My family always decided I was the “quiet one.” The sister with the boring Army logistics job, counting inventory in some warehouse. They never knew that while they pictured me sorting socks, I was overseas navigating dusty backroads, gathering intelligence, and supporting missions no one at home would ever hear about.
I let them believe the simple version. It kept my mother calm. It kept the questions away. And honestly? It was easier to be underestimated than to break her heart.
But that illusion shattered the moment my older brother, Jackson—loud, insecure, and endlessly performing toughness—invited me to the shooting range over Thanksgiving weekend. He presented it like a favor.
“I’ll teach you not to shoot your foot off,” he joked, surrounded by friends who nodded like he was starring in his own action movie.
He had no idea the sister he dismissed as fragile had spent years training with the best marksmen in the world.
I didn’t correct him. I simply said I’d go.
The night before, after a classified briefing, I returned to my quiet apartment and stared at the locked safe in my closet. Inside was my gear. My real life. My real identity. I thought about Jackson lecturing me during dinner about “real strength” while struggling to carry groceries up the driveway. And something in me hardened—not out of cruelty, but out of exhaustion.
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