The room went dead silent. My dad didn’t look like a mechanic today. He looked like a man who toppled governments before breakfast. He placed the broken piece of my leg on Tyler’s desk.

“You told my daughter to call a mechanic,” my dad said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “So she called the man who designed the guidance systems for the missiles protecting this country.

” Tyler was shaking. “My… my dad is a lawyer. He’ll sue you.” My dad smiled. It was a cold, wolf-like smile. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a file marked TOP SECRET.

“Your dad can try,” he whispered. “But when he sees what I found in your family’s financial records this morning, he won’t be calling a lawyer.” He tossed a photo onto Tyler’s desk. “He’ll be calling the FBI. Because this picture proves that your father isn’t an accountant…”

…because this picture proves that your father isn’t an accountant,” he says, pausing just long enough for the silence to sharpen into a blade, “he’s been laundering money for a foreign defense contractor flagged for international arms trafficking.”

A collective gasp erupts across the classroom. Tyler’s face turns chalk white. His lips tremble, and when he opens his mouth, no sound comes out. He stares at the photo: his dad, shaking hands with a man in a beret and mirrored sunglasses in front of an unmarked warehouse.

“You think I’m bluffing?” my dad asks, reaching into his inner jacket pocket again.

Tyler flinches.

My dad pulls out a USB drive and sets it gently beside the photo. “Every transaction. Every encrypted email. Every offshore account. All copied and neatly labeled. The real FBI is getting this. Unless, of course, you want to call your lawyer first.”

No one moves. No one breathes. Even the Principal looks like he’s about to throw up.

My dad turns, calmly walks to the front of the class, and looks at me. “Your ride’s waiting outside. Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go fix your leg.”

I grab my backpack. I don’t look at Tyler, or the others frozen in their seats. As I step past him, he recoils, as if my presence alone burns.

At the door, I pause. “You shouldn’t have laughed,” I say quietly.

And then I leave.

Outside, the world is chaos. Helicopter blades thunder overhead. The SUVs’ engines purr low, men still patrolling the perimeter like we’re evacuating a dignitary. I duck into the backseat of the second vehicle, the door closing behind me with a heavy, insulated thunk. My dad slides in beside me, already typing furiously on a tablet.

“How bad is the damage?” he asks, not looking up.

“Clean break through the mid-shaft. They cracked the actuator, too.”

“Idiots,” he mutters. “That joint was titanium composite. Do you know how hard you have to stomp to snap that?”

“I do now,” I say, with a dry chuckle.

He finally looks up. “You okay?”

I nod. “I will be. Just promise me one thing.”

“Name it.”

“Next time they try something like this…” I take a breath. “Don’t just scare them. Humiliate them. Publicly.”

He smiles faintly. “You’re more like your mother every day.”

That makes me smile too.

The ride to the facility isn’t long. It looks like an old warehouse from the outside, camouflaged among empty lots and rusted water towers. But beneath the surface, it’s a different world. Sterile white corridors. AI-controlled doors. Labs with equipment ten years ahead of what any university could dream of. This is where my dad works. This is where I was made.

Well, where my second life began.

Inside, technicians are already waiting. I hop onto the examination platform, and they begin the scans. As the leg is detached, I wince. Not from pain—there isn’t much of that anymore—but from the sight of the ruined engineering. Dad’s face tightens when he sees it.

“They knew what they were doing,” he growls. “They went for the actuator. That wasn’t luck.”

“You think someone told them?”

“I think someone’s been watching too closely.”

I tilt my head. “You mean like…inside the town?”

He nods. “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, we upgrade. You’re not just getting a replacement—you’re getting the Mark IV.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “You said that wasn’t ready.”

“It wasn’t. But now I have motivation.”

We share a grin, and for the first time since I hit the ground yesterday, I feel lighter.

Two hours later, I walk again. No—run. The Mark IV isn’t just a leg. It’s a symphony of motion, built with synthetic muscle fibers, powered by neural synchronization, and armored with a flexible nanocarbon mesh. It responds before I even think.

I walk back into the testing chamber, where Dad’s waiting, arms crossed. “How’s it feel?”

“Like I could run a marathon,” I say, bouncing on the balls of my feet.

