow always resulted in injuries. He had a gift for making violence look accidental, a skill he’d perfected through three years of avoiding suspension despite leaving a trail of bruised ribs and twisted ankles in his wake. Dashel Park brought connections rather than muscle.

 His father owned 40% of Riverside Academyy’s board seats and had enough blackmail material on the rest to ensure unanimous votes on any issue he cared about. Dashel’s presence meant institutional protection, the knowledge that complaints would disappear into administrative black holes. Magnus Crawford completed the group, and he was perhaps the most dangerous despite being the smallest at barely 6 ft tall.

 While the others used physical intimidation, Magnus specialized in psychological destruction. His juvenile records were sealed, but whispers followed him through the hallways about a middle school incident involving a teacher who’d failed him and subsequently had a nervous breakdown after receiving dozens of untraceable messages detailing her every movement for 3 months straight.

 Together, they formed what other students privately called the Riverside 5, though never within earshot. They moved through campus like apex predators, taking what they wanted, destroying what bored them, protected by money, connections, and the administration’s willful blindness. Lysandra appeared on their radar during her second week when she made the mistake of being beautiful, while walking past their table in the dining hall.

 Caspian’s eyes tracked her movement with the focus of a hunter spotting prey, already calculating angles of approach, methods of isolation, timelines for conquest. New girl, Tank observed unnecessarily, his voice rumbling like distant thunder. Exchange student, Dashel added, already pulling up her information on his phone through channels that shouldn’t have been accessible to students.

 Lysandra Voss, Prague. Father, some kind of diplomat, clean academic record, no social media presence. That last detail made Magnus lean forward with interest. Everyone had social media. The absence of it suggested either extreme privacy consciousness or something worth hiding. Either possibility intrigued him.

 “She’s mine,” Caspian declared with the casual certainty of someone calling dibs on the last slice of pizza. as if Lysandra’s autonomy was just a minor detail to be negotiated later. The campaign began the next morning with a bouquet of white orchids delivered to her locker, accompanied by a card written in Caspian’s practiced calligraphy, inviting her to coffee at the exclusive cafe in town that didn’t even have a sign, just a reputation for serving senators and celebrities. Lysandra read the card once, then dropped it in the

trash without expression, leaving the expensive flowers wilting in the hallway. Caspian, watching from his usual corner, felt something he rarely experience. Genuine surprise. Girls didn’t throw away his invitations. They framed them, posted about them, used them as social currency to elevate their status.

 This required recalibration. Phase 1 continued for 3 days. more flowers. Each arrangement more elaborate than the last. An invitation to his father’s campaign fundraiser where she could network with future presidents. Box seats at the opera his mother patronized. Each offering was politely declined or simply ignored.

 Lysandra moving through her routine as if Caspian Sterling didn’t exist. By Thursday, his crew was starting to notice. Whispers spread through the football team about Caspian losing his touch. Jokes made in hush tones about the ice princess who couldn’t be melted.

 His reputation, carefully maintained through four years of calculated victories, was developing cracks. “Time for phase two,” he announced Friday morning, his jaw tight with the kind of anger that preceded bad decisions. The isolation began subtly. Lysandra arrived at her usual library table to find it occupied by study groups that seemed to multiply whenever she approached.

 The computer labs were suddenly fully booked whenever she needed to print assignments. Her name mysteriously disappeared from the signup sheet for the advanced physics lab, forcing her to work during lunch periods when the room was empty. She adapted without complaint, eating alone in empty classrooms, studying in the gaps between occupied spaces, completing her work with the same methodical precision that had kept her alive through three assassination attempts and seven country relocations.

 If anything, the isolation felt familiar, comfortable even. She’d been alone since her mother’s death when she was nine. Her father’s work ensuring they never stayed anywhere long enough to form real connections. The library became her primary refuge, especially during the quiet hours between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m. when most students were at sports practice or club meetings.

 She’d spread her materials across the corner table, creating a fortress of textbooks and notebooks that discouraged approach while she worked through assignments that would have challenged graduate students. It was during one of these study sessions that phase three began. The library was nearly empty, just Lysandra at her table and a few scattered students on the first floor.

 She was deep in a calculus problem when shadows fell across her work. All five of them stood around her table, positioning themselves to block every exit route, or so they thought. Studying hard, Caspian asked with false friendliness, pulling out the chair directly across from her and sitting down uninvited.

