chap 2
Emily's head tilted just enough for the fist to slice harmlessly through the air.
The attacker barely had time to blink.
Emily caught her wrist.
Twisted.
A sharp crack echoed through the shower room.
The woman screamed as she collapsed to her knees, clutching her dislocated arm.
Silence.
No one had expected the tiny newcomer to react.
Brenda's grin vanished.
"What the hell...?"
Before anyone could process what had happened, another inmate lunged from Emily's blind side.
Emily spun.
One precise elbow struck the attacker's ribs.
The woman gasped, dropped to the floor, and couldn't breathe.
A third rushed in.
Emily sidestepped effortlessly, using the attacker's own momentum to slam her shoulder-first into the concrete wall.
The sound echoed through the room.
Three women.
Less than ten seconds.
All down.
The shower block fell deathly quiet.
Brenda's gang stared in disbelief.
Emily didn't chase anyone.
She didn't celebrate.
She simply bent down, picked up her bar of soap, and placed it back on the ledge as if nothing had happened.
The older inmates exchanged uneasy glances.
One whispered, "Those aren't prison moves."
Another nodded slowly.
"Military..."
"No."
The oldest prisoner shook her head.
"Special forces."
Brenda refused to believe it.
She roared and charged forward herself.
The floor trembled beneath her heavy boots.
She swung a massive punch aimed straight at Emily's jaw.
Emily didn't retreat.
She stepped inside Brenda's reach.
One palm struck Brenda's elbow.
Another hand trapped her shoulder.
A sudden twist—
Brenda's balance disappeared.
The giant woman crashed flat onto the wet concrete with a thunderous slam that shook the entire shower room.
Gasps erupted from every corner.
No one...
No one...
Had ever seen Brenda knocked down.
Ever.
Even the guards at the entrance froze.
Brenda struggled to stand.
Emily quietly stepped back instead of attacking again.
"I don't want to fight you," she said calmly.
"But I will finish it if I have to."
Those words chilled everyone.
Not because she shouted them.
Because she spoke them with absolute certainty.
Brenda looked into Emily's eyes for the first time.
There was no anger.
No fear.
Only discipline.
Only control.
Only experience.
Then something unexpected happened.
An older correctional officer burst into the shower block after hearing the commotion.
He looked ready to punish whoever started the riot.
Instead...
The moment he saw Emily...
His face turned completely white.
He whispered, almost to himself,
"No..."
"It can't be..."
Emily slowly turned toward him.
The officer instinctively stood straighter.
Almost...
Like a soldier reporting to a superior.
He looked at the faded scar running across her left forearm.
Then at the military pendant hanging briefly from the evidence cart outside the room.
Recognition hit him instantly.
He swallowed hard.
"My God..."
"You are Captain Emily Carter..."
"...the woman who rescued seventeen hostages during the Raven Ridge operation."
Every inmate stopped breathing.
Even Brenda stared speechless.
The officer's voice trembled.
"We trained using footage of your missions at the academy."
"You disappeared three years ago."
"We were told you died."
Emily lowered her eyes.
"I wish that had been true."
The room fell silent again.
Nobody laughed anymore.
Nobody dared move.
But the biggest shock had not yet arrived.
As emergency alarms suddenly echoed through the prison, the warden's voice thundered over the loudspeakers:
"Lock down the facility immediately!"
"Repeat..."
"Priority Alpha."
"Our undercover operative has been identified."
Emily slowly closed her eyes.
May you like
Too late.
Someone inside the prison had just discovered why she had really come here.
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