The night dripped with mist, thick and bitter. The trees loomed like ancient sentinels, their skeletal arms scratching at the low-hanging clouds. Somewhere far off, a wolf howled, the sound raw and broken. Beneath the twisted boughs of the forest, a cage sat rotting in the mud.
Inside, six girls huddled together for warmth, chained like feral beasts. Their skin was bruised, their clothes in tatters, their souls battered beyond their years. Yet their eyes — those burned brighter than ever.
Aurianna Rathore sat closest to the bars, her emerald eyes watching the darkness beyond with a sharpness that seemed impossible for her battered body. Her black hair fell in tangled sheets around her, faint purple highlights shimmering in the moonlight.
Beside her, Stella clung to Tecna, her once-golden hair now dull with filth, her blue eyes wide and haunted. Flora leaned against the other side of the cage, sandy brown hair matted to her forehead, brown eyes dull but still alive. Alexa crouched near Aurianna, her dark brown and black hair falling into her face. Ivy, with her black hair streaked red, sat silently, head bowed but fists clenched.
"They're not coming tonight," Tecna whispered, her voice trembling with exhaustion.
"They're just waiting until tomorrow," Flora murmured.
"They won't wait forever," Aurianna said, voice like broken glass. "They never do."
The girls knew what happened to those taken from the orphanage. Sold like cattle, used and discarded like trash. Here, the handlers were less human than the monsters in children's nightmares.
Aurianna's hand drifted to her side where a sharp stone was hidden beneath the rags she wore. If she got the chance, she would drive it into the throat of the next man who touched her. She promised herself that much.
"Ivy... do you think... do you think we'll make it?" Stella asked, voice cracking.
Ivy lifted her head slowly. Her black eyes shimmered with rage. "We don't have a choice."
A noise snapped through the trees — footsteps, heavy and stumbling.
The girls stiffened.
The handlers were drunk again. That was the only time they let their guard down, the only time hope could slither through the cracks.
Aurianna rose to her feet, pressing herself flat against the bars, muscles tight, heart pounding.
From the shadows, two men staggered into the clearing, bottles swinging from their hands.
"Looks like the little bitches are still awake," one slurred.
The other laughed, a guttural, ugly sound.
"They'll fetch a good price. Especially the dark-haired one," he said, leering at Aurianna.
Something inside her snapped.
Without thinking, Aurianna hurled the sharp stone at the man's face. It hit him squarely in the forehead. He stumbled backward with a grunt of pain.
"You little whore!" the first man roared, fumbling for the keys at his belt.
He fumbled.
He cursed.
And that was when the gunshot cracked the air.
The first man's head snapped back, a hole appearing in the center of his forehead. He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.
The second man barely had time to scream before a figure stepped from the shadows — tall, broad, and utterly silent.
The girls shrank back instinctively, eyes wide, hearts thundering.
He wore black from head to toe, a long coat billowing around him. His face was lined with years of battle, dark eyes cold and merciless. His right hand held a silenced pistol; his left held a long, curved dagger dripping blood.
Victor D'Angelo.
He scanned the clearing with the cold efficiency of a predator. Then his gaze landed on the cage — on them.
Aurianna refused to flinch. She stared him down, daring him to come closer.
To her surprise, the man's mouth twitched, almost like... approval.
He strode forward, boots squelching in the mud. With a grunt, he knelt at the cage, producing a set of lock picks from his belt.
"Stay back," he said in a low, rough voice.
The girls didn't move. They simply watched, breathless, as he worked the locks with swift, sure movements. Within seconds, the door swung open with a shriek of rusted metal.
He stepped back, giving them space.
Aurianna moved first, cautious but unafraid. The others followed — Tecna clutching Stella's hand, Ivy glaring at Victor with pure suspicion.
Victor stood silently as they emerged, small, battered, but burning with something few people ever possessed.
Fight.
"You girls are alone now," Victor said gruffly. "No one's coming for you."
Aurianna lifted her chin. "We don't need anyone."
Victor's eyes glittered with something dangerous — amusement, perhaps. Or recognition.
"Maybe not," he said. "But if you stay here, you die."
He turned, striding toward the dark forest. After a few steps, he paused and looked back.
"You can stay," he said, voice carrying through the mist. "Or you can come with me."
He didn't wait for a reply. He simply kept walking.
For a moment, none of the girls moved.
Then Aurianna stepped forward.
Without a word, the others followed.
---
Hours later, deep in the heart of the woods, they found themselves standing before a hidden compound — a fortress of stone and steel buried beneath the earth.
Victor led them inside, past security systems and guards who barely spared them a glance. To them, Victor's word was law.
He showed them a dormitory — clean, spartan beds lined up against the walls, fresh clothes folded neatly on each one.
"You'll sleep here," he said. "Eat. Heal."
Aurianna narrowed her eyes. "Why are you helping us?"
Victor's gaze bored into hers. "Because the world doesn't need more victims," he said simply. "It needs predators."
The girls exchanged wary glances.
"You'll train with me," Victor continued. "Learn to fight. To kill. To survive."
"And if we say no?" Ivy asked sharply.
Victor shrugged. "You're free to leave. But the world out there..." He gestured toward the darkness beyond the gates. "It won't be kind."
Aurianna stepped forward, planting herself in front of Victor.
"We're not victims," she said. "Not anymore."
Victor smiled then — a slow, brutal smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"Good," he said. "Because once you start down this road... there's no turning back."
---
The years that followed were a crucible.
Victor trained them harder than they thought possible. Before dawn, they rose to run the brutal obstacle courses he had built — scaling walls, crawling through barbed wire, fighting against the biting cold of dawn.
He taught them hand-to-hand combat, knife fighting, marksmanship.
He broke their bodies and rebuilt them stronger.
"You hesitate," he told Aurianna once, slamming her into the mat during a sparring session. "You die."
She gritted her teeth, lunged at him again — faster, sharper.
Victor grunted, allowing himself a nod of approval.
He taught them to move like shadows, to disappear into crowds, to manipulate, to lie, to seduce if necessary. He taught them languages — Italian, Russian, Arabic — and how to weaponize their minds as much as their bodies.
"You aren't girls anymore," Victor said one night as they sat bleeding and bruised in the courtyard, the stars spinning overhead. "You're weapons."
Over time, they grew into their roles.
Aurianna became their leader — fierce, strategic, ruthless.
Stella was the heart — soft-spoken but deadly with a sniper rifle.
Tecna became their tech expert, hacking into systems with a few keystrokes.
Flora specialized in poisons, creating deadly concoctions from plants and chemicals.
Alexa mastered close-quarters combat, her fists and blades equally lethal.
And Ivy... Ivy was their ghost. Silent, merciless, striking from the shadows.
They called themselves The Black Thorns.
And they became Victor's masterpiece.