Amelia Hart slowly awoke with heavy eyelids and a dull persistent ache throbbing in her skull.
She tried to move her arms, but they wouldn't budge. Panic started to crawl up her spine as she realized she was bound tightly to something cold and unyielding. She forced her eyes open, blinking against the harsh light of the afternoon sun glaring down from an open sky.
The world came into sharper focus, and with it, the chilling realization of her predicament. She was lying on a set of train tracks with her wrists and ankles bound by thick, coarse rope that dug into her skin.
The steel rails pressed painfully into her back as the heat of the sun warmed the metal beneath her. Amelia's breath caught in her throat as she craned her neck to look around.
'This can't be happening,' her heart pounded vigorously in her chest.
A wave of disbelief threatened to overwhelm her, but she forced herself to remain calm.
This wasn't the time to panic. She needed to think, to find a way out of this. She tested the ropes again, twisting her wrists in a vain attempt to loosen them, but they held fast.
'Who could have done this? And why?'
The sound of distant laughter cut through her thoughts, and she turned her head to see a group of men standing a few feet away.
They were dressed in dark clothes with their faces half-hidden by shadows cast by the nearby trees. One of them who happened to be a big round man, stepped forward with a cruel smirk on his face. His eyes gleamed with malice as he approached, holding a rolled-up document in one hand.
"Well, well, well, look who's finally awake," he sneered with contemptuous tone. "Miss Hart, we were beginning to think you'd sleep through the whole thing."
Amelia recognized him. He was one of the men who had recently tried to get her to sign a contract... a contract that would have handed over the designs for the cutting-edge weapons system she was developing.
Of course, she had refused, knowing full well that the people behind the offer were criminals, likely connected to some larger, more sinister organization.
"Let me guess," Amelia voiced with a remarkably calm tone considering the circumstances. "You're here to offer me a job?"
The man chuckled humourlessly. "Something like that. You see, Miss Hart, my employers are very interested in your work. They've been watching you for some time now, and they think you could be very useful to them."
"Useful?" Amelia shot back with an icy tone. "You mean you want me to hand over my father's legacy so you can use it for whatever illegal activities you've got planned? I'd rather die."
The man's smirk faded, replaced by a hard, dangerous look. "That can be arranged," he stated with a low and menacing voice. He unrolled the document and held it out to her. "Sign this, and maybe we'll reconsider. We might even let you walk away from this little... misunderstanding."
Amelia stared at the paper, then back up at the man. "Misunderstanding? Is that what you call tying someone to a train track?" she questioned with sarcasm dripping from every word. "Because from where I'm lying, it looks a lot more like attempted murder."
The man's expression darkened. "You're testing my patience, Miss Hart. Sign the agreement, or you'll find out just how serious we are."
Amelia met his gaze without flinching. "I'm not signing anything, and if you think this little stunt is going to scare me into submission, you're more deluded than I thought."
The man's face twisted with rage, and he leaned down closer to her. "You really think you're in a position to bargain here? You're seconds away from becoming a smear on these tracks. All I have to do is walk away, and that train will do the rest."
Amelia felt a cold sweat break out on her skin as the man's hot breath combed against her face but she refused to let her fear show.
"Go ahead," she said codly. "But you should know that people will come looking for me. You won't be able to hide forever. And when they find out what you've done, there won't be anywhere on this earth that's safe for you."
For a moment, the man seemed taken aback by her defiance, but then he sneered again. "You think your big talk will save you? You think anyone cares enough about you to take on my employers? You're nothing, Hart. Just another overconfident CEO who thinks they're untouchable."
Amelia smiled faintly, despite the situation. "And you're just another thug who thinks he's smarter than he is."
The man's hand curled into a fist, and he looked ready to strike her, but then the distant sound of a train whistle cut through the air, growing louder with every passing second.
The goons turned to look down the track, then back at Amelia, whose heart pounded in her chest so loudly, the sound seemed to muffle everything else in the surroundings.
