Chapter 25

Avery turned restlessly in her sleep, flashes of buried memories breaking free. A scene from her grueling training played in her mind.

Ten-year-old Graves crawled through the mud, passing under barbed wire, surrounded by other children enduring the same drill.

Her hand shook, and she stumbled, the wire tearing through her skin. She gasped in pain, biting her lips to suppress the sound. But the instructor noticed. "No.15, restart the drill."

Her skin healed itself, and she spent hours crawling through the field of barbed wires before she was allowed to eat.

In the next scene, her face was pale as she sat strapped to a chair, and different sets of torture tools were laid out on the table before her.

A scalding iron was heated over coals, glowing bright red. Without warning, an expressionless man pressed the iron against her skin.

Hisss...

"Ahh..mm." She tried to suppress her cries, her hands clenched tightly, but it was too late.