She moved away from the group until the trees blocked their view completely and she couldn't see the boulder anymore. Napoleon stayed on her shoulder, his green eyes cutting through the darkness as he scanned the forest.

  Need distance. Can't have them watching me change.

  One of the girls approached holding folded clothing, handed it over without saying a word, and walked back toward the others before she could even say thank you. She held up the uniform and her eyes went straight to the hole punched through the chest, right where the spear had gone through and killed the woman who'd worn this.

  This woman died in this. And now I'm wearing it.

  She pushed the thought away because there wasn't time to dwell on it.

  "Napoleon, can you stitch this closed?"

  "Yes, Operator."

  His legs moved fast and she watched him pull thread from somewhere inside his body, working the torn leather back together with the kind of skill that would've impressed any tailor, and within maybe twenty seconds the hole was sealed well enough that you'd need to look close to see the damage.

  Good enough.

  "Check around us," she said quietly, keeping her voice low enough that it wouldn't carry back to the group. "Make sure nobody's watching and nobody gets too close, but don't attack anyone who comes near, just warn me."

  "Understood, Operator."

  He jumped from her shoulder and vanished into the undergrowth like he'd never existed.

  Finally alone.

  She pulled off her shirt and the smell hit her so hard she almost gagged, days of sweat and dirt and whatever biological changes her body had gone through during the evolutions, mixed with blood and everything else she'd accumulated while running and fighting. She dropped the filthy clothes in a pile next to a tree and looked down at herself, at skin covered in grime so thick it had formed a layer.

  Oh god.

  How did I walk around like this? How did anyone stand being near me?

  Her feet caught her attention and she stared at them for a moment, covered in dirt and small cuts but nothing serious, no major damage despite walking barefoot through a forest for hours over roots and rocks and everything else.

  Something changed. My body's not normal anymore.

  The uniform came with boots and she felt genuine relief seeing them.

  Thank god for that at least.

  She tore open the first cleaning cloth package and the smell was incredible, fresh and clean and almost overwhelming after days of filth, like opening a window after being trapped in a basement for a week.

  This is going to feel so good.

  She started wiping down her arms and the cloth turned black immediately, pulling off layers of grime that had built up and stuck to her skin.

  Disgusting. How much of this is on me?

  She scrubbed her chest, her stomach, under her arms, everywhere she could reach, and went through the first package in maybe two minutes. Second package went to her legs and more black cloths piled up beside her. Third package for her back and neck and face, scrubbing until her skin felt raw. Fourth package to go over everything again, making sure she got every spot she'd missed.

  When she finished, her skin felt tender but actually clean for the first time since arriving in this nightmare. She stood there for a moment just breathing, feeling like a different person, like maybe she could think clearly now that she didn't reek of death.

  I can breathe. I can finally breathe without smelling myself.

  Then something occurred to her that should have been obvious days ago.

  I have no idea what I look like.

  Red hair, long, that's all she knew from seeing it fall in front of her face when she moved. But her actual face? Her features? Eye color? Nothing. Completely blank.

  I've been running for my life and it never once crossed my mind to look at my own reflection.

  She heard Reth's voice from the direction of the boulder, giving quiet orders to the kids about defensive positions and patrol routes.

  They don't need me right now. Eight assassin kids and a tank warrior. What am I going to do, throw Napoleon at someone and hope for the best?

  She picked up the uniform and started getting dressed, pulling on pants that fit perfectly despite being made for someone else, comfortable and flexible and designed for movement.

  These are nice. Way better than what I've been wearing.

  The leather shirt came next, sturdy and well-made, and she could feel the quality in the stitching and the way it sat on her shoulders. Then the jacket with The Veil's symbol stitched on the shoulder, and as she pulled it on she felt things inside, objects in hidden pockets she hadn't noticed at first.

  What the hell?

  She started pulling them out one at a time, carefully, not knowing what any of them were or if touching them wrong would get her killed. Six daggers came out first, attached to the inside of the leather shirt with small straps positioned where you could grab them fast in a fight.

  Okay. Daggers. That makes sense for assassins.

  Ten objects that looked like coins came next, silver and smooth with no markings or engravings at all.

  What are these? They're not money. Too plain. Too uniform.

  Fifteen small silver spheres followed, each one with a button in the center that she was absolutely not going to press.

  Grenades? Explosives? Something that kills people? Not touching those buttons.

