The best protection any woman can have… is courage.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

JENNIE

I wake up to a flash of light. It's quick and over by the time I open my eyes, but it was bright enough to wake me from my slumber.

"Lisa?" I ask, groggily. "What was that?"

"The panic alarm," she replies calmly from across the room. "It's a bright light that shines once, followed by three quick and successive rings at a high enough frequency to wake us from a deep sleep."

I shoot up in alarm. When I glance at her, she's already fully dressed and putting two magnets attached to a keychain on random parts of the full body mirror beside the door. It pops open, and inside of it is a safe built into the wall. There are weapons, ranging from an assault rifle to a samurai sword, in the safe.

"Put some clothes on. Something that shows as little skin as possible," she says. Her voice is still relaxed, as if she didn't just tell me the panic alarm was sounded and isn't currently loading her body with enough weapons to fight a small army.

I force myself to calm down, trying to exhibit the same cool Lisa is. If she isn't worried, I shouldn't be either. By the time I'm dressed in black socks, black leggings and a black turtleneck, my hands are no longer trembling. I notice that Lisa is dressed similarly and take the time to appreciate Lisa's command. Covered like this, we'll both be fully protected from bullets everywhere but our heads.

I follow Lisa into the armory, both of us moving silently across the hardwood floor. It's so silent in the halls, I almost don't believe there's a credible threat. When we reach the armory, Lisa loads up on some more ammo, placing it on some strap that winds across her chest.

She turns to me and says, "If I don't return in 15 minutes, call the police and ask for a Detective Jameson. He's with me."

And then she presses her lips to mine and leaves before I can say, "What?"

A few seconds after she's gone, the armory doors begin to shut and flat screens descend from the ceiling. I realize that Lisa initiated the panic room protocol. When the screens are fully lowered, I focus on studying the images on them, ignoring the pit in my gut that forms at the thought of Lisa in danger.

I immediately recognize Lisa's security team. There are about thirteen of them outside the penthouse doors. Two of them are by the elevators, two are stationed in front of the stairs, and the rest of them are looking at some device attached to the door that separates the hallway from the penthouse. When I zoom in on the device, I realize that it has a bunch of wires on it and freeze.

Is that a bomb?!

The idea is so ludicrous, so absurd that frantic laughter bubbles in my throat. I turn away from that screen, because I can't focus on that without freaking out. All of the rooms are empty, except the open area downstairs, where the living room, dining room and kitchen converge in one large open space.

There are some men sprawled across the floor. I don't recognize any of them, so I know they're the attackers. The three guards that normally stay in the security room are joined by Lisa's night guard and mine. Even with the five of them alive and several of the enemies down, our guards are still outnumbered three to one.

It worries me that I don't see Lisa anywhere, but I can't focus on that or I'll lose my cool. A glance at the clock tells me less than a minute has passed since Lisa left, though it feels like an hour. I'll give her her 15 minutes before I call the cops but not a second more.

I observe from the safety of the panic room as my night guard fires two shots, the sound silent thanks to the silencer attached to the barrel of his gun. One hits an attacker in the neck, and the other hits one in between the eyes with unnerving accuracy. Two down, thirteen to go. My heart stops as one of the guards is hit in the chest with a bullet. He falls down and doesn't get back up. There are only four guards left, and I still have thirteen minutes and fifty-two seconds before I can call the cops.

The countdown reads thirteen minutes and eighteen seconds by the time I see Lisa slithering her way down the stairwell. There are nine attackers left and only one of Lisa's guards standing. The rest have fallen on the floor, their bodies lifelessly still. My heart mourns for the loss of these men, but I force myself to push these feelings aside until the threat is eliminated.

Lisa stills at the last step, her body hidden behind the bend of the stairwell. While she stays there, the last guard is shot in the heart.

It's only Lisa and the nine men now.

I watch as the men separate into three groups of three. One group clears the left hall and the other clears the right hall. I still, my hand hovering over the panic room's sat phone, when the last group silently approaches the stairwell, where Lisa is hiding.

But in one quick moment, Lisa has thrown knives into two of them and has the last one in a head lock. When the guy passes out, Lisa binds her wrists with a zip tie. Everything was done so quickly, so efficiently, that the only sound emitted was a soft thump from the knifed bodies hitting the floor.

I watch as Lisa enters the left hall, where one of the groups of three is still checking the rooms. She attaches a silencer onto a handgun, then slides into the office and shoots two of the attackers in the back of the head before they even realize she's there.