 The others remained standing, Tank behind her left shoulder, Kieran at her right, Dashel blocking the path to the main stairs. Magnus positioned near the emergency exit she’d scouted on her first day. Lysandra’s handstilled on her pencil, but she didn’t look up. The library has a no distraction policy. We’re not a distraction.

 Caspian leaned forward, his cologne aggressive and expensive, designed to overwhelm rather than attract. We’re an opportunity. See, you’re new here. So, you don’t understand how things work. This school runs on relationships, connections, the right friends, opening the right doors. She finally raised her eyes, meeting his gaze with the kind of steady assessment that made him unconsciously lean back.

 I understand perfectly. You want something I’m not interested in providing, and you’re used to getting what you want through intimidation disguised as generosity. Tank made a sound that might have been surprise or admiration, quickly covered by a cough when Caspian shot him a glare.

 “You think you’re smart?” Caspian’s voice dropped to what he considered his dangerous register, the one that had made freshmen cry and transferred students reconsider their enrollment. “But smart doesn’t mean much here. My father owns judges. My mother controls the school board. and I decide who succeeds and who disappears at Riverside. Fascinating. Lysandra returned to her calculus problem.

Are you finished? This is due tomorrow. The dismissal was so complete, so casual that for a moment, nobody moved. In 4 years, no one had ever simply ignored Caspian Sterling when he was actively threatening them. They argued, they cried, they negotiated, but they never acted like he was just background noise.

 Magnus stepped closer, interested in this new psychological profile. You’re not scared. That’s unusual. Most people understand self-preservation by now. Lysandra set down her pencil with deliberate precision and looked at each of them in turn, her gaze lingering just long enough to make them uncomfortable. Fear requires a threat.

 You’re five teenage boys who’ve mistaken inherited power for personal strength. That’s not threatening. It’s just sad. Watching her sit alone in that library, surrounded by five guys twice her size, ignoring every exit they’d blocked. What would you have done? Would you have tried to run or stood your ground? Comment below.

 I genuinely want to know your escape plan. Because what Lysandra did next, nobody saw coming. She began packing her materials with unhurried movements, placing each book in her bag with the same care someone might use handling explosives. The boys exchanged glances, uncertain whether they’d won or lost this encounter. You can’t leave.

 Dashel moved to block her path more obviously. Caspian isn’t done talking. Actually, Lysandra stood, her bag over one shoulder. He is. She walked directly toward Dashel, not aggressively, just with the absolute certainty that he would move. The moment stretched, tension building as she got closer, close enough that he could smell her shampoo, something expensive and vaguely European.

At the last second, his nerve broke and he stepped aside. Later, he’d tell himself it was strategic. Not wanting to be the one to initiate physical contact that could be reported. Lysandra walked past him without acknowledgement, her footsteps steady on the library’s hardwood floors. Behind her, Caspian Caspian’s face had turned an interesting shade of red that suggested phase 4 was about to be invented specifically for her. The weekend passed with deceptive calm. Lysandra spent Saturday at the public

library downtown, far from Riverside sphere of influence, working through assignments and maintaining her perfect acade academic record. Sunday found her at the gym at 5:00 a.m. moving through a workout routine that would have exhausted professional athletes, 2 hours of cardio, strength training, and flexibility work that kept her body ready for threats more serious than entitled teenagers.

 She didn’t see the photos Magnus was taking from his car in the parking lot. Documenting her routine with the patience of someone who understood that information was more valuable than muscle. He noted the way she checked her surroundings every 30 seconds. The defensive positioning of her water bottle and towel.

 The fact that she never used headphones despite being alone. These weren’t the habits of a diplomat’s daughter worried about exam scores. Monday arrived with the kind of crisp autumn air that made everything feel sharper, more defined. Lysandra walked through Riverside’s gates at 7:45 a.m., 15 minutes before first period.

 Her routine as precise as everything else about her carefully constructed cover identity. She didn’t notice the anticipation crackling through the student body. The way conversations stopped when she passed, the phones already recording in case something memorable happened. The Riverside 5 had spent the weekend planning something special, and word had spread through carefully orchestrated leaks that today would be entertaining.

 The first sign of escalation came during second period chemistry when Lysandra opened her textbook to find photos tucked between the pages. Not threatening exactly, just unsettling. Pictures of her at the public library, at the gym, walking to her dormatory, taken from distances that suggested surveillance rather than coincidence. Each photo had a single word written on the back in Caspian’s distinctive handwriting.

