A flicker. One of the sodium lamps dies with a buzz. Then another. Darkness spreads in patches. A freight car door screeches open. A shadow drops silently onto the gravel—one of the Chinese girls. Then another appears atop a container, and a third steps out from between two cars. They move in sync, almost mechanical. Black suits. Shades glinting. No words, no hesitation.

  “…Teenagers?” Mei-Ling whispered.

  Aya stared at them, confusion flashing into anger. “Who the hell sends schoolgirls?”

  “Schoolgirls?” Aiko snapped. “What are we then?”

  One Chinese girl steps forward. Her head tilts unnaturally, bird-like. Then she sprints, faster than expected. Aya raises her SMG, but too late. A bone-jarring kick sends Aya’s gun flying and smashes her into a freight door with a sickening clang.

  Maya roars in on her bike, trying to ram one of the Chinese girls. The girl sidesteps at the last second, grabs the bike’s handlebar mid-pass, and wrenches Maya off, dumping her onto the gravel. Sparks shower as the bike skids under a rail car.

  “What… the… hell?!” Maya wheezed.

  Aiko darted in, sword flashing, a blur of steel. The Chinese girl catches the blade barehanded. Blood beads on her palm, but she doesn’t flinch. With an almost bored motion, she shoves Aiko back so hard she hits a coupler and drops her weapon.

  Trella fires a shotgun blast at close range. The girl twists aside, the pellets graze her arm, tearing cloth and flesh. She doesn’t scream. She grins, or maybe it’s just a twitch and charges.

  Mei-Ling snapped her rope-dart out, the weighted tip catching a girl′s ankle perfectly. The Chinese girl just yanks, pulls Mei-Ling off her feet, then slams her against the gravel. Aiko lunges again barehanded, gets grabbed by the throat, and is lifted off the ground like a rag doll before Aya shoulder-checks the girl to free her.

  “Fall back! NOW!” Trella shouted, breath ragged.

  Maya staggers to her feet, bleeding at the temple. Aya hauls Mei-Ling up. Aiko limps, coughing. They dive between cars, grabbing Aiko’s sword on the way, as another suited girl hurls a freight hook that narrowly misses Trella’s head and embeds itself in a steel beam. The scout team disappears into the shadows, engines roaring as Maya’s bike roars back to life. Behind them, the three suited girls don’t chase, they simply stand in formation, perfectly still under the dead lamps, like mannequins in the dark.

  ***

  Milena moves briskly between beds, hands slick with antiseptic. The small room smells of alcohol and sweat. Mei-Ling nursed a split lip, Aiko’s neck is bruised where fingers crushed her windpipe and Aya’s arm is in a sling. Maya sits on the counter, holding an icepack to her temple, pale and furious.

  “They weren’t just fast,” Trella said, her voice low with controlled anger. “They read us. Every feint. Every angle. Like they knew the moves before we made them.”

  “We got wrecked!” Aya snapped, voice cracking. “Three girls! Three!”

  “Hold still,” Milena said sharply.

  She jerks Aya’s arm straight to set the shoulder. Aya hisses through clenched teeth.

  “You’re lucky you still have use of this.”

  “Next time,” Maya muttered grimly, “I’ll just run ’em over harder.”

  Nobody laughed. Michelle stands apart, arms folded, eyes cold but calculating. “They weren’t amateurs. No hesitation, no chatter, no fear. Like machines in human skin.”

  “She caught my blade,” Aiko said quietly. “With her bare hand.”

  Williams paced the room, tension radiating from him. “This is new. They’re escalating. And they knew exactly where to lure you. False intel, planted trail. Kane’s testing the waters.”

  “He found something,” Trella said. “Or someone fed him. Either way… he knows enough to hurt us.”

  “We can’t underestimate them again,” Michelle said. “We regroup. Adapt tactics. Find their weakness. And we make Kane regret breathing.”

  “No mercy next time,” Aya growled.

  “Rage gets you sloppy,” Milena warned. “They’re stronger than you think.”

  Michelle’s eyes flick to the group’s injuries, a flicker of doubt buried under her calm exterior, but only for a heartbeat. “Milena is right. Tomorrow we want to investigate the freight yard. We go smarter, not louder.”