The third one is just now entering the hall from the theater room he just cleared. He passes the open office door and freezes. He and Lisa make eye contact, and Lisa springs into action, snapping the guy's neck before he can even lift the gun in his shocked hands.

There are only three attackers left and about ten minutes on my timer to spare. A few minutes ago, I would have thought it was an impossible task, but now I know better. Lisa was born for this. I can see that now, in the way she moves, calm and self-assured. Each step she takes has such purpose and beauty, it makes these deaths seem almost stunning.

That thought sickens me so much, I have trouble watching Lisa kill the other three with ease. I move to turn away from the screen, but when I see Lisa approaching the door to the outside hallway, I leap into action, running to the intercom and pressing a button.

"Don't!" I shout.

Lisa pauses on the screen as the sound of my voice echoes through the speakers, and I watch as her eyes lock onto the camera, a brow arched.

"There's a device on the other side. I think it's a bomb," I say. "Mino and some other guards are out there dealing with it."

She nods and gestures for me to stay in the room, so I do. I watch as she clears the rest of the house by herself. I'm calm as she does this, because I can see from the security cameras that there's no one alive but her, but I let her continue anyway. Better safe than sorry.

When she's done clearing the penthouse, she approaches the panic room. I press a button, and the door opens, the screens slide back into place, and the sat phone retreats back into the wall. As soon as Lisa sees me, she open her arms, and I move to hug her.

She leads me downstairs, and my brows furrow in confusion when she says, "The Walking Dead."

There's humor laced in her voice, which booms loudly into the room. I jump in fright when I see the five guards rising. My night guard even stretches his hands out in front of him and poorly mimics a zombie's walk. He isn't winning any Oscars anytime soon.

I breathe out, my voice just a whisper. "What the fuck?"

Lisa's night guard hears me and grins. "Bulletproof clothes."

Understanding dawns on me immediately. This is why the bulletproof clothes are only divulged on a need-to-know basis. For situations like this, where the guards are outnumbered and might get shot. They pretended to be dead, while Lisa remained hidden and waited for an opportunity to strike. The foresight necessary to have such a precaution in place is genius, and I find myself appreciating Lisa even more.

But I can't help the jab I throw her way. "The Walking Dead? You couldn't come up with something better?"

Lisa shrugs, a smirk gracing her lips. "I thought it was funny."

There's a groan on the floor. I watch as the zip tied attacker blinks his eyes a few times before shooting upright. He freezes when he sees me, Lisa and the five very much alive guards. Then, he turns around and runs towards the door, his hands still bound behind his back.

I remember the bomb on the door and stick my leg out, tripping him. It's an elementary school move, but it works. He face plants onto the hardwood and slides a little across the floor before one of the guards steps on his back, stopping his movement.

"Nice," says Lisa, a grin on her lips.

I roll my eyes, but I'm smiling, too, because this is weird. I just tripped a guy sent to kill us.

After the guards cut off the guy's zip tie and cuff each of his hands to separate arms on one of the dining room chairs, Lisa says to him, "I'm going to ask you a series of questions, and you're going to answer them."

The guy nods warily.

"You're not mafia," she says, though I have no idea how she knows this, but I trust that she's right. "So, you have no loyalties. No reason to lie. Keep that in mind."

The guy nods again but remains silent.

Lisa flips the butterfly knife she's holding into the air and catches it. "Who hired you?"

The guy doesn't even hesitate when he says, "No names, but he was about 5'10", middle age, and wearing a suit. Dark hair, dark eyes, and a round gut. Looked corporate."

Lisa pulls out her phone, types something in, and shows it to the guy. "Is this him?"

When the guy nods, I lean over to peak at the image. It's Jiyong's company picture.

Lisa continues her interrogation, "How did you get in here?"

"Some lady gave us a key and helped us get through the biometrics. The client also gave us a file with all of your security protocols." He eyes the guards' clothing. "Well, I guess not all of them."

Lisa nods, and then, in a movement too quick for me to track, slits the guy's throat. She turns to her night guard and says, "Stage it and erase the security footage from tonight. Make it look like they did it."

The guards nod at Lisa, and I watch in shock as the guy is untied and sprawled on the floor, so it looks like he was killed during the fight. He's still faintly alive on the floor, but he's losing so much blood. It's pooling around him in a crimson halo.

The sight is so gory, I lean over and throw up onto the floor. Half of it lands on one of the dead attackers, and I grimace before throwing up again. I run to the closest bathroom, and thankfully, Lisa doesn't follow.