 You’re never really alone. Beautiful. She examined each photo with clinical detachment, noting angles, timestamps visible in some shots, the reflection in a window that revealed Magnus’s distinctive watch. Then she placed them in her bag, evidence for a file that was growing thicker by the day. Lunch brought the next escalation.

 The cafeteria was packed, every table occupied by the complex social hierarchy that governed Riverside’s ecosystem. Lysandra took her usual tray, a salad she’d make last through the period, and headed for an empty table in the corner. She’d barely sat down when Tank appeared, his massive frame blocking out the overhead lights.

 “This table’s taken,” he rumbled, despite the obvious absence of any other occupants or belongings. “Then they’re very late,” Lysandra began eating with mechanical precision. Each bite calculated to provide maximum nutrition with minimum vulnerability.

 Tank reached for her tray with the casual confidence of someone who’d never had his actions challenged, intending to dump it in her lap in a recreation of countless humiliations he’d performed over the years. His hand never reached its target. Lysandra’s movement was so small, so subtle that witnesses would later disagree on what exactly happened. Her hand seemed to barely twitch, but suddenly Tank was stumbling backward, his wrist bent at an angle that sent shooting pains up his arm.

 He stared at her in shock, cradling his hand against his chest. “Oops,” Lysandra said mildly, continuing to eat as if nothing had happened. “You should watch where you’re reaching. These tables are closer together than they look.” The cafeteria had gone quiet. Hundreds of eyes watching this unprecedented scene. A girl a third of Tank’s size had just made him retreat without even standing up.

 Phones appeared like mushrooms after rain. Everyone wanting to capture whatever happened next. Tank looked around for support. Finding Caspian standing by the entrance with an expression that promised consequences. The quarterback made a small gesture, calling off whatever Tank had been planning to do next. This required reconsideration. Recalibration, a new approach. The rest of lunch passed intense silence.

Lysandra finishing her salad while Tank retreated to nurse his mysteriously injured wrist and pride. The video clips were already spreading through group chats tagged with variations of New Girl versus Tank and David and Goliath Riverside edition.

 But Caspian Sterling didn’t become king of Riverside by accepting defeat. He spent the afternoon adjusting his strategy, recognizing that Lysandra Voss wasn’t going to break from conventional pressure. She required something special, something that would crack her composure and reveal whatever she was hiding behind that perfect poker face. The plan crystallized during football practice while his teammates ran drills.

 and he stood on the sidelines, supposedly nursing a minor shoulder strain, but actually texting furiously with Magnus, who’d spent the afternoon diving deeper into Lysandra’s background through methods that definitely violated several federal laws. “Found something interesting,” Magnus reported when they met after practice in the parking lot. “There’s a gap in her records.

 6 months when she was 14, where she just doesn’t exist in any system. Then she reappears in Prague with a different last name before changing back to Voss. Witness protection, Kieran suggested, demonstrating more intelligence than his grades would suggest. Or something worse, Magnus. Magnus pulled up a news article from 3 years ago on his tablet.

 Vienna, three men found dead in an alley. Professional execution style kills. Same day, Lysandra’s gap starts. Caspian studied the article. his mind already working through possibilities. So, our ice princess has secrets. Perfect. Everyone breaks when their secrets are threatened with exposure.

 They agreed to meet Thursday after school at the McDonald’s just off campus, the one place where Riverside’s security cameras couldn’t reach, but where enough students hung out that any confrontation would have an audience. Caspian wanted witnesses to Lysandra’s humiliation.

 needed them to restore his reputation and demonstrate that nobody, regardless of their mysterious past, could challenge his authority. Wednesday passed with electric tension. The entire school aware that something was building between Caspian’s crew and the new girl, who’d somehow become the first person to successfully resist them. Bets were placed in secret group chats about how it would end, most favoring Lysandra’s inevitable capitulation or transfer to another school.

 She seemed oblivious to the speculation, maintaining her routine with robotic precision. Classes, library, gym, dormatory. If she noticed the increasing surveillance, the way Magnus’s car appeared wherever she went, she gave no indication. Her expression remained neutral, her interactions minimal, her focus absolute.