  Ten tiny steel containers came out after that, and they sloshed when she tilted them, liquid moving inside.

  Poison. Has to be poison. I'm not opening these to find out.

  A notebook filled with papers and what looked like hand-drawn maps.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Maybe useful later. Maybe not.

  Everything was organized and hidden in different parts of the uniform, sewn into secret pockets designed so perfectly that you'd never know they were there unless you knew exactly where to look.

  The kids just left all this in here? They didn't think to mention any of it?

  And then, at the bottom of one pocket, she found a pocket watch. Beautiful engravings covered the surface, intricate designs that caught the dim light filtering through the trees, round and heavy and perfectly crafted, the exact same style as pocket watches from Earth in the 1800s or 1900s.

  This looks like a normal pocket watch. Just a watch.

  She didn't want to touch the daggers or the spheres or the containers because they all looked dangerous and she had zero idea what they actually did. But the watch looked harmless, like something a grandfather might have carried if she'd had a grandfather she could remember.

  It's just a watch. What's the worst that could happen?

  She pressed the button on top and the cover flipped open. A blinding flash of white light exploded directly into her face and she couldn't see anything, everything replaced by pure white that wouldn't fade no matter how many times she blinked.

  "FUCK!"

  Shit shit shit I can't see, why can't I see, what did I just do?

  Her vision was completely gone, replaced by white so bright it hurt, and she heard laughter from the direction of the boulder. The kids, and they knew exactly what she'd just done.

  Of course they're laughing. Of course.

  It took maybe fifteen seconds before shapes started forming out of the white, colors bleeding back in slowly until she could see the trees again and her hands in front of her face.

  If that's what a goddamn pocket watch does, I don't even want to know what the spheres are.

  She put everything back carefully, making sure each item was secured in its hidden pocket exactly where she'd found it.

  Maybe they left this stuff in here to make it realistic if I'm pretending to be their teacher. And apparently it never occurred to them I don't know what any of this is.

  After I hit Level 4, I'm using Machine Reading on all of it. Safer that way.

  But right now, evolution, and she couldn't afford to waste any more points. She pulled the hammer from her backpack and looked at the uniform, noticing straps and pouches designed to hold weapons securely, and she fitted the hammer into one where it sat snug against her side, hidden completely by the jacket.

  Can't leave it in the pack. These kids might get curious and go through my stuff. At least this way it's on me.

  Besides, having the hammer close felt right, like she was supposed to carry it, like it belonged there.

  Clean. Hammer ready. New clothes. Just need to find a mirror at some point and figure out what my face looks like.

  She opened her HUD and the message was waiting for her.

  [EVOLUTION TO LEVEL 4: AVAILABLE]

  Here we go.

  "Napoleon, only attack if someone's actually trying to kill me, understand?"

  "Yes, Operator."

  She selected YES and waited. Five seconds passed and nothing happened.

  Okay. Same as Level 3. No pain. I was worried for nothing—

  The pain hit like a sledgehammer to her skull and she doubled over, biting down on her lip hard enough to taste blood because she couldn't scream, couldn't let the kids hear her like this.

  OH GOD

  WHY DOES IT HURT MORE? WHY IS IT ALWAYS WORSE?

  Her head felt like it was splitting open from the inside, pressure building behind her eyes until she thought her skull would crack. The hammer against her side suddenly felt hot, burning through the fabric and into her skin.

  What the—

  The heat spread, moving from where the hammer touched her waist and crawling upward across her ribs, her chest, her shoulders. Not like burning, more like something moving under her skin, spreading through her body.

  Make it stop.

  But it didn't stop. The sensation kept climbing, reaching her neck, her jaw, moving faster now.

  Her vision blurred at the edges, colors bleeding together. Sound became muffled, distant, like being underwater and sinking. She tried to breathe and couldn't tell if air was getting in.

  Something's happening.

  The heat reached her head, and everything disappeared. Sound cut out, smell vanished and her vision went black, not like closing her eyes but like sight itself stopped existing. The ground beneath her, the jacket on her shoulders, Napoleon nearby, all of it gone.

  I can't see. I can't hear. I can't feel anything.

  What's happening?

  Then she was falling, dropping through nothing with no ground and no sky. She tried to scream but had no mouth. Tried to reach out but had no arms. Just falling through empty space that went on forever.

  This isn't real.

  Make it stop. Please.

  She didn't know if she'd been falling for seconds or hours.

