Shes Special

The bell above the diner door jingled as Annie walked in, her presence unnoticed at first by the tired waitress behind the counter and the trucker nursing a late-night coffee in the corner booth. She looked ordinary-jeans, a faded hoodie, and sneakers that had seen better days. But there was something about her, something in the way she carried herself, that made you look twice. She slid into a booth near the window, her fingers brushing a stray lock of dark hair behind her ear. The rain outside streaked the glass, blurring the neon glow of the diner's sign. To anyone watching, she was just another face passing through a town too small to matter. Except, she wasn't. Annie wasn't here by chance. She had chosen this place, this moment, with a precision that had been drilled into her since the day she discovered what she was capable of. A mind like hers didn't just wander. It calculated, strategized, and planned. When the waitress approached, Annie glanced up, her eyes-soft, brown, unassuming-briefly scanning the nametag pinned to the woman's uniform. Janet. Annie smiled, the kind of smile that disarmed people, made them think you were just being polite. "Coffee, please," she said, her voice steady but warm. Janet nodded, oblivious to the way Annie's gaze lingered, taking in the subtle bulge of a concealed weapon beneath the waitress's apron. Not the standard-issue sidearm of a cop, but something far more discreet. As Janet walked away, Annie shifted her focus to the trucker in the corner, his fingers tapping out a pattern on the table's edge. Morse code. He was signaling someone. Annie reached into her pocket, her fingers brushing the cool metal of the key she had fought so hard to retrieve. Every move she made was being watched, every step she took shadowed by people who wanted her gone. But Annie wasn't about to run. Not yet. She wasn't special because of what she could do-though that was dangerous enough. She was special because of what she knew. And tonight, in this sleepy little diner, someone was about to learn just how dangerous that knowledge could be.