 Thursday arrived with gray skies that threatened rain, the kind of atmospheric foreshadowing that would have been rejected as too obvious in a movie script. Lysandra attended her classes as usual, took notes in her perfect handwriting, answered questions when called upon with responses that demonstrated understanding beyond the curriculum 

requirements. 3:47 p.m. found her at McDonald’s sitting in a back booth with a Happy Meal spread before her, the toy still in its plastic wrapper. Her attention seemingly focused on the chemistry homework she was completing between bites of chicken nuggets. The choice of meal was deliberate, calculated to project harmlessness, youth, vulnerability. Nobody who’d seen her disabled tank’s wrist with a twitch would believe it, but the other patrons, the uninitiated, would see exactly what she wanted them to see.

 The Riverside 5 entered at 3:52 p.m. Their coordination suggesting military precision despite none of them having served anything more dangerous than detention. They spread through the restaurant with practiced efficiency. Dashel at the main entrance, Kieran covering the side exit that led to the parking lot.

 Magnus positioning himself where he could record everything on his phone. Tank and Caspian approached her booth directly, their shadows falling across her homework like storm clouds finally delivering on their threat. Studying hard, Caspian slid into the booth across from her, the vinyl squeaking under his designer jeans. Tank remained standing, his bulk ensuring nobody could leave without going through him. Lysandra didn’t look up from her chemistry equations.

The nutritional value of McDonald’s food provides an inch is interesting case study in molecular bonds breaking down under heat stress. Funny. Caspian reached across the table and closed her textbook with deliberate slowness. But we’re not here to discuss your homework. Now she raised her eyes and something in them made Tank shift uncomfortably despite his size advantage.

 Then you’re wasting both our time. Magnus had moved closer, his phone angled to capture every moment while appearing to scroll through social media. Kieran and Dashel maintained their positions at the exits, their presence turning the family restaurant into an arena. You’ve been at Riverside for 3 weeks.

 Caspian leaned forward, his voice carrying that particular tone of someone accustomed to delivering verdicts rather than conversations. Three weeks of disrespect, of acting like you’re above the natural order of things. That ends today. Lysandra picked up a chicken nugget, examined it with scientific interest, then took a precise bite.

 Natural order implies evolution and adaptation. You’re more like a vestigial organ. Unnecessary, but too insignificant to require surgical removal. Several nearby students who’d come for after school snacks had their phones out now, sensing the electricity in the air. The McDonald’s manager, a middle-aged man with tired eyes who’d seen too many teenage confrontations, had his hand drift toward the phone behind the counter.

 “You think you’re untouchable?” Caspian’s jaw tightened. “That little trick with Tank’s wrist, that was lucky, but luck runs out, especially when you’re outnumbered 5 to one.” Actually, Lysandra wiped her fingers on a napkin with methodical care. It’s 5 to2. two. Caspian glanced around, confused. Me in mathematics.

 You see, force equals mass times acceleration, but that assumes linear movement. When you introduce rotational dynamics and leverage points, mass becomes a liability rather than an advantage. Tank laughed, the sound rumbling through the restaurant.

 Is she seriously giving us a physics lesson right now? That’s when Caspian made his critical error. He reached across the table, his hand moving toward Lysandra’s hair with the same possessive entitlement he’d shown with dozens of girls before her. Let me explain something simpler. His fingers barely grazed a platinum strand before everything changed.

 The security footage, which the manager would later provide to three different law enforcement agencies, showed the timestamp at 1556 and 14 seconds when Caspian’s hand made contact. By 1556 and 22.3 seconds, the confrontation was over.

 Lysandra’s movement began with her right elbow, driving backward into Caspian’s extended arm with enough force to hyperextend his elbow joint. The pain caused an involuntary gasp that drew Tank forward, his instinct to protect his quarterback, overriding tactical sense. Her Happy Meal tray became a weapon in motion. The edge catching Tank’s throat in the soft tissue just below his Adam’s apple. A strike that wouldn’t cause permanent damage, but would drop him instantly.

 Tank’s 280 lbs hit the floor with enough force to shake the soft serve machine. His hands clutched his throat as he tried to remember how breathing worked, Kieran abandoned his post at the side exit. Charging forward with the same aggressive speed that had earned him a reputation on the football field.

 Lysandra pivoted on her heel, using the booth’s table as a fulcrum, her foot connecting with his knee from an angle that human joints weren’t designed to accommodate. The sound of ligaments tearing was audible, even over the screaming that had started from other patrons.

