The snowstorm howled like a beast over the outskirts of Blackridge City coating the streets in a blanket of white.
That night, someone left a child at the door of Hollowmist Orphanage, wrapped in a hospital blanket, her skin already blue from the cold.
No name. No ID. Only a jagged crescent-shaped scar on her left shoulder.
She should have died that night.
But she didn't. Max Davison grew up with nothing. No family. No love. Just cold food and colder beds.
She was sharp, quiet, and faster than any adult could track. At age ten, she'd broken into the orphanage's security room just to test the cameras. Not for escape but just to learn. Madam Velra, the orphanage director, didn't punish her.
She sent a message.
Three days later, a black SUV with no plates arrived in the snow.
Inside were agents from the Obsidian Organization a covert intelligence unit said to operate above every known government. They recruited from shadows. Trained from birth. Used orphans to make ghosts.
Max didn't ask questions.
By twelve, she was running surveillance drills in the hills outside Velcira.
By fourteen, she was fluent in six languages and able to vanish from any satellite feed.
By seventeen, she had earned her codename:
The Huntrix.
A myth. A living weapon. Feared by nations.