SHADOW QUEEN: THE RISE OF JENNA BROOKS.Chapter 9: The Betrayal Within
610 Words
The message came encoded in an old dead drop code Bones had once used in the pits—a string of coordinates, the word "Help," and a blood-smeared chess piece: a knight.
Jenna’s chest tightened. Only Bones would send that. And only if he were truly desperate.
She mobilized within the hour. No team. Just her, a silenced pistol, and a ghost’s fury. The coordinates led to an abandoned foundry at the edge of New Avalon’s industrial sector—a place the city had forgotten. Perfect for a quiet execution.
She moved through the rusted corridors like a whisper, senses sharp. Then she heard it—groaning.
Bones was strung up under a hanging spotlight, bloodied, his face a mosaic of bruises and defiance. His one good eye locked onto hers.
“Jenna,” he rasped. “No. It’s a—”
Click.
Lights exploded to life.
Doors slammed shut.
Gun barrels emerged from the shadows.
It was a trap.
And at the center of it all, leaning against a rusted pillar like a man who owned the world, stood Zane.
Her second-in-command. The one who had stood beside her when no one else would. The one she had saved from a death sentence in the alley wars.
“Hello, Queen,” he said, smirking. “Didn’t expect me, did you?”
Jenna’s gun was already raised, but the men around him were faster. They didn’t fire. They didn’t need to. She was boxed in.
“Why?” she asked, voice low.
“Because you forgot the rule of the game,” Zane said. “Everyone wants the crown. Vargo offered me a seat at the table. Real power. Not your noble little crusade.”
“You sold out the one person who taught you to stand.”
“I evolved,” he sneered. “You? You’re still pretending this war has honor.”
Jenna’s eyes flicked to Bones. He was alive—but barely.
Zane stepped closer, circling her like a vulture. “You built an empire on fear and loyalty. But loyalty doesn’t last, and fear... wears thin.”
“I should’ve gutted you when I saw the cracks,” she growled.
“Yeah,” Zane said, pulling out a knife and admiring the blade. “But you didn’t. Because you trusted me. That’s your weakness, Jenna. You still think people are worth saving.”
He lunged—
But she was faster.
Jenna dropped, rolled, and fired once—hitting the overhead light. Darkness crashed down like a curtain. Screams. Confusion.
When the emergency lights flickered back, she was gone.
And so was Bones.
Later, deep in one of her fallback tunnels, Jenna stitched his wounds with shaking hands.
“I should’ve seen it,” she muttered. “I let him in too close.”
Bones, even half-conscious, managed a broken grin. “That’s what makes you different. And dangerous.”
Jenna stared at her blood-soaked gloves. Zane had betrayed her. Vargo had declared open war. The city now hunted her like a beast.
Good.
Let them all come.
She wasn’t just fighting for revenge anymore.
She was fighting to cleanse the rot.
And the betrayal within would be the first fire she lit.
- Writer
