The second man twitches, hand dipping into his coat. Cassian’s arm shoots out before I can breathe, his fingers locking around the man’s wrist. A twist, a crack, and the weapon clatters to the snow. The man yelps, stumbling back as Cassian shoves him away like he weighs nothing.
The third one lunges, but Cassian meets him halfway. No frenzy, no roar, just precision. A shove to the chest that knocks the air from him, a sweep of his leg that puts him face-first in thesnow, and then Cassian’s boot presses lightly but firmly against the man’s back.
The leader’s bravado shatters. He pulls a knife, holds it out with both hands trembling. “Stay back. We’ll go, just—stay back.”
Cassian doesn’t blink. His hand shoots forward, plucking the knife from trembling fingers like taking a toy from a child. He breaks the blade in two with a single motion and lets the shards fall at the man’s feet.
“Go,” Cassian says, voice low, final. “Before I change my mind.”
The men scatter, dragging their wounded companion, slipping on ice in their rush to escape. Their voices fade into the white, swallowed by the horizon.
The camp goes still. My dogs whine softly, their tails tucked, but their eyes stay fixed on him as if they already know he is the only thing keeping this place standing.
I can’t breathe for a moment, chest tight as I stare at him. He isn’t panting. He isn’t even winded. He fought with no waste, no wildness, no snapping frenzy. Every move was exact, as if he’s done it a hundred times, as if it’s carved into his bones.
I whisper, half to myself. “You’re not a monster. You’re… you’re a man carrying something you can’t set down.”
His eyes cut to me, sharp and unreadable. He doesn’t answer. He just turns away, shoulders rigid, as if walking is the only thing keeping him from breaking apart.
I want to run after him, to grab his arm, to demand he explain, but the words stick in my throat. Because I finally understand—he isn’t dangerous because he’s out of control. He’s dangerous because he has never once lost it, because every snarl, every growl, every strike is held on a leash only he can feel.
And I know, as I watch him disappear into the white, that the footage I thought was proof is nothing compared to what I’ve just seen with my own eyes.
9
CASSIAN
The wind's calmer today, but it doesn’t fool me. The cold’s just learned how to whisper instead of scream. I feel it in my bones, in the scar beneath my shoulder where the claw marks never healed right. The silence carries weight, and not the kind that soothes. It drapes heavy on my shoulders like chains I thought I’d thrown off when I buried the past under snow and time.
I crouch beside the antenna rigged behind her tent. Wires snake into the ground like veins, pulsing with borrowed life, stitched together with clean corporate plastic and arrogance. I stare at the blinking uplink light, red and steady, a heartbeat that doesn’t belong here. Doesn’t belong with her.
She doesn’t know I followed her last night when she thought she was alone. I watched her fumble with the software, whispering curses too soft to carry, but I heard every word. The sync was automatic. Every moment, every frame of what she caught out on the floes was already long gone—uploaded and delivered to people who don’t blink when the word "monster" shows up in a subject line.
I reach for the central control box. The plastic casing cracks easy under my grip. The internal board’s slick with frost, humming faint, taunting me with every second it stays alive. I grab it hard, dig my fingers in, and rip the whole thing free from its base.
The wires scream as they snap. Sparks jump, flashing red and blue like blood on fresh snow. I don’t stop. I drive my boot down into the housing, metal buckling beneath the blow, and stomp again until nothing hums, nothing pulses. Until it’s silent, like it should’ve been from the start.
But silence doesn’t mean safe anymore.
"You didn’t have to do that!" Her voice rings out behind me, sharp and raw like she’s been running.
I don’t turn at first. I wipe my hand across the thigh of my coat, breathing steady, the way I do when I’m trying not to let the bear rise.
She storms up beside me, cheeks flushed with cold and fury, curls wild under her hood. Her boots crunch too close, her breath coming fast. "You think smashing it fixes this? That’s my only connection to the outside world, my only backup in case something goes wrong, and you just?—"
"It was already gone," I say, cutting her off without raising my voice. "Your footage. The link was live. They have it. All of it."
She stares at me, mouth open like the words won’t form right. Her gloved hands clench. "Gordon didn’t say anything about that program. He told me it was an update, just firmware, just performance tweaks?—"
"You think they wait for permission before they gut the truth out of you?" I ask, finally turning to face her. My voice is low but steady, roughened by the truth I never wanted to speak. "They buried it in the patch. Something sleek, something hidden. It mirrored your files before you even saw them yourself."
She takes a step back like the wind hit her. Her eyes go wide, jaw tightening. "So they already know," she whispers. "Those men... the ones with the guns. The ones who tried to take my gear."
"They’re not after your drone," I say. "Not really. They’re after me. Or what I am. Or worse... what I prove."
She stares like she’s seeing me for the first time. Not the man who pulled her from snow or stood between her and strangers with knives. But something else. Something she’s only caught in flickers and fractured footage.
"And what’s that?" she breathes. "What do you prove?"
