Chapter 4: The Girl in Red Shoes part 3

Wings.

Heavy. Wide. Real.

She turned her head, slow and trembling.

There, on a low branch, barely ten feet away, stood an eagle — black eyes locked on hers, feathers glinting silver in the starlight. Its presence was not gentle. It was not soft.

It was holy.

Not the kind of holy found in churches —

but the kind born in blood, in mountains, in memory.

The eagle didn't move.

Neither did she.

And then —

it lowered its head.

Not submission. Not fear.

Recognition.

Adea felt something in her chest rupture — like a dam breaking after centuries. Tears poured down her face. She leaned forward, still bound, still on her knees.

"You remember me," she whispered.

"Don't you?"

The eagle blinked.

And for a moment — a split second —

she saw all of them:

Elira, with her bloodied hairpin.

Lume, with her rifle in the snow.

Ajkuna, standing at the edge of the cliff.

They looked back at her, their eyes not sad…

but proud.

And just like that, she knew.

She wasn't just their echo.

She was their answer.

By morning, the ropes were torn — chewed through with her own teeth.

Her wrists bled. Her legs ached.

But she rose.

And limped back toward the city,

the eagle soaring above her like a shadow made of sky.

She never went home.

She became A.D. full-time.

A myth. A warning. A promise.

She printed flyers. Hacked radio signals. Published underground stories that made politicians flinch and girls weep with rage and recognition.

She didn't hide anymore.

And when the police raided her high school, looking for "the girl in red shoes,"

twenty students stood up at once — all wearing red shoes.

None of them said her name.

Because she had become every one of them.

They still whisper her legend.

Not just in Albania — but everywhere a girl is told she's too much, too loud, too angry.

They whisper:

"She walks again.

With fire in her blood.

And an eagle at her side."