 Dashel, despite his father owning 40% of everything that mattered in town, discovered that wealth provided no protection against someone who’d been trained to neutralize threats since childhood. She didn’t even strike him, just redirected his panicked lunge into the edge of a neighboring table. Physics and momentum doing the work for her. He collapsed, unconscious before he hit the ground. A goose egg already forming on his temple. Magnus the smart one.

 The psychological warfare specialist stood frozen with his phone still recording. Lysandra’s hand moved toward his neck, stopping millimeters from his corroted artery close enough that he could feel the displaced air from her strike. “Still recording?” she asked pleasantly. He nodded, unable to form words. “Good.

Make sure you get their medical treatment in frame. It helps with the self-defense claim.” She released him and returned to her booth, sitting down as calmly as if she’d simply gotten up to refill her drink. Around her, chaos rained. Tank was making sounds that resembled a broken accordion. Kieran was screaming about his knee.

 Dashel remained unconscious, and Caspian had curled into a fetal position, cradling his destroyed elbow. The manager had already called 911, his voice remarkably steady as he reported multiple injuries requiring immediate medical attention. Other students stood frozen, their phones capturing every angle of aftermath, the videos already uploading to social media platforms where they would accumulate millions of views within hours.

 Landra picked up another chicken nugget, taking a small bite while surveying the damage with professional detachment. Three squad cars arrived first, followed by two ambulances, then an unmarked sedan that most people wouldn’t have noticed, but made Lysander’s expression shift subtly from calm to calculating.

 The woman who stepped out of the sedan moved with the kind of purposeful efficiency that came from years of training. Dr. He Dr. Patricia Ing, according to the Riverside Academy website, was a new guidance counselor specializing in conflict resolution. According to the FBI badge she showed the responding officers, she was something else entirely.

 While EMTs worked on the injured boys, Patricia approached Lysandra’s booth with the careful respect one professional shows another. That was systemma combined with Krav Maga. The throat strike was textbook Spettzna’s training. Mind telling me where a 17-year-old diplomat’s daughter learned Soviet special forces techniques. YouTube is very educational these days, Lysandra replied, but her eyes were scanning the restaurant’s periphery, noting the additional unmarked vehicles that had appeared in the parking lot.

 Patricia sat down across from her, pulling out a tablet that displayed footage not from the McDonald’s security cameras, but from a satellite feed that shouldn’t have been monitoring a fast food restaurant in suburban Connecticut. 3 years ago, Vienna, three dead contractors from the Coslov syndicate.

 Witness reported a teenage girl at the scene who disappeared before local police arrived. Interesting story. Sounds like something from a movie. Two years ago, Prague, a human trafficking ring targeting international students, gets exposed when someone sends detailed financial records to Interpol. The metadata traces back to a computer in a youth hostel where a girl matching your description stayed for one night.

 Lysandra remains silent, her expression revealing nothing. 18 months ago, Berlin. A terrorist cell planning an attack on a diplomatic summit finds their safe house compromised. The only surveillance footage shows someone your height and build leaving leaving leaving the building 5 minutes before it exploded from a gas leak that forensics said was impossibly accidental.

 “You seem to be suggesting something,” Lysandra finally said, her accent slipping momentarily to reveal something harder, more Eastern European than the polished Prague pronunciation she normally affected. Patricia leaned back, studying the girl across from her with the kind of assessment that came from years of identifying assets and threats.

I’m suggesting that Lysandra Voss isn’t your real name, that your father isn’t just a diplomat, and that you’re here for reasons that have nothing to do with education. The restaurant had been cleared of civilians, leaving only law enforcement and medical personnel.

 Through the windows, Lysandra could see news vans arriving drawn by social media reports of violence at Riverside Academyy’s favorite hangout spot. “My name is legally Lysandra Voss,” she said carefully. “My father does work in diplomatic services, and I am here for education, just not the kind found in textbooks.” Patricia’s tablet beeped. She read the message, her eyebrows rising slightly. Interesting.

 Caspian Sterling’s father just called the governor. the state attorney general and someone at the Justice Department demanding your arrest. Meanwhile, Magnus Crawford’s phone has been remotely wiped, presumably by you, eliminating the original footage. I was eating nuggets. Hard to hack phones while eating.

 The manager security system uploaded everything to a cloud server that coincidentally belongs to a company that doesn’t officially exist, but has ties to certain three-letter agencies. almost like someone wanted to ensure the footage survived any local interference. Lysandra’s smile was small but genuine. That does sound convenient.