  Williams is watching them with concern.

  This time it’s a sprain. Next time it could be a bullet. God help me, I’m supposed to be a cop, but all I want is to wrap her in armor and make the world stay the hell away.

  ***

  The freight yard slept under a broken moon. Rusted containers rose like crooked tombstones, their chipped paint flaking under a cold wind. A dead floodlight swung on its bracket, creaking in rhythm with the distant clatter of trains far down the line. Trella crouched beside a derailed boxcar, shotgun cradled close, her mask catching a sliver of silver light. She motioned two fingers forward. Aya and Maya advanced, footsteps swallowed by the gravel. Me-Ling ghosted along the flank, rope-dart coiled at her hip, sensors clipped to her belt.

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  “No way they catch us flat-footed again,” Aya muttered.

  “Then keep your eyes open and your mouth shut,” Trella said.

  Above, Talia’s little drone flitted between containers, until its feed fizzed and died. A thin burst of static hissed in their earpieces.

  “Drone’s out.” Maya stiffened. “Too clean.” She scanned the ground. Footprints. Perfectly framed in the dirt. “They want us here.”

  Trella signaled a cautious sweep. Aiko slid a tripwire across an open lane. Aya shouldered her grenade launcher, finger twitching. A can clattered somewhere in the maze of steel. Aiko reacted first, darting forward, blade flashing. Nothing. Just echoes. Then a sudden EMP pop split the air, a blue flash behind a stack of containers. Every sensor died.

  A shadow dropped from above. One of the mysterious girls landed hard on Aya, smashing her into the side of a container so hard the metal screamed. Aya gasped, ribs cracking under the force.

  Two more figures appeared. Identical black suits and mirrored sunglasses glinting. Their movements were too smooth, too fast, like choreography without music. Trella fired. A shotgun slug hammered a girl in the chest, staggering her back a step but not stopping her. The girl-thing turned her head slightly, unfazed.

  “That’s… not possible,” Maya breathed.

  Aiko lunged, blade whistling through the cold air. The sword kissed the edge of a girl’s headpiece, sparks erupted. But the girl seized Aiko’s wrist mid-swing expressionless and flung her five meters across the yard. She hit the gravel with a painful grunt. Trella fired again, but her opponent slid in low, sweeping her legs and wrenching her shotgun away with machine precision. Aya crawled up, coughing blood, and spat a curse. “They’re not even… human…”

  Maya slapped a sticky charge onto a container and punched the trigger. An explosion tore down a steel wall, filling the lane with dust and twisted metal.

  Trella’s voice was iron. “Fall back, pattern bravo. Live to fight, girls.”

  Aya lobbed a flash grenade behind them, white light washed the containers as the enemy momentarily slowed. The team scrambled through a drainage culvert, water soaking their boots, hearts hammering. They left behind two packs of gear. One with spare ammo, the other with a portable jammer.

  ***

  Kane stood by a cracked window, the glow of a desk lamp outlining his face. A half-empty whiskey glass trembled slightly in his grip as his burner phone buzzed.

  “They bolted again. Twice in a row. You hear that? The mighty Black Fangs are bleeding.”

  “A satisfying image, isn’t it? But do not confuse retreat with defeat.”

  “Save the riddles. Your toys work. I’ll press harder.”

  “Press too hard and they’ll remember they’re predators. Be… delicate. Collect the data. The experiment isn’t done.”

  The phone call ended .Kane’s lips twisted into a hard grin. He set the glass down, staring out at the distant rail line lights, already imagining the final kill shot. “First time anyone’s made those ghosts bleed.“

  He takes a slow sip, savoring the moment. His new lieutenant keeps a respectful distance.

  “Two down with injuries. One almost choked out. They didn’t even land a clean hit. Whatever Schmidt cooked up… it works.”

  “Works? It dominates. The great Black Fang, scurrying home with tails between their legs. Not once but twice. Maybe they’re just little girls after all.”

  He steps closer to the girls, circling them like a predator admiring new hunting dogs.

  “You hear that, ladies? Tonight you bought me time. Time to figure out what these CIA ghosts really are… and how to grind them into dust.”

