The Emerald “safe house” looked nothing like the word suggested. It was a converted red-brick townhouse stacked like a Jenga block into a bleak slope above Elliott Bay, all mismatched windows and raw iron banisters. The front room was narrow, hemmed by scuffed walls and a battered leather couch fnked with duct-taped end tables. Industrial LEDs threw pale stripes across the floor, so stark that morning sunlight leaking through the blinds seemed surreal and thin.

  Madison and Suzy stood side by side, neither speaking. The tang of burnt espresso, Rond’s, apparently, from the chipped “Fort Benning” mug beside the sink… hung over the cold air, mingling with the faint ammonia smell of gym mats rolled out against the wall.

  Rond Thibodeaux had arrived promptly at eight. He didn’t knock; just appeared from the stairwell, already in faded tactical sweats and gloves that looked older than Madison’s first cell phone. His gaze flicked over the girls, appraising, but not predatory. “Y’all stretch yet?” he asked, rolling his shoulders with a click.

  “Uh… no,” said Madison. She wore a threadbare DIVE TEAM t-shirt and running shorts, feeling simultaneously exposed and childish. She was still pale from the prior day’s rabies shot. Suzy, in her South Eastern Swim hoodie, already looked like she regretted getting out of bed. Both had put their hair up in functional ‘ponytails’.

  Rond cpped his hands. “We start with handwork.” He dropped into a horse stance so quickly that Madison flinched, then snapped his palms up and beckoned them forward. “You ever punch anything for real?”

  His feet were just wider than shoulder width apart, knees bent and flexing. He was the picture of ready competence.

  Suzy blinked. “Just my sister,” she offered, a glimmer of pride in her voice. “When we were little.”

  “Good enough,” Rond said. “You know why most women lose a street fight?”

  Madison shrugged. “Smaller muscles?”

  “Because nobody teaches y’all to finish. Boys,” He shrugged. “They’re told to hit first, keep hitting. You two,” his gnce included Suzy, “you hesitate. It’s a survival instinct, but it’ll get you killed.”

  He gestured Madison forward. She squared her shoulders, masking nerves with swagger, and faced off with him. Rond nodded, then attacked with a slow, deliberate low kick. Madison blocked at her ribs, a little too high, but quick. She rolled with the next motion, snapping a counter jab, which Rond caught in his gloved palm.

  “Nice. Don’t pull your wrist back, though. Makes you telegraph. Again.”

  They repeated the drill. Each time, Rond increased the speed, dialing up the tempo and adding feints. Madison learned the pattern, settling into a rhythm, sweat prickling across her neck. The old adrenaline surge, like a high dive meet, but colder, less euphoric, buzzed in her hands.

  “Good. Derry, your turn.”

  Suzy approached, jaw locked. Rond slowed the first attack, then added a sweep. Suzy caught it, but when it came time to throw a punch, she hesitated, arm stuttering in the air.

  Rond didn’t flinch. “Commit or stay vulnerable,” he barked.

  Suzy’s face hardened, blue eyes sparking. The next time, she drove her fist with the full force of her swimmer’s back, and Madison heard the dull pop as it smmed into the catching glove.

  “Better. Again.”

  For the next hour, they repeated the motions, each rep burning into muscle memory. Madison lost herself in the grind; Suzy, after a rough start, began to grin every time she nded a hit. Her cheeks flushed, the mask of self-doubt cracking as she squared off and let fly.

  “Girls, you ever get grabbed from behind?” Rond asked, turning so his back was to them. “Go for it. Get me off bance.”

  Madison exchanged a look with Suzy, then lunged, wrapping her arms around Rond’s waist. The man barely budged, but Suzy joined in, locking her hands at his bicep. Rond let them struggle for a beat, then fluidly dropped his center of gravity and snapped both girls over his hip in a controlled, gentle arc. They nded side by side on the gym mat, winded but unharmed.

  “That’s how it feels,” he said. “Now, do it again. But expect the break. If you can anticipate the energy, you can redirect it.”