 Patricia stood, leaving a business card on the table. Not the one identifying her as a guidance counselor, but one with just a phone number and a symbol that Lysandra recognized from classified briefings her father had never officially shown her.

 The Coslov syndicate has been trying to establish operations in American prep schools, recruiting privileged kids with criminal tendencies, turning them into assets before they reach positions of power. Riverside was supposed to be their test case. Was Magnus Crawford’s sealed juvenile records included connections to Eastern European IP addresses? Dashel Park’s father has been receiving payments from shell companies linked to Coslov moneyaundering operations.

 The whole Riverside 5 was being groomed, though only Magnus knew it. Lysandra processed this information, pieces clicking into place. So, you knew who I was from the beginning. We knew someone was coming. Your handler in Prague has been in contact with us for months. Project Haven isn’t as secret as your father thinks.

 Through the window, Lysandra watched the boys being loaded into ambulances. Caspian was conscious but sedated, his arm immobilized in a way that suggested multiple surgeries in his future. Tank’s breathing had stabilized, but he’d need observation for trauma to his trachea. Kieran’s knee would require complete reconstruction. Dashel had a concussion that would keep him out of school for weeks.

 They were all criminals in training, Patricia continued. But without evidence of actual crimes, we couldn’t act. You provided the excuse to investigate, to dig deeper. Though I don’t think anyone expected you to take out five football players in 8 seconds. 8.3 seconds. Precision matters. Patricia laughed. A sound that suggested she’d seen enough violence to appreciate the dark humor in it. Your father trained you well.

 My father trained me to survive. Everything else I learned from necessity. The truth about Lysandra’s past was both simpler and more complex than anyone at Riverside could have imagined. Her father, whose real name appeared in no official database, had spent 20 years eliminating threats to NATO interests across Europe.

 Her mother, dead when Landra was nine, had been collateral damage in an operation that went wrong in Budapest. Since then, Lysandra had lived in safe houses, training facilities, and diplomatic compounds, learning 17 ways to kill with her bare hands before she learned to drive. Project Haven was supposed to give her a normal life, a chance to be a teenager without looking over her shoulder for assassins.

 Instead, it had placed her in a school that was secretly being used to recruit and train the next generation of criminal elite. The FBI wants to offer you a deal, Patricia said as enforcement officials began processing the scene. Testify about what you’ve observed at Riverside. Help us understand how students were being recruited and groomed.

 In exchange, we ensure your safety and your father’s cover remains intact. And if I refuse, then you’re just a 17-year-old girl who defended herself against five attackers. Self-defense is legal, though the boy’s families might try civil suits. Of course, discovery in those suits might reveal interesting information about their son’s connections to organized crime. Lysandra stood, leaving her happy meal unfinished.

 I’ll consider it, but first, I have homework to complete. The chemistry assignment is due tomorrow, and maintaining my cover means maintaining my grades.” Patricia watched her walk toward the exit, moving through the crime scene with the casual confidence of someone who’d seen too many to be impressed. Miss Voss, one more thing.

 There are others like you at schools across the country. Students placed to counter the Coslov syndicate’s recruitment efforts. You’re not alone in this fight. Lysandra paused at the door. I’ve been alone since Budapest. I’m comfortable with it. But as she left, Patricia noticed the slight tension in her shoulders relax. The first sign that maybe, just maybe, the girl who’d survived three assassination attempts and took down five football players in a McDonald’s was tired of fighting by herself.

 The next 72 hours transformed Riverside Academy into a law enforcement convention. FBI agent should FBI agents interviewed students, forensic accountants examined financial records, and computer specialists dissected every digital communication from the past 3 years.

 The investigation revealed a network of corruption that extended far beyond five bullying football players. 43 arrests were made, including three board members, the athletic director, and two state judges who’d been taking bribes to seal juvenile records. Senator Sterling resigned to focus on his family after encrypted communications revealed his knowledge of his son’s activities and payments received to ensure silence.

 Dashel Park’s father fled to a non-extradition country, abandoning his son to face federal conspiracy charges as an adult. The family’s assets were frozen, their influence evaporating overnight. Magnus Crawford, the only one of the five who fully understood what they’d been part of, turned states evidence in exchange for witness protection.