  Then the images hit. Sudden and violent, slammed into her mind without warning.

  Fragments, five or six seconds each, shifting before she could understand what she was seeing.

  A room filled with monitors and men in suits standing around her, her hands bound with zip ties that cut into her wrists. One of the men was speaking into a camera, his voice cold and flat like he was reading from a script.

  "Your portal technology will destroy shipping economies worldwide. You should have consulted with us first before making it public."

  I don't understand. What portals? What technology?

  The image shifted like someone changing a channel and suddenly she was somewhere else.

  A cavern with stone walls carved with figures that made her want to look away. Demons maybe, things with too many limbs and faces that moved when she wasn't watching. In the center, floating in the air, a scarlet sphere glowing from inside. Round like a drop of blood that never fell.

  What is that thing?

  Shadows poured from the sphere, dark things with smiles that made every instinct in her body scream to run, to get away, to never look back.

  I want to look away. Why can't I look away?

  The image shifted again and she was somewhere new.

  A woman, maybe sixty years old, holding a pistol in her hand. The gun came down fast and connected with her temple. Pain exploded across her vision and she was falling, hitting the ground hard, everything going dark.

  She hit me. Why did she hit me? What did I do?

  The image shifted one final time.

  A man in her arms. She couldn't see his face, couldn't make out his features or his eyes no matter how hard she tried, but she knew him. Recognized him in a way she couldn't explain, like her body remembered even if her mind didn't.

  They were somewhere dark, surrounded by nothing but stars and constellations stretching forever in every direction, beautiful and terrible and endless.

  Where are we? Why are we here?

  His hand touched her face, gentle and warm, and she felt something break inside her chest.

  "I love you more than coffee."

  The scarlet portal opened behind him, tearing through space like a wound in reality. It pulled him backward, ripped him away from her arms no matter how hard she tried to hold on.

  She was screaming but no sound came out.

  NO. NO. COME BACK. PLEASE COME BACK.

  Her eyes snapped open and she was back in the forest, back in her body, gasping for air like she'd been underwater. Napoleon stood in front of her with one of his feet touching her leg in what might have been comfort. She was soaked in sweat, her entire uniform drenched like she'd been submerged in water, and drops were falling from her face onto her legs.

  Tears. She was crying.

  Why am I crying? Why can't I stop?

  She wiped at them but more kept coming, falling faster, streaming down her face no matter how hard she tried to make them stop.

  I've been attacked. Beaten. Hunted. Why does this hurt more?

  This pain was different from anything physical she'd experienced. This was emptiness, a gaping hole in her chest where something should be and wasn't. Longing for something she couldn't remember, for someone whose face she couldn't even see.

  "I love you more than coffee."

  The words kept repeating in her mind and they didn't make sense, she didn't understand what they meant or who had said them or why they hurt so much. But they did hurt. They hurt more than the tiger's claws or any of the evolution pain she'd endured.

  Who was that? Who said that to me?

  The more she thought about it, the more the tears came and the worse the pain got, and everything crashed into her at once. The anxiety of waking up with no memory. The fear of being hunted by people who wanted her dead for reasons she didn't understand. The constant running and fighting and barely surviving, day after day with no end in sight. The loneliness of having nobody, of trusting nobody, of being completely alone in a world that hated her for existing.

  And underneath all of that, this wound in her soul where someone should be and wasn't.

  I lost someone. I lost someone important and I can't even remember who he was.

  She tried to wipe the tears but they kept coming and she couldn't make them stop, couldn't control her own body anymore.

  From the direction of the boulder, she heard movement. The kids shifting positions. Reth's voice low, giving orders. They could hear her crying, she knew they could, but nobody came closer. Nobody said anything.

  They were giving her space.

  Thank god. I can't... I can't deal with people right now.

  Footsteps. Multiple directions. Heavy boots on moss.

  She looked up, vision still blurry from tears.

  Four soldiers entered first, simple armor without decoration but solid metal that looked like it could take a hit. They were guarding someone, spreading out to form a perimeter.

  The person they protected wore different armor. Silver that caught the moonlight and threw it back. Engravings covered every piece, designs that must have taken months to carve. Gold along the edges. Jewels in the shoulder plates and chest. A helmet with a crest that stood a foot tall.

  Not armor for fighting. Armor for showing off.

  Reth's voice came from the boulder, quiet. "Vorminian nobility."