The train was coming, and fast.
The leader of the group turned back to Amelia with a furious expression. "Last chance," he growled. "Sign the damn paper, or I'll leave you here to die."
Amelia took a deep breath, keeping her voice steady even as her pulse raced. "No."
The man's eyes flashed with anger. "Then you're going to die here."
He stood up and turned to his men. "We're done here. Let's go."
The group began to move away, leaving Amelia on the tracks. The sound of the train was growing louder, the vibrations starting to rattle the ground beneath her.
She struggled against the ropes as her mind raced but it was no use. The knots were too tight, and there was no way she could free herself in time.
'This can't be it,' she thought desperately. 'This can't be how it ends.'
Just as the train's horn blared loudly, signaling its approach, a figure darted out of the trees at the edge of the clearing.
Moving with lightning speed, the figure charged toward the group of men, catching them off guard. The goons barely had time to react before the intruder was upon them, striking with a combination of fluid martial arts moves and accurately aimed gunfire.
Amelia watched in disbelief as the man took down the goons one by one, moving like a dark phantom.
Her heart skipped a beat as she recognized the figure the moment he turned his face to her...
It was Ethan... the clumsy, bumbling employee she had barely tolerated at her company.
But there was nothing clumsy about him now. He moved like a trained fighter, disarming and disabling the goons with an unnatural precision that left Amelia speechless.
One of the men managed to get off a shot, but Ethan dodged it effortlessly, closing the distance between them and knocking the gun from the man's hand with a single blow.
He proceeded to bury a dagger that seemed to have appeared out of thin air, into the left eye of the goon.
"Giiarrrhhhh!"
As the last of the goons fell to the ground, Ethan turned his attention to Amelia. The train was dangerously close now, making the rumbling of the tracks vibrate through her body. He sprinted over to her with his tattooed hand glowing with a strange light.
Ethan dropped to his knees beside her with a focused expression. "Hold on, I'm getting you out of here," he voiced calmy, despite the chaos around them.
Amelia stared at him as her mind struggled to reconcile the image of the clumsy employee with the man who had just taken down a group of armed goons single-handedly. "Ethan...?"
But there was no time for explanations. Ethan placed his glowing tattoo hand on the ropes binding her wrists, and to her astonishment, they fell apart as if they had been sliced clean through. He quickly did the same with the ropes around her ankles, then pulled her up into a sitting position.
The train was nearly upon them, blaring a final warning with its horn that nearly ruptured their eardrums.
Ethan scooped Amelia up into his arms, and with a burst of speed that defied belief, he dashed off the tracks, carrying her to safety just as the train thundered past with a deafening roar.
His chest heaved with exertion as he set her down gently, but before Amelia could even catch her breath, she heard a faint clicking sound.
One of the goons, thought to be down for good, had managed to lift his gun and fire a single shot.
Bang!
Time seemed to slow down as Amelia saw the bullet hurtling toward them. Ethan reacted instantly, spinning around to shield her with his body.
The bullet pierced the same tattooed hand that had been glowing with that strange light, and continued on its path, striking Amelia in the shoulder.
The impact knocked her back causing pain to blossom through her body.
The glow of Ethan's tattoo faded as dark ink seemed to seep from the wound and spread into her bloodstream where the bullet had struck.
Ethan collapsed to his knees, clutching his hand as his face contorted with pain. "No... no, no, no," he muttered while looking down at his hand, which was now bleeding profusely with a hole at the center of where the tattoo was situated.
Amelia felt a strange, cold sensation spreading through her arm, but the pain in her shoulder was overwhelming, making it hard to focus.
She looked up at Ethan as her vision started to blur. "Ethan... what's happening...?"
He tried to respond, but the words wouldn't come.
Instead, he looked at her with guilt, as if he had failed her in some unimaginable way.
The last thing Amelia saw before darkness claimed her was the desperate look in his eyes and the strange, inky tendrils creeping up her arm from the wound.