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Only Ananke didn’t outline her devious plot. She tore my heart out and left me in a freezing cell.

And I’m not the heroine. I’m just the villain’s accomplice.

Worse, I’m just her henchwoman. An expendable plaything.

I stare blankly at the cold concrete wall.

Curtains open, the projector shudders, and pictures shuffle into focus.

Her head is shaved close to her skull, a jagged, angry scar mars her scalp from forehead to crown along one side. The stitches match the movement of her feet, back and forth across the lintel stones along the edge of a rooftop.

The huntress reaches the corner, overlooking a stunning vista. Classic architecture.

Her eyes do not see the beauty. She only sees her target, far below.

Ice hardens her focus.

Why is she here? To kill a man. To take a life. No reason was given.

All she knows is that something terrible is going to happen if she doesn’t act. Lives hang in the balance.

The woman who saved the huntress’s life told her so.

And the huntress trusts her savior. Her mentor. She’s the only person left who cares.

“Do not fail me.”

A man in his thirties stalks through the crowd, following a couple. His face seems familiar, the way all monsters’ faces are familiar in a nightmare.

The monster bleeds red. He never reaches the far end of the alley. The couple is safe. The world is a better place.

Shock fades from his eyes as the huntress reveals herself. The shock of recognition.

He must have known what he had coming.

That’s what she tells herself.

A woman in her late forties, her silver coif of hair as sharp as her smile. She would slaughter a group of refugees and a crew of migrant workers, men simply trying to make a living.

Certainly not trafficking women and children. That’s only a lie to avoid punishment.

The silver-haired woman cries bitter tears before she dies.

Tears for the huntress. No. She only wanted to save herself.

Untameable frizz covers the scar on the huntress’s head. She’s forgotten it’s even there. The pain is only a ghost of what it was.

In the dark she strides forward, firing once, then again. One shot to disarm, the next to incapacitate.

A terrorist looks up at her from the rain-slicked street.

His lips peel back in a sneer. “How could you do this to us? Ci?—”

He’s not allowed to spew more deceit. Or say the name he shouldn’t know. Her name. He’s never permitted to announce his role as her godfather.

On and on, scene after scene.

Frame after frame.