 His testimony revealed recruiting methods, training protocols, and plans to expand operations to 12 other prep schools along the eastern seabboard. Riverside Academy itself survived but transformed. The entire administration was replaced, new security protocols implemented, and mandatory counseling introduced for students who’d been victims of the systematic bullying that had been policy rather than exception.

 Through it all, Lysandra attended classes, completed assignments, and maintained her perfect GPA as if nothing had changed. Students gave her a wide birth in hallways, some from fear, others from respect, most from uncertainty about how to interact with someone who’d single-handedly exposed and destroyed a criminal conspiracy.

 3 months after the McDonald’s incident, she sat in the same booth eating another Happy Meal when Patricia Ing joined her uninvited. “Still investigating?” Lysandra asked without looking up. “Observing. You’ve been teaching self-defense to other students. The gym was available. Skills are meant to be shared. Patricia placed a folder on the table. We have another situation. A prep school in Massachusetts. Similar patterns of recruitment and grooming. We need someone inside.

 I’m not a federal agent. I’m 17. You’re someone who’s been preventing crime since you were 14. This would just make it official or at least adjacent to official. Lysandra opened the folder, scanning the information about Blackstone preparatory, about missing students and sealed police reports, about connections to human trafficking rings that made the Coslov syndicate look amateur.

 If I do this, I want something in return. Name it. There’s a girl in Prague, Ana Vulkoff, 15 years old. Her father was one of the men who died in that Vienna alley. She’s been in hiding since then, moving between safe houses, never staying anywhere long enough to have a life. Patricia nodded slowly, understanding. You want her brought here, given the same chance you were given.

 She deserves to be more than collateral damage in her father’s choices. I’ll make it happen. They sat in comfortable silence. While Lysandra finished her nuggets, two professionals who’d seen too much violence pretending to be a counselor and student having an after-school snack.

 The door chimed and a new customer entered, a girl, maybe 17, with raven black hair and the kind of balanced movement that suggested dance training or something more practical. She ordered a coffee, black, and chose a booth where she could watch every entrance while appearing to read a book. Lysandra and Patricia exchanged glances.

 “She’s not one of ours,” Patricia said quietly. “No, but she’s something. The way she holds that book, it’s blocking sight lines to her right hand. Classic defensive positioning.” The girl looked up, meeting Lysandra’s gaze directly. For a moment, something passed between them. Recognition without knowledge, understanding without words.

 Then she returned to her book, dismissing them as unimportant. Nyx Romangh, Patricia read from her phone, pulling up the girl’s registration. Transferred from a private school in Moscow yesterday. Father in international banking, mother deceased. Living with an aunt in Greenwich. Moscow doesn’t transfer students in the middle of term without reason. No, they don’t.

Lysandra stood, leaving her tray on the table. I should go. chemistry test tomorrow. As she passed the new girl’s table, Lysandra noticed something that made her pause imperceptibly. A thin scar on the girl’s wrist, partially hidden by an expensive watch, the exact same position as Lysandra’s own scar, the one she’d gotten during knife defense training when she was 12.

 Outside in the parking lot, Lysandra’s phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number. She read it once, then activated an app that destroyed the message and any trace it had existed. Phase one complete. Athens awaits. She looked back through McDonald’s windows to where Nyx Ramanov sat reading, her coffee untouched, her attention seemingly focused on her book, but Lysandra knew better.

 She recognized a hunter pretending to be prey, a weapon disguised as a student. Whatever Athens meant, whatever phase two involved, Lysandra understood that the fight at Riverside had been just the beginning. The Coslov syndicate was one tentacle of something larger. And now she wasn’t the only one being positioned to cut it off. Her phone buzzed again.

 This time the number was one she recognized. Patricia Ing, the girl Nyx, she’s not in any of our databases before last week. It’s like she appeared from nowhere. Lysandra smiled, remembering her own arrival at Riverside. The carefully crafted identity that had fooled everyone until she’d wanted to be discovered.

 “Sometimes nowhere is exactly where the most dangerous people come from,” she replied, then deleted the conversation and walked toward her dormatory. Behind her, through the McDonald’s window, Nyx Romanov closed her book and stood with the fluid grace of someone trained in the same facilities that had shaped Lysandra.

 As she turned to leave, her sleeve rode up slightly, revealing not just the matching scar, but something else. A small tattoo in cerillic that Lysandra would have recognized if she’d seen it. It was the symbol of the Athens Protocol, a program that didn’t officially exist, run by people who weren’t officially anywhere, training children who officially had never been born.