Scorpion

Three days is all it took for everyone I love to die.

The fall from grace hurt.

I was one of the few specialist snipers in the military who is a woman. I made a name for myself. Set records.

But death has a way of changing everyone.

The descent from Special Forces, to dirty fighting pits, to becoming a bodyguard for the man whose heart I broke, I never thought I’d stop drowning.

One night is all it took for everything to change.

One shot is all I need.

My name is Zalak Bhatia. They call me Scorpion.

Playlist

‘Riptide’ – Vance Joy

‘Always Forever’ – Cults

‘Death by Rock and Roll’ – The Pretty Reckless

‘Snap Out Of It’ – Arctic Monkeys

‘Strange’ – Celeste

‘Breezeblocks’ – alt-J

‘I Can’t Quit You Baby’ – Led Zeppelin

‘Small Death and the Codeine Scene’ – Hozier

‘When the Hurt Is Over’ – Mighty Sam McClain

‘The Night We Met’ – Lord Huron

‘New Person, Same Old Mistakes’ – Tame Impala

‘R U Mine’ – Arctic Monkeys

‘dance of the trees’ – Mikayla Geier

‘Abbey’ – Mitski

‘Heal’ – Tom Odell

‘Where’s My Love – Acoustic’ – SYML

‘One More Hour’ – Tame Impala

‘Exit Music (For A Film)’ – Radiohead

‘But You’ – Alexandra Savior

Author’s Note

I failed physics in high school, scraped a pass in math, and did phenomenally in research. This book is a product of that *hit it.*

The sniper-related information in this book was taken from military propaganda, inconsistent government information, Mission Impossible, a guy I know, and a bunch of dudes on Reddit who are playing devil’s advocate.

Feel free to cite the facts from this book at parties. The only people who will be able to prove you wrong would be breaching national security.

Or they simply spend too long on the dark web.

In other important news, this novel sits within an interconnected series centralizing around what you’ll soon learn as the Reckoning. This means that you may see characters and scenes within this book that appear in other novellas throughout this series.

If you want to read a book with complex characters, intense world-building, and a heavy plotline, this book is not for you. To put this novella-not-a-novella into context, it’s roughly half the size of one of my full-length novels. Scorpion is too long to be considered a novella, but it’s also just scrapping into the novel territory.

For pronunciation, Mathijs is Dutch, so his name is pronounced like “Ma-tays,” like Mathias but with an “ae” sound at the end. Zalak is an Indian name, and her name is pronounced like “Zuh-luck.”

PS. If you are not the person whom I share a house, a bed, and several animals with, you don’t need to read this:

To my partner, I almost killed off the character I made of you. I am pleased to inform you that you have survived another book.

Do not mistake this as an invitation to try me. I will edit this book to change that. You’ll do well not to question my levels of spite.

Triggers

Sex, questionable use of a gun (yes, there’s a pewpew scene), knife play (nonpenetrative), very bad gun safety practices, alcohol use, death of friends and family and many other people, trauma, PTSD, profanity, mental health issues, attempted suicide (on-screen), self-harm, use of sharp objects, parental abuse, financial abuse and manipulation, graphic violence, childhood trauma, blood, gore, and murder.