Page 81 of Victorious: Part 3

Grinning beneath black smudged paint, fingers the hilt of her blade like it’s a punchline she’s waiting to deliver, Magpie thrives on misdirection and mayhem. If chaos theory were a person, Magpie would be your girl.

Barn Owl doesn’t speak. She rarely does. But she’s already disappeared once tonight and returned with schematics, two guard codes, and a broken nose that doesn’t belong to her, just dangling aimlessly from the tips of her fingers. I have no clue whose nose it was, and I don’t care. All I know is that she got what we needed, and she had fun doing it. Even if she doesn’t smile, I know she loved every second of it.

Rosella, however, whispers something vulgar under her breath as she adjusts her comms. Vibrant, volatile, and absolutely unpredictable. Her rage is the type that has always made her the kind of bird we send into missions that involve maximum carnage. If you think ADHD teamed with the aggression of theHulk, but in a tiny, petite version, you have Rosella.

Peacock checks her reflection in the blade of her knife because she can. Dressed to distract, built to destroy, she’s the siren who turns heads before she slits throats. She’s as stunning as she is lethal, but she always likes to make sure she looks good doing it. I’ve never known any assassin whose hair remains pristineperfect while high-kicking. I don’t know if it’s hairspray or simply impeccable genes.

And Kite, hovers at the rear with eyes sharp as lasers. Every angle, every shadow, every window accounted for. She’s lethal, but she sees everything way before everyone else. There’s twenty-twenty vision, and then there’s this freak. I often wonder if maybe she’s psychic.

They are not just soldiers. They are the ghosts of every war Javier thought he’d won.

“Birds of Prey…” I whisper. “We’re going hunting.”

My voice is so quiet, not even the wind dares carry it.

Nighthawk and I belly-crawl forward, using the natural cover of the hillside to mask our approach. The compound’s security is impressive but not impenetrable. Years of training in environments like this have taught me to find the gaps, the blind spots, the moments of human error that even the best systems can’t eliminate. Plus, we were trained on systems like this. Hell, we built them. It’s honestly a walk in the park.

“Guard change in thirty seconds,” Nighthawk whispers, her eyes never leaving her watch.

“Egret, Starling, be ready to move on my mark.”

The guards below us shift positions like clockwork, their professionalism evident in every movement. But professionalism also means predictability, and predictability means opportunity.

“Mark.”

We flow down the hillside smoothly, each movement calculated to avoid the sensor sweeps. The former birds move with a synchronization that speaks to shared trauma and shared purpose. We understand each other’s signals, each other’s methods, because we were all forged in the same fire.

The perimeter fence is ten feet of reinforced steel topped with razor wire, but Kestrel produces a set of wire cutters that slicethrough it like butter. Military grade, probably liberated from one of Javier’s own operations.

“Breach complete,” I whisper.

“Motion sensors coming online in fifteen seconds,” Nighthawk murmurs, her eyes flicking over the tablet’s readout with surgical focus. “Sweep pattern, Blue Jay. We’ve got a narrow window.”

We don’t run.

We vanish.

Each bird moves as if born from the earth itself, shadows melting into the terrain, every step placed with purpose, every breath timed to avoid detection. The sensor beams sweep through the night like silent sentinels, slicing lines of deadly light through the air.

One by one, we signal ‘all clear’ and regroup just beyond the main house.

That’s when I see them.

Through a ground-floor window, dimly lit and half-obscured by steel bars, a room unfolds like a nightmare. Children, varying in ages, but no older than ten, sitting hunched in rows, eyes vacant, clad in gray uniforms. At the front, a woman in combat fatigues jabs a pointer at a whiteboard showing diagrams. Firearm anatomy, battlefield psychology, crowd control tactics.

“Jesus Christ,” I whisper, the words sandpaper in my throat.

Nighthawk inches beside me, catching the view. Her breath stutters. “Birds in training.”

A tight, sick twist coils in my gut. These kids aren’t students, they’re assets.

Just like we were.

Just like Poppy.

Another generation fed into the grinder.

“Additional mission,” I murmur into the comms, voice sharp as a blade. “Primary objective is child extraction. We need to getthese girls out of here.”