Chapter 7: Allies and Escape Plans.
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Few weeks passed like that.
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Days after Ash's warning, the compound felt different.
Every glance lingered too long. Every door creaked a little too loud. Lia could feel it in her bones — she was being watched. She had been Marked. The Order didn't forgive hesitation. They didn't tolerate any cracks in the foundation.
But something had changed inside her. She wasn't afraid anymore. She was angry.
On a mission one night, Lia moved through the city streets under a washed-out neon glow. The target was simple: a politician's informant. It was Disposable. It was Unimportant. Just another faceless body on a list. She could've done it blindly.
But this time… she didn't.
She waited, perched on a rooftop overlooking the alley where the man was supposed to pass. Her knife cold in her hand. But instead of striking, she followed him from a distance. Watched him light a cigarette with trembling hands. Watched him glance at a photo in his wallet — a little girl, smiling in a school uniform.
And for the first time, Lia made a different choice.
She let him live.
When she returned to the compound, she was ready to fight if anyone noticed. But no alarms blared. No guards met her at the gate.
Except for one.
A girl stood by the record room door — pale, sharp-eyed, hair cut close to her jaw. Lia had seen her before but never spoken. Most of them didn't talk if they didn't have to. That's how you survived.
The girl tilted her head. "You didn't do it, did you?"
Lia stiffened. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"I've been watching you." The girl's voice was quiet, careful. "They're going to kill you soon. Unless you get out."
A name surfaced in Lia's memory: Vera. One of the older trainees. Smart. Deadly. Rumors said she'd once wiped out an entire room of defectors without breaking a sweat.
"Why are you telling me this?" Lia asked, wary.
"Because I'm done too." Vera glanced around. "I've got a plan. And I need someone like you."
It was insane. Stupid and Reckless. But Lia felt a surge of something she hadn't in years.
Hope.
They spoke in whispers over the next few nights, careful to stay in blind spots between cameras, in the dead zones between shifts. Vera had been stealing bits of information for months — guard rotations, access codes, weapon caches.
"There's a weakness," Vera said one night, unrolling a rough map of the compound floor in the maintenance tunnel beneath the dorms. "One of their old supply routes isn't monitored anymore. It's sealed from the outside, but we can get through."
"And after that?" Lia asked.
Vera smirked, sharp and ruthless. "After that? We bleed them dry from the outside."
It wasn't just the two of them. Another name came up — Kai, a medic-in-training with too much kindness in his eyes for this place. Lia had seen him patch up wounded operatives with a gentleness he never showed in public. How was he in this cruel place.
Bit by bit, their plan took shape. A crack in The Order's armor.
And for the first time since she was eleven, Lia felt alive.
They were in the same team. To destroy this place.
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Just like that 4 years passed. The had cracked the walls of The Order, bit by bit. It's foundation has crumbled.
But still A starving camel is bigger than a horse. (1)
No matter how much their foundation crumbled they were still strong. So they could not destroy it in one go.
Until one day.
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(1) It means that even when a the organisation is in a very bad condition, it's still stronger than a their living, healthy team, indicating that even in decline, a high-ranking person or thing is still superior to someone or something of a lower rank.
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End of chapter 7
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