“Good. You might need to.”

My smile fades. “What do you mean?”

He gestures toward a screen behind him. On it: a grainy security video. Tyler. Sneaking out of the principal’s office. Carrying something under his jacket.

“Hard copy,” Dad says. “He took a printout of the financial doc before I walked in.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But someone told him exactly what to look for. This wasn’t just bullying anymore.”

My stomach twists.

“I’m pulling you out of school,” he says, tone hard now. “It’s not safe.”

“No,” I snap. “That’s what they want.”

He opens his mouth to argue, but I cut him off. “If they’re watching, we watch back. Let me go to school. Let me find out who gave him that information. I’ll wear a tracker. Use the new rig to record everything. You built me to adapt, right?”

His eyes search mine, and after a long pause, he nods.

“Okay. But the moment something feels off, you call extraction.”

“Deal.”

The next morning, I walk into school like nothing happened. No helicopter. No convoy. Just me, in jeans and a hoodie, the new leg humming silently beneath me.

Whispers trail me down the hallway. People part like I’m radioactive. Tyler’s not at school—rumor has it his family left town last night. But that’s not who I’m here for.

I’m here for the person who told him.

And I have a plan.

At lunch, I sit at the far table by the vending machines. My usual spot. The same spot where, last week, I was tripped and laughed at. Today, no one dares. But one person watches too closely.

Maddie.

She used to be my lab partner in sophomore year, back when she still wore glasses and smiled like it meant something. Then she started dating Tyler, and everything changed. Now, she’s staring, her fingers tight around a can of soda she hasn’t sipped.

I wait. And like clockwork, she comes over.

“Hey,” she says, voice soft. “Can we talk?”

“Sure,” I say, gesturing to the seat across from me.

She sits, too quickly, like she’s afraid of her own decision. “I didn’t know he was going to do that,” she blurts. “I swear.”

“But you knew about my leg. About what it was.”

She looks down. “He asked about the materials. I just… I thought he was curious. I didn’t know he was going to—God, I’m sorry.”

“You told him about the actuator, Maddie. That’s not casual knowledge.”

She flinches. “He said he wanted to understand. That he felt bad for teasing you. I was stupid.”

“You were.”

She looks like she might cry, but I don’t stop.

“Who else knew?”

She hesitates. “There was a guy. Older. He met with Tyler’s dad once. Real cold. I only saw him once—outside the diner on Main.”

That’s enough.

That night, I tell Dad everything. He runs facial recognition on every diner camera within twenty miles. We find him.

Not just anyone. A recruiter. Black-market tech trader flagged by Interpol. Goes by the name Kolvar.

“He wanted the actuator,” Dad says. “But not for Tyler. For himself.”

“He used them to test its limits,” I say quietly. “To see how much damage it takes to break it.”

Dad’s already moving. “We’re not waiting. We finish this tonight.”

Three hours later, we find Kolvar’s van parked behind the diner. Inside, crates of stolen tech. Schematics. Pictures of me. Diagrams of my leg.

He’s not there.

But his laptop is.

And he’s online.

Dad connects. Traces the signal. He’s in town. At the school.

We don’t wait for backup.

We arrive just after midnight. The school is dark, silent. But the gym lights are on. We move fast, quiet. My leg makes no noise as we slip through the back.

Inside the gym, Kolvar is at center court, kneeling over a case of tools. Trying to replicate my actuator.

He turns just in time to see me.

“You,” he sneers. “The girl with the golden limb.”

“And you,” I reply, stepping forward, “the man who thought teenagers were his test dummies.”

He pulls a weapon. Some kind of modified taser. But before he can aim, I leap.

The new leg sings.

I hit him like a freight train, knock the weapon from his hand. He scrambles back, but I’m faster. Stronger. I pin him in seconds.

Dad enters behind me, gun drawn.

“Game over, Kolvar.”

We hand him over to the authorities. The FBI arrives before dawn.

The next morning, I sit on my porch, sipping tea. The town is quiet again.

And I know this isn’t over. People will always fear what they don’t understand. But I’m not just a girl with a prosthetic anymore.

I’m a warning.

And I will never be broken again.