Silence like that doesn’t happen in a building full of soldiers.
It happens when everyone is listening.
My instincts prickled.
Something was wrong.
Very slowly, carefully, I eased my arm from under Nora and slipped out of bed. She murmured at the loss of warmth but didn’t wake.
I pulled on my shirt and stepped to the window.
The street below was dark.
Still.
Empty.
But the hair on the back of my neck rose like static.
Movement.
Not seen—
felt.
I narrowed my eyes and scanned the shadows near the tavern entrance. Nothing visible. But the wrongness hung in the air like smoke after a gunshot.
Trigger’s voice buzzed softly through my comm:
“Wolf… you awake?”
I pressed the button. “Yeah.”
“You feel that too?” he whispered.
“Yeah,” I murmured.
Saint chimed in, voice low and crisp: “Motion alert tripped on the southwest corner camera. Something moved and then vanished.”
“Human or animal?” Havoc asked.
Saint hesitated. “Humanoid height. Too slow for a stray dog. Too smooth for drunk tourist.”
Trigger whispered, calmer now in Ranger mode: “Wolf, you want eyes outside?”
I leaned closer to the window.
There—
for a split second—
a flicker of shape near the alley’s edge.
Tall.
Still.
Watching upward.
