The Assassin's vow

The clock tower felt smaller tonight.The walls, once comforting in their decay, now pressed in like silent witnesses. I stared at the decrypted file again—my name and Iris's in bold red. It wasn't just a threat. It was a promise. They were coming.

Iris paced behind me, silent at first. Then: "We need to move."

"We can't," I said. "Not yet."

She stopped. "They're deploying Sweepers. You know what that means."

I did.

The Sweepers didn't just kill you. They erased you. Your records, your connections, your face from every camera feed and memory. Once they found you, it was like you never existed at all.

But we weren't ready to disappear.

"I say we go offensive," Iris said, pulling a knife from her boot and spinning it between her fingers. "Take out the Sweepers before they get to us."

"And what? Just guess who they are? Wait by the gates with welcome grenades?"

She grinned. "That's not a bad idea."

"Iris."

She sighed and sat beside me, the grin fading.

"What do we do, then?" she asked quietly.

I didn't answer right away.

Because part of me didn't know.

And the part that did know… scared me.

Headmistress Rowen poured over the newest student files. Three new transfers. All top marks. All too clean. Military parents, model recommendations, squeaky profiles.

But something was off. One of them, "Jonas Vale" shared no relation to the Vales. She was sure of it. Yet here he was, enrolled, quiet, and observant. She circled his name and wrote one word in the margin:

"Planted?"

Then her door creaked. A girl stood there, one she didn't expect.Melanie Morton.

"I need to enroll," Melanie said.

Rowen's brow arched. "Your father's just passed."

Melanie's smile was razor-thin. "Exactly. I have some questions. And I think this is the best place to start getting answers."

Back in the tower, Iris dropped the final piece of the decrypted drive into my lap, a name:

Jonas Vale.

My blood turned to ice.

"They're here already," I whispered.

Iris's eyes darkened. "Then we don't wait."

We grabbed our gear.

No more training.

No more shadows.

Time to hunt the hunters.