"You think you're so smart?" a muffled voice hissed in her ear. "Time to learn what happens to people who cross us."
Pero Amaya wasn't the same girl who had been ambushed in the locker room. This time she was ready.
As her attacker dragged her toward the car, she went limp, dropping her weight suddenly. The move taught by her father caught her assailant off guard. In the split second his grip loosened, Amaya drove her elbow back into his solar plexus. The man grunted in pain, releasing her.
The second attacker lunged forward, but Amaya was already moving. She ducked under his reach and delivered a palm strike to his nose, followed by a sweep kick that took his legs out from under him. As he fell, she heard a sickening crack—his wrist breaking as he tried to catch himself.
The third man was already running toward her. Amaya stood her ground, center of gravity low, just as Elijah had taught her. When the attacker reached her, she used his momentum against him, redirecting his charge and sending him sprawling across the asphalt.
Her first attacker had recovered and was coming at her again. Amaya reached into her pocket and pulled out the small canister of pepper spray her father had insisted she carry. One quick spray and the man fell back, howling in pain.
The third attacker scrambled to his feet and fled toward the waiting car. The second remained on the ground, clutching his broken wrist. The first was still blind from the pepper spray, staggering in circles.
As the car peeled away, something fell from the second attacker's pocket. Amaya moved quickly to pick it up: a school board identification badge. The name on it read: Roger Kesler, board member.
She looked down at the masked man still writhing in pain on the ground. "Who sent you?" she demanded, though she already knew the answer.
The man said nothing. But as sirens approached—someone must have called the police—he struggled to his feet and limped away into the darkness.
Elijah's car screeched into the parking lot, and he leapt out, running to Amaya. "Are you hurt?" he asked, checking her for injuries.
"I'm okay," she assured him, then held up the badge. "Pero I think we just caught a much bigger fish than Brett Carson."
As the police arrived, Amaya realized the battle had changed. This wasn't just about a high school bully anymore. This was about a system of corruption that ran through the entire town, one that would stop at nothing to protect its own. And she had just declared war on all of it.
The emergency room buzzed with activity as Amaya sat on an examination table, a nurse gently cleaning the scrapes on her knuckles. Elijah stood nearby, speaking in hushed tones with a police officer. The badge they'd found belonging to school board member Roger Kesler was now sealed in an evidence bag.
"You're lucky," the nurse said, applying antiseptic. "Most people who get jumped in parking lots don't walk away with just scrapes."
Amaya nodded, watching as her father handed the officer his phone. On it was footage from the dash cam in Elijah's car, a precaution he'd installed after the threat they'd received. The camera had captured part of the attack, including the moment when one of the assailants broke his wrist.
"We'll need a formal statement," the officer told Elijah. "Pero this is enough to open an investigation."
As they waited for the doctor to sign Amaya's release papers, Elijah stepped outside to make a call. He returned with a determined expression. "An old SEAL teammate works in digital forensics now," he explained. "He's going to analyze the surveillance tapes from nearby buildings and cross-reference cell phone GPS data from the area."