  One of the girls—expressionless—tilts her head slightly at the word ’hear’, but doesn’t respond. Kane smirks and turns to his lieutenant. “Get word to our people. Spread the whispers: Kane isn’t to be crossed. Not after tonight.”

  “Understood.”

  Kane turns back to the window. For the first time, his reflection shows a flicker of unease, a small twitch at the corner of his mouth. It lasts a heartbeat before his confident mask snaps back into place.

  But… if those three did that… What else is out there?

  ***

  The next day, the Fangs gathered in the briefing room. Trella had the map spread across the table, mugs of half-finished tea and hot cocoa steaming everywhere. Aya leaned against a locker, her ribs still taped but her glare as sharp as ever. Michelle scrolled through last night’s drone footage, while Maya traced possible patrol routes with a gloved finger.

  “We can’t keep dancing with ghosts,” Trella said. “We need a counter-plan.”

  “And bait them where we choose,” Maya added. “But Kane’s not predictable enough for that.”

  “Then expect him to do something reckless,” Milena said. “Overconfidence makes men stupid.”

  Before Trella could answer, Talia’s voice cracked through the comm from upstairs, tight and urgent: “Fence alarm, northwest corner. Deliberate movement. Three signatures and they’re not hiding.”

  Red lights flared along the wall panel. Talia was already at her console, waking drones from standby.

  The forest beyond the orphanage swayed under a rising wind. Three black-suited figures stood perfectly still on the other side of the chain-link fence, sunglasses glinting even in the fading light. They didn’t run. They didn’t speak. They just waited.

  Trella’s voice came through the squad channel, cold as steel. “All units, gear up! This is home turf. We′ll finish this.”

  Boots thundered on stairwells. Milena threw open med-kits, rolling her sleeves with grim efficiency. Michelle clipped cameras to the porch railings and activated perimeter sensors.

  Katya crawled onto the roof with her Dragunov but cursed softly. Too many trees, too many friendly targets. “No clean shots. They’re forcing us close.”

  Amelie appeared from the armory door, her custom scythe resting on one shoulder. Black metal, curved blade gleaming. The shaft was nearly taller than she was.

  “Wow! That thing looks like overkill,” Aya said, eyeing Amelie’s scythe.

  “That’s the point,” Amelie replied.

  The Fangs fanned out in a crescent, nine shadows against the grass. Talia’s drones hummed overhead, floodlights flickering on. For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then the fence toppled inward, cut loose at its base. They stepped over the wreckage, silent as wraiths.

  They hit fast. A blur of fists and steel. Aya’s launcher boomed point-blank, the round denting a container but barely staggering her target. Maya tackled one of the girls into a tree, only to be hurled off like she weighed nothing.

  Samira darted in with explosives primed but was caught mid-turn. One of the suited girls locked her hand around her throat, lifting her off the ground. Samira’s boots kicked helplessly, her face purpling. “A-Amelie—”

  Amelie’s scythe whistled, the blade sheared through the Chinese girl′s forearm. Sparks flew as metal screamed. The severed hand dropped with a wet thud. Samira collapsed, coughing.

  The girl didn’t even flinch, she ripped fabric from her own suit, cinched a tourniquet above the stump, and raised her remaining fist.

  But nine against three was too much for them. Aiko’s blade slashed tendons; Aya drove a knee into one of their faces; Trella’s shotgun slug tore through a shoulder joint. Maya rammed her elbow into a ribcage that cracked like glass. Under relentless fire and steel, the suited girls faltered, stepping backward toward the trees. The three black figures vanished into the forest shadows, retreating at inhuman speed.

  Breath steaming in the air, the girls regrouped. Samira leaned on Michelle, still coughing but grinning weakly.

  “They came to our yard,” Trella said. “And still walked away.”

  “Not all in one piece,” Aya growled.

  Michelle scanned the torn grass, her voice was hard.

  “Search the yard,” Michelle ordered. “Find that hand. Milena will want every cell. We need to find out what they are.”

  Talia’s drones hovered low, casting cones of light across the backyard. Then… “Found it!”

  Inside, Milena tightened her gloves, the autopsy tables gleaming under basement lights. “Let’s see what secrets you’re hiding, little ghost.”