  He let them try it again, and again. By the third or fourth attempt, Madison caught the rhythm, she loosened her hold just as Rond pivoted, and instead of nding on her ass, she stayed upright, even managed a stumbling roll onto her feet.

  Rond’s approval was silent but real; he nodded, sweat beading on his temples, the thin smile barely there. “Not bad for a morning,” he said.

  They moved on to blocks, chokes, and basic escapes. The pain was real, Rond didn’t sugarcoat, but he never let it cross the line from discipline to punishment. After two hours, both girls had rug burns and bruised forearms, but were breathing hard and proud, riding a strange high.

  “Tonight,” said Rond. “We move to the range.”

  It was a start. Neither of them fest ready for anything ‘real’ much less anything ‘unreal’. At the same time they felt a sense of confidence. They were acting not just reacting.

  ————

  Both women were a bit off bance throughout the day. Knowing one of the agents was always around. Fighting the urge to look for them. Neither of them was really focused in practice. Madison was limited to the gym, stretching, cardio, light weights. Her doctor hadn’t cleared her to start diving again.

  “Wow! Only two weeks since the crazy sex demon dream and only one since I lost focus in the middle of a dive?!” Madison wondered as she went through a second round of a HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) work out.

  Meanwhile barely a hundred meters away, Suzy was in the middle of a five hundred meter swim. She had chosen to work on endurance today because it let her ‘space out’. The continuous repetitions pull and kick, pull and kick, flip turn…on and on the meters sliding past her body. The chlorine smell of the pool wasn’t as strong as when she was in high school.

  “Colleges have more money to buy the good stuff” she thought. Her mind wandered.

  “What did that little freaky thing call me? Ulfgr? Ulfgar? Something weird. Is that a German word? It sounds like it. I wonder what it means?” she considered as her arms and legs worked.

  “I wonder what Mikae is up to? The Air Force Academy is probably pretty intense! I should text her. Tell her about my new hot blond girlfriend.” She thought with a smile, “I seem to have a type, swimmer…check, blond…check, smart…check.” She thought about her first girlfriend and how she compared to Madison.

  “Haha their names even both start with ‘M’!” she stifled a ugh at this realization.

  An hour ter, Madison walked into the pool area and watched as Suzy’s lithe form cut through the water. Efficient, smooth, muscles flexing clearly under the thin tight blue one piece suit.

  Across the pool the coaches whistle brought everyone to a stop.

  “OK, good work today. See you tomorrow.” Her voice echoed.

  Some swimmers went back to their work. Suzy and Madison’s eyes met. Both were done. It had been a long day.

  ————

  The safe house’s firing range was a plywood tunnel running the length of what should have been a basement garage. The floor was yered with rubber matting, and the end wall was stacked with sandbags and shredded paper targets. Above, a ventition fan chugged like a machine on its st legs.

  Madison and Suzy were not feeling ready, they had already had morning combat training workout, a full day of csses, and a two hour swim practice. They were exhausted. Rond did not seem to care.

  Rond handed Madison a 9mm Glock, already open and locked safe. “Ever shot before?”

  “Once. Scouts,” she replied, instantly regretting it.

  He ignored the joke. “Rule one: respect the weapon. Never point at anything you don’t intend to shoot, to kill.” He demonstrated the stance, knees soft, arms extended. “Get behind me, watch.”

  He fired three rounds, each snapping in the enclosed space with deafening force. The casings pinged off the cinderblock and skittered at their feet. He flicked the safety, then set the pistol on the bench for Madison.

  She picked it up, careful, and followed his instructions. Her first shot missed the paper target entirely. The second creased the edge. The third—Rond was right behind her, adjusting her grip, punched a neat hole just left of the bullseye.

  “Good. Don’t fight the recoil, ride it.” He gestured to Suzy, who watched with a stormy, almost hungry expression.

  Suzy’s hands were steady but her face was taut, drawn into a line of concentration. She sighted along the barrel and fired; the gun jumped, but she barely blinked. Her second and third shots clustered tighter.

  Rond nodded, a glint of approval in his dark eyes. “Nice grouping. I think we’ll have to work on speed next.”

  They rotated for an hour—shooting, reloading, tap-racking jams, doing weird breathing drills to simute stress. The girls’ hands stank of gunpowder and their ears rang even with the provided plugs. It was nothing like the Hollywood version; it was messy, loud, a little terrifying.

  When Rond called an end, Madison realized her legs were shaking from exertion. She ughed, partly in relief, partly in pride. Suzy looked at her, a sheen of sweat glowing on her brow, and returned the grin. For a second, Madison felt a surge of affection, almost electric, that threatened to unbance her more than any punch or gunshot.

  ———

  That night, the house was quiet but for the whirr of the fridge and the stutter of rain on the gss. Madison had conked out early, curled on the battered couch under a worn Seahawks fleece, face squished against a pillow and hair sticking in every direction.

  Suzy wandered the small kitchen, still wired from the day. Her arms ached; her knuckles were scraped and her thumbs sported bruises from the recoil. But she felt good. She felt alive.

  She poured a gss of water and stared at the dark window. The city’s lights shimmered in the rain, tracing out the distant grid. She pressed her forehead to the cold gss, then turned away, the feeling of being watched prickling across her neck.

  Suzy’s phone vibrated on the counter. A message: “You were great today. Rest up, you’ll need it tomorrow. – Rond”

  She smiled, surprised at the warmth the text provoked. Even now, the safe house felt temporary, makeshift. She missed her parents, her room, the scratchy comfort of old routines. But the adrenaline, the challenge, gave her something she’d never felt before. A sense of motion. Strange coming from a college level athlete, but true none the less.

  She finished her water, returned to the couch, and snuggled into the crook of Madison’s shoulder, careful not to wake her. Content on the couch even though there was a bed just a few meters away. Her mind drifted, slow and heavy, and the world went dark.

  ———

  She was walking through a grove, moonlight bright as snow. The air was silver, mist curling between the trunks of ancient oaks. The ground was soft underfoot, the leaves bck as velvet. Her body floated, weightless, almost transparent.

  A woman stood ahead, her hair a river of gold that poured down her back. She wore armor etched with curling vines and starbursts, and when she turned, her eyes glowed blue sapphires, unyielding.

  “Solveig?” Suzy whispered hesitantly, wondering if this was the woman from Madison’s stories.

  The woman smiled, her teeth sharp and bright. “You have a brave heart, Susan Derry. But you must be brave with your mind, too.”

  Solveig extended a hand. The palm was tattooed with whorls and runes, the skin strangely luminous. “Come,” she said. “You are called. You must learn what it means to be drost of the old covenant.”

  Suzy hesitated, looking down at her own hands. They were pale, slicked with blood and moonlight, trembling.

  Solveig stepped closer, her voice both gentle and unmovable. “You fear loss. You fear harm to those you love. But fear is a tool. You can shape it, wield it, make it a shield.”

  She pressed something into Suzy’s palm…a thin silver circlet, cold and impossibly light. “Wear this, Susan, when the hour of testing arrives. It will help you remember who you are, and who you may yet become.”

  The circlet glimmered, casting strange fractal patterns across Suzy’s skin. She slipped it over her knuckles, then up to her forehead, feeling the metal bite softly into her brow.

  “You will have to choose,” Solveig said, her words echoing like the chime of crystal. “You must be stronger than your enemies’ hate, and truer than your own longing. Do not fail, little one. All that matters depends on it.”

  The world spun, light and shadow blending until everything dissolved into a whisper of leaves.

  ———

  Suzy woke with a start, chest tight, lips still tingling from the cold of the dream. The couch was unchanged, the room dark but ordinary. Madison snored softly beside her, an arm flung possessively over Suzy’s waist.

  Suzy touched her brow where the circlet had rested. Nothing. No mark, no silver. But her hands still trembled with the ghost of moonlight.

  She y awake until the first hint of dawn, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the world to tell her if she’d truly changed, or if it was all just the mind games of exhaustion and hope.