Say Her Name

I woke up to cold concrete and the smell of rusted metal, the distant rumble of a subway train gone forever.

A pile of limp women, five ghosts.

I was unable to move, my brain a swirl of darkness and misery.

A syringe, the slip of a man’s cruel smile, the world tilting as I fell.

Now, we were here.

Jade was the first to open her eyes, a glare sharp as broken glass. The cracks in her lips stretched into a crooked smile as she pulled her sleeves back, revealing the strange tattoos beneath her scars. Symbols I’d never seen, glowing faintly, like they’d been burned beneath her skin by fire or rage.

I lifted my shirt and gasped, the vicious art slithering across my flesh.

“We don’t die,” she said, her voice low and dangerous.

I was processing Jade’s words when another stirred beside me. Marcy, who’d been called “too loud” by the system that silenced us, spat blood and cackled. The howl blasted through the silence like a gunshot.

“Never ignore the hush of still air. Silence is not victory,” she whispered.

“What?” I croaked, my throat dry and raw.

“Sleeping in false peace leads to waking in true peril.”

The twins sat up almost in sync, a 3D horror movie in perfect silence. Looking at each other, they nodded in agreement as they laced their fingers together and looked to the group.

I briefly felt a shred of sympathy for the person who would open their eyes to them hovering above their bed, but it quickly vaporized.

Here we sat in a strange void, stitched together by pain and betrayal. The men who tried to erase us called it overdose, suicide, or simply an accident — neat labels that hid their hands.

To underestimate a woman is to misunderstand strength itself.

I looked around the station, graffitied walls bleeding color under flickering lights, posters peeling like dead skin.

This was our battlefield.

Jade stood, flexing her fingers like claws.

“Someone wants us angry.”

Marcy grinned, the scar on her cheek twitching. “Let’s make them proud.”

I clenched my fists and thought about the man who ruined me. The one who used his power to silence my voice in every room, every story, every door I tried to open. He laughed at me, called me “hysterical” and “unstable, “ building the perfect mask to bury the truth.

The look on his face would be priceless.

We moved through the underground tunnels, a pack reborn in fire and fury. The city above roared and pulsed with neon and noise, the indifferent buzz of a million lives.

Here, it was quiet, and we were alive.

Jade pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her jacket — a list of names, faces, addresses.

The ones who thought we’d stay down.

“Routine is weakness, and they all have one.”

Marcy cracked her knuckles and moved like a recently uncaged animal.

We’d split up, shadows slipping through the cracks of the city, each with a target in sight.

A lawyer who laughed while shutting down every harassment claim, a man who thought power made him untouchable.

The politician who’d used his position to silence whistleblowers, the one who’d crushed every woman who tried to expose him.

Two dealers who’d poisoned young girls intentionally, turning them into ghosts while they watched, laughed, and posted for others to enjoy.

It wasn’t about death, yet.

The idea was first to take back what they stole — dignity, control, voice.

Then fill that cavernous hole with absolute terror.

Five broken women, forged into something fierce.

The maze of tattoos under our skin hummed with power — a promise etched in torment and rage.

Vengeance was only the beginning, the roots of our anger invading the foundation of their lives.

Look me in the eye and stutter as you scramble to remember